Poor is an understatement, I am unable to do anything once the game launches. The intro plays okay, but once you get to the starting point at the docks the whole game comes to a standstill. My frame rate drops down to 1-2 FPS. Cant do anything really. If i spam the ESC key the menu will come up, while in the menu the game is responsive and i can save, load, quit with no problem, it is just during actual game play.
I tried running in different resolutions 800x600x32 all the way to my native res 1920x 1080, no change. I turned the textures to low, no change. I change my Direct 3d settings from (direct3d T & L HAL) to (direct3d HAL), no change.
all GPU drivers are up to date, all windows updates are current.
Here are my PC info also.
My system information is:
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 4GB RAM
Hard Drive: 250 GB, 750GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit
What else can i do?
Any one else run into this problem?
Thanks

Hi,
I assume you're running both the config tool and the game executable as admin, right ?
Maybe you could try running the game on a single core ?
Your system is similar to mine (GTX 295, 6GB RAM, I7 920. W7 64bit) except for the CPU, so maybe your CPU isn't playing nice with the game...

I'm experiencing the same issues; massive drop of FPS and the game not being playable after the first few scenes.
Im running a Intel Core2Quad Q8200 with 3 GB of Ram and Vista.
If reducing the number of cores the game uses might help, I'd be glad if someone could tell me where that option is found.

Have you tried lowering the level of 'Texture Quality' or turning off Full AA with the setup tool ?
Also make sure Nvidia CP ins't forcing any 'global' settings that could potencially cause the slowdowns. (AA, ANISO, etc)
My comment above regarding lilspooky's CPU wasn't prompted by multicore issues, as i have a multicore CPU and no problems with the game's performance. I was just kind of wondering if there was something specific about his CPU that might account for the performance drop.
In any case, you can assing cores to an app via task manager.
Find the application in question, right click and choose "Go to Process", right click the process in question and choose "Affinity".

eh, eh, sorry, for some reason i assumed you had a Nvidia card, maybe because both myself and the OP have one.
Thing is, Nvidia and ATI have applications to control the settings of graphics cards. Nvidia has 'Nvidia Control Panel' and ATI has 'Catalyst Control Center'. These applications allow to create profiles for each game with specific settings, but they also have a 'global settings' scheme that is applied to all games (that don't have a specific profile).
Sometimes it's best to leave stuff like AntiAliasing and Anisotropic Filtering and whatnot up to the game (application controlled), but if these settings are being forced somewhow trough the Global settings of the software (NCP or CCC) that manages the graphics cards behaviour, performance issues may surface...

I do in fact have a Nvidia card, but I can't find the Control Panel. Either it's not installed or very well hidden (I guess it should be accessable via the task bar quick links?). The options that I did find had no global settings with AntiAliasing or Anisotropic Filtering.
Should I download a set of drivers with the Control Panel included? It could well be that I installed the "driver only" variant the last time I updated the drivers.

Right click your desktop you should have an nvidia control panel option in the menu that comes up.

Ok, I found it. The only "global" setting was some Gamma value, which I deactivated, and I added seperate realMyst options as well to ensure that the game doesn't start with any of those gadgets active.
Didn't work, either. I turn around after the first few seconds and the game literally freezes.

I tried everything, this game just wont work right on my desktop. I have a little EEE pc with XP and it runs beautiful on it.

Up to this point, I tried everything my limitied knowledge of graphics settings enabled me to.
I updated my drivers, made sure global settings for AA, AIF and others were turned of. I made sure the individual settings for the various Myst executables had those settings as well.
I tried to start the game with low resolution, high resolution, low texture details, high texture details, 16 bit, 32 bit.
I reinstalled the game after the driver update and tried everything all over again.
But still, every time I turn toward the big house at the game's beginning, my FPS drops to an unplayable level.

Well, I got my version of realMyst to run properly. Of course, the solution was the easiest possible: running both the game's .exe and the launcher in compatibility mode.

Thanks for the solution! Honestly, this is the first time compatibility mode has fixed anything for me. I didn't even think to try it.

Heh, it's the first thing i tried when I noticed the crappy performance. Should have checked in here if anyone else was having the same problem. Sorry :p

I have had the same problem - game drops to 1fps at various places, starting at the dock if you turn to face the door into the hill, then up by the butterflies,...
I was getting completely stumped, having tried Windows 7 "automatic compatibility" which suggested "XP SP 2" - that makes it un-runnable... butt having read this thread I tried manually setting "compatibility with XP SP3" - and now it runs fine.
No extra installs of codecs needed, no install of Apple's Quicktime - just run in XP
Sp3 mode!