I'm running a 1 gig Athlon w/a voodoo 5500agp video card with the next to latest drivers. (newest drivers are for dx8 which I do not have installed) I'm running dx 7.0a and am experiencing frame rates that hold steady around 42 except in the smoke and clouds and then it drops to around 10-17 fps. My video card is running on both chips, I am using 32bit graphics in 1280x1024 resolution. I have 256 Meg of ram installed. The video card is set to "fastest performance".
Is there anything I can do to boost my frame rates both in clear skies and smoke and haze? It gets very frustrating following an enemy into the smoke or cloud only to have my fps go to hell and I lose the fight because of slow response in frame rates. My computer properties says that my system is configured for optimal performance but I think it lies. People I fly with who use systems not unlike mine are experiencing frame rates in the 70s and 80's although they have different video cards than I do. I'm not going out and buy another $200-$300 video card just to increase fps. If I have to, I'll live with what I have but it just seems that my system should perform a bit better than it does.
