Hmmm when you say looking straight ahead.. at what altitude?
I am running a celery 266(no cache) @ 448, 128mb ram, v3 3000 AGP (not oclocked), and awe64
At 1024x768 Full view range, I get up to 60 fps depending on my altitude (60 is obviously at 20+k) In smoke I do get 5-15 fps depending on how much.
You may want to make sure your system is tweaked. Sites like tweak3d.net may be able to help you get a few more frames out of it.
AKSKurj