Very slow cursor

Thanks for tips. I've already disabled smooth font edges, and the difference was not detectable. I haven't tried a mod yet, I wanted to run through the basic game once before switching to any of the mods. I've tried each of the 3d device options, again with no effect.

The machine is an off the shelf Compaq Presario running XP home with an AMD 1790MHz CPU and 756M RAM. Not a hot machine, but I thought sufficient to run SE5. The video is a NVidia GeForce FX 5500 built onto the motherboard. I've read about the problems with NVidia 6500+ on Vista, but those comments did not appear to include this setup.

Do you thing the NVidia problem reaches this far back?

I'll check memory and running programs to make sure something isn't hiding in the background dragging the machine down. I would have expected a little better than 16 fps on the main game screen.

[Update] after updating the drivers, the fps went up to 6 or 7 on the components and damage screens when looking at a ship. That is just barely usable. Move the mouse to the area you want, wait for the cursor to stop, then fine adjust it. At 1 fps I would spend 10 seconds overshooting back and forth to even be able to hit a specific icon. At least not a 6 fps I can settle in quickly enough to use it.

What are reasonable fps rates I should expect on this class hardware?

thanks...

After updating video drivers I was back on 1280x1024. Switched to 1024x768 and got the frame rate to 8 fps. Turns out the lower resolution may be better for my old eyes anyway when looking at the ship components.