Everything is running fine, but then,

[Boats]

major stuttering and the FPS counter is jumping (more like flashing) from 8 to 60 FPS. This is while on the tower, and it starts at the beginning of a saved game. That is, if a don't get this stutter at the beginning of starting a saved game then I'm fine. If it's present from the gate then it won't go away, any ideas?
Shutting down some processes helps, but I haven't had this problem until recently, it started off the east coast of Britian.
And as it regards shutting down processes, is there anyway to turn them off permantly, until I need them, at which time I can start them up again? It's a real pain to have to go into the utility everytime I want to run the game and go through the check list.
And oh yes, I'm using XP Media Center Edition (Dell).
As always, thanks.

[Placoderm]

You may want to try FSautostart. Although originally designed for Microsoft Flight Simulator users who needed more memory available or just wanted to shut down the same processes over and over every time they wanted to play FS...it works great for anyone who wishes to free up resources.

Basically, when you start it it scans for all running processes and then lists them for you so that you can decide what you can shut down. It also gives lots of info on each process so that you don't accidently shut down something critical, thus making your system unstable...a nice plus!

You can create profiles for your games, so that in the future shutting everything you want down is just a matter of one click...also very useful.

Do a search for FSautostart on the web, and you should find it easily.

[MH]

For closing processes try this:
http://iobit.com/gamebooster.html
For stuttering try turning off VSYNC also Alt TAB-ing out of game and then back may help.
I have this problem with VISTA sometimes.It seems as if Vista is sometimes confused about which process to prioritize.

[Boats]

Thanks gents, I'll try both.

[SabreHawk]

Do you have your computer on full time?
If so just do a system restart, this will clear a lot of junk out of RAM that even shutting down processes wont touch.
Some things just dont release resources even when shut down.

I know that when things get jumpy, stuttery thats what I do, reboot and all is smooth again.

[severniae]

Originally Posted by MH

For closing processes try this:
http://iobit.com/gamebooster.html
For stuttering try turning off VSYNC also Alt TAB-ing out of game and then back may help.
I have this problem with VISTA sometimes.It seems as if Vista is sometimes confused about which process to prioritize.

Woah! I just downloaded and tried this software. Ran a defrag on the SH5 directory and then used it to turn off processes/apps I didn't want, it cleared the RAM, too!

After running it and trying SH5 I got a minimum 10FPS increase!!!!!!! Previously I was getting in some areas (especially the command room) as low as 16 - 17 FPS, now I'm getting 25+ constantly - most of the time I'm getting over 35!. Its not perfect, but then its pretty good for my HP 4510s laptop!!!!