Hi guys,For all the newbies out there - thinking which graphics card to opt for - Then you have some to the right thread.This thread deal with graphic cards,their specifications and their capabilities and of course the best deal.The Hi-End graphic cards from nVidia are : GeForce 6800 - New ReleaseGeForce FX 5950 UltraGeForce FX 5900 UltraGeForce FX 5900GeForce FX 5900 XTGeForce PCX 5950with the following specs : 5950 ultra Graphics Core: 256-bitMemory Interface: 256-bitMemory Bandwidth: 30.4GB/secFill Rate: 3.8 billion texels/sec.Vertices/sec. 356 millionMemory Data Rate: 950MHzPixels per Clock (peak): 8Textures per Pixel: 16*RAMDACs 400MhzSince nobody will go for this.Other alternatives are also present like the 5750 whose memory bandwidth is half as much as the 5950 ultra i.e 15.2GB/sec (approx.)As of my experience the geforce series's AA quality to performance ratio is pretty terrifying.On the other hand the Ati Radeon series startin from the 9800 down to the 9600 have top notch performance even with AA enabled.As everyone knows the anti-Aliasing capability of the Radeon series is very-very good with no reduction in frames.With AA enabled in the Ge-Force cards the there is a major performance hit.Ati has patented its anti-aliasing mechanism so nVidia has to look for an alternate method of attracting customers.Now we move on to the Ati Series:There has been the release of the X800 series from Ati,whose specifications can be viewed here : http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/specs.htmlOther cards from Ati with exceptional performance : RADEON

For me, selecting primarily for the FS9 and no other games the choice is obvious: the new Radeon X800 XT (Platinum Edition).It is elementary, Watson.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

Obviously the Radeon series is the best for FS9.High quality textures with Anti-Aliasing at 6x and anisotropic filtering at 8x with not a single loss in frames.Cheers to all the Radeon card users.For all the nVidia users,c'mon guys give us a break.You know whats the best.-NavneetAMD Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to 2.1 Ghz |Thoroughbred Core|Revision: BModel: KM266-8233AChipset: VIA-PM266/KM266(VT8375)Rev:0Southbridge: VIA-VT8233ASensor: Winbond-W83697HFBios: Phoenix-Technologies Ver:6.00 PGRAM: Kingston SDRAM PC133 - 2 X 256 MBATI Radeon 9600 128MBCreative SoundBlaster X-Gamer 5.1 -|www.precisionmanuals.com|-http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

I have a 9800 Pro, which is a superb card, and relatively cheap. My only issue is that I get a loss of frame rates when the mouse cursor is visible. I can't seem to find an answer for this anywhere. FS9 runs good, but I bet other people have the same card and have it running better. In other games, like Far Cry, it's unstoppable. The graphics in that game have to be seen to be believed.

If you are using 3D or animated pointers in FS9,there has been reports of loss of frames.Set the pointer to the default.-NavneetAMD Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to 2.1 Ghz |Thoroughbred Core|Revision: BModel: KM266-8233AChipset: VIA-PM266/KM266(VT8375)Rev:0Southbridge: VIA-VT8233ASensor: Winbond-W83697HFBios: Phoenix-Technologies Ver:6.00 PGRAM: Kingston SDRAM PC133 - 2 X 256 MBATI Radeon 9600 128MBCreative SoundBlaster X-Gamer 5.1 -|www.precisionmanuals.com|-http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

Definitely no frame rate loss with the mouse cursor for me with my 9800p... If I have some extra money later this summer, I'm seriously thinking about an X800XT and a new monitor capable of 1600X1200 at a high refresh... sounds very enticing!