Simviation Forums

I use both FS2004 and FSX.  When I did a clean install of Vista Ultimate, FS 2004 was unusable.  I found a googlefix that made everything work.  It involved changing the desktop theme from Vista Aero to Windows standard.  For a lark, I did the same change for FSX.  The difference was surprising.  My framerate increased by 4-5 fps and I was able to increase all of my graphics settings.  

I am sure vista is the same as Xp or ME or 98

Turn off the visual junk and recover the memory and CPU for the game. You can do the same thing in XP by following NickN's list

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Control Panel

SYSTEM - ADVANCED TAB

Performance Section - SETTINGS button