One of my computers uses an ATI expert @work (8mb) card. It also uses the Rage Pro chipset. I have been unable to really improve fps performance. The main problem I have is that the card does some sort of strange prop graphics rendering. This makes it have poor fps looking forward, and also makes it very hard to shoot. On a SE440bx-2 MB with 64 MB ram, cel366; I usually get around 15 fps. Once you get close to a plane to shoot however, clipping begins and gunnery reduces to spray and pray. Without replacing the card, I'll I can say is try new drivers, Dx7a (this helps a little), more ram (doubt you'll notice a big difference), defraging your drive and manually setting your swap space, and lastly go into the system item under control panel. Click the performance tab, then file system, and select "Network Server" from the pull down menu, vs Desktop computer. Basically all of the above are only improving the performance of the rest of your system, but it might help a little. (Your system will be faster overall at least.)
I wish I had better news, but unless we can be given an option to disable prop graphics, this card performs poorly.
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS