My computer has a Athlon 3000+ proccesor, 1.3gig ram,200gig hard drive, and a 256 megabite GEFORCE FX graghics card. Is it normal for "Lock On" to be slightly jumpy when I`m in flight? Should the scenery be passing by smoothly while flying? The game settings aren`t even set to full capasity. Do I need a larger graphics card to make the game run smoother? thank you for reading this correspondence, and look foward to your help on this issue.

I have Athlon3000+, 1Gig, Radeon9800Pro and I only run medium settings, no heat blur, no mirrors and 1024x768.
I get reasonable FPS (apart from over cities) and scenery moves smooth enough as I have D/L'ed the usual FPS saving Mods for water, overcast etc.
You need a serious kinda rig that is only just becoming available to run on HIGH settings, so I think what you are seeing is to be expected.

THat graphics card is holding you down. If you plan to upgrade it, tell us how much money your willing to spend and we'll see if theres a good card out there that much the price.

mine isnt jerky in a low framerate sort of way.. its more of a studdering.. its annoying, and it does it the same amount regardless of FPS.

specs:
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual core processor
2gb of OCZ 500mhz DDR ram in dual channel mode
240gb SATA150 HD
256mb Geforce 6800 Ultra
XP Pro (OS)

i can run any other game pretty much maxxed out, and switching from the default settings (max) to lower ones does not effect the studdering, fraps is showing about 65fps usually with it dipping to ~40 over cities and in lots and lots of smoke..