Same settings, crappier FPS

[pooty13901]

Hi All,

I'm posting this in three different forums. i hope that's legal. I don't know where to best find the answer:

What is going on when I fire up the computer, have settings at a particular point, run the FS and get FPS of about 28, and then fire it up the next time and have the settings the same and the FPS jump all over from 28 down to 3, to 25-29 to 4 creating very jumpy gameplay?
Please keep in mind that I am doing a Ctrl+Alt+Del and freeing up RAM space. Also the cloud settings are the same. On top of that, I can drop all my graphics settings to literally zero and still get crappy movements. This is a new 128Mb ATI 9800 Pro and the second time (out of three times so far) that I have used it I was flying out of Phoenix with clouds and lightning and settings up pretty high and I was smooth as hell. This morning I did the same exact flight, the clouds were nil, and the FPS sucked! *%$^^#*!!!!

Secondly, is it normal for the CPU usage indicator to jump around from say, 77% down to 43% when all programs are shut down?

[pooty13901]

I just wanted to add that the second time I played using the new card was in the same sitting as when I first used it. I only add it to show that I don't think this is a defrag problem or something like that. It doesn't make sense to me that if the FS runs crappy and then I do other stuff on the computer as a break, then come back and fire up the FS again and it runs smoothly.... >:( >:( >:(

[pooty13901]

Wow! Look at me!! I'm running my own thread here!!!

I just wanted to add....again....that my system is as follows:

768Ram
2.4Ghz
Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb
30Gb Hard Drive
17 Inch Monitor

And how much does the screen resolution under "Hardware" affect gameplay? Thanks everyone!

[Gixer]

lol I replied in the one in the top room.

[Politically Incorrect]

I think you'll find a answer to your problem by reading my reply in FS 2004 forum