ORIGINAL: mullenc525
Typically I get 50 FPS. After 1/2 hr of flying or so, this goes down to 20 FPS (to me it seems much less, it gets quite choppy, to the extent that 3D flight is scary) When it does this I switch planes and it goes back to 50 FPS for a while again. Other than the choppiness, everything else is fine (other than crashing).
I have the latest video driver. My BIOS is from december 2006. I have the latest audio driver for my on board audio.
Something is definitely wrong, because with the computer you have, you should see frame rates way higher than 50 Hz, and these shouldn't drop down to 20 FPS under any circumstances. Do you have antivirus programs running? Also, have you checked for spyware and adware on your PC recently? It seems that FS One is not getting full access to your system. What you are seeing on your system isn't adding up. We've seen the sim run consistently better on much lesser systems than yours.
Are you running a single display or multiple displays?
We'll try to help you get this fixed, but it's going to be hard, given that you have what appears to be a good, capable system, you are getting slower than expected speeds combined with an continual slowdown. It sounds like the intereaction between system memory and video memory is not being handled properly by your graphics card and driver. It seems like it keeps consuming more system memory each time your run again and again. It does not do that under normal circumstances.
So, let me know about my questions regarding antivirus, spyware, full system access, and displays, and we'll keep trying to get your issue addressed...