I just had a rather intriguing experience....
I just reinstalled FS2002 Pro to see if some of the nastier bugs that it suffered last time I had it installed were problems with Vista or my graphics card...
I found 1.) that the bugs were Vista, not the card, and 2.) that on my computer, FS2004 runs about THREE TIMES AS FAST!
I set the graphics settings, both in the card and in the sim, to exactly the same settings (or as nearly as I could - the clouds and water are different, and I did not feel like setting FS9 back in that way, so I kept the more resource intensive FS9 effects in those areas) and flew exactly the same flight - heading North from KHIF in the default Blue-and-Grey C172.
In FS2002, I got, on average, about 25 FPS.
In FS9, I got, on average, about 75 FPS.
Note, FS2002 is a simpler program with fewer features, animations, etc.
Note also that in FS2004 I had 3d clouds and high-detail water enabled - both resource-intensive features that FS2002 does not have - and in FS9, I was running FSGenesis mesh and another, more detailed mesh for the immediate KHIF area. Further, in FS9, I have about 200 aircraft, several scenery areas, and some addon modules to bog down the sim with - and I compared with a completely unmodded version of FS2002 Pro.
With these results in mind, I would like to stress very much to all Vista-using FS2002 users that they really should upgrade to FS9... your performance will improve instantly! It REALLY is worth the $20 it'll cost you these days to buy a copy of FS9...
I just reinstalled FS2002 Pro to see if some of the nastier bugs that it suffered last time I had it installed were problems with Vista or my graphics card...
I found 1.) that the bugs were Vista, not the card, and 2.) that on my computer, FS2004 runs about THREE TIMES AS FAST!
I set the graphics settings, both in the card and in the sim, to exactly the same settings (or as nearly as I could - the clouds and water are different, and I did not feel like setting FS9 back in that way, so I kept the more resource intensive FS9 effects in those areas) and flew exactly the same flight - heading North from KHIF in the default Blue-and-Grey C172.
In FS2002, I got, on average, about 25 FPS.
In FS9, I got, on average, about 75 FPS.
Note, FS2002 is a simpler program with fewer features, animations, etc.
Note also that in FS2004 I had 3d clouds and high-detail water enabled - both resource-intensive features that FS2002 does not have - and in FS9, I was running FSGenesis mesh and another, more detailed mesh for the immediate KHIF area. Further, in FS9, I have about 200 aircraft, several scenery areas, and some addon modules to bog down the sim with - and I compared with a completely unmodded version of FS2002 Pro.
With these results in mind, I would like to stress very much to all Vista-using FS2002 users that they really should upgrade to FS9... your performance will improve instantly! It REALLY is worth the $20 it'll cost you these days to buy a copy of FS9...