There is one thing which has consistently smoothed my meter. If you're running windows, start typing "performance" in the start bar, and something like "change performance options" will come up; go there.
Once there, tick "Adjust for best performance." (you can always change it back.) Since doing this, I can have all the flag animations, water animations, highest flash quality, and it runs quite smoothly, almost all of the time :)
thank u for that info ujus cured all my prbs wih metre in one go x