Cosmo, did the 'shop' name have PCW in it's title?
They have been giving you low quality many times used bull*s..t*. If they got a new PIII 600mhz processor out of it's box they would know. If on the other hand, as has been known, they took it from another machine - well there's your answer. However, let us not judge them too harshly - yet!
As for FS98 let us set it up and see where it goes - first, note how long does it takes to load - in seconds from the shortcut click to screen? Next, press ALT then ENTER, that will give you full screen if you didn't have one. Then, click Options|Preferences|Display|Display Options and on that page click all green buttons to ON(ticked)on the next two pages click all buttons to ON - except LOW RESOLUTION MODE. Then click on Hardware Acceleration - all buttons to ON except MIP Mapping (this blurs the texture).
Under Full Screen Device:
Find "Primary Display Driver (Direct3D)" and select it.
Under Fullscreen Mode:
Select 1024x768x16
Click OK twice and close FS98 and re-boot.
Try these, and see what happens with the frame rates then. I have taken a screenshot of an intensive model and it shows 83fps. If I can get it on to my site
www.uksim.co.uk I will. Never done it before!!
We can still check certain things to see if they have cheated: This one is a start, click on Start|Settings|Control Panel|System and note what the System heading says and also the the Computer heading. If you know the name of your motherboard jot that down too.
Let's hope you get an improvement.