My friend has an identical system, but gets much faster frame rates. Whats the deal here?
Assuming you aren’t trying to run FS2004 at the same time as Microsoft Word and PhotoShop, the explanation may lie in the programs that load at Windows startup. It doesn’t matter which version of Windows you are using, every time you install a new piece of software it has a horrible tendency to install about fifteen extra little applets it doesn’t tell you about, just to monitor this and that. Sometimes these give the game away by appearing in the system tray at bottom right, but most often they just load invisibly and steal processor time in the background. If enough of these are present, they can double the Windows load time and significantly cut into performance. The best site I know devoted to explaining what they are and how to get rid of them can be accessed here.
