Hi All,I would like to ask what would be the preferred system for the FS PC, to run FS2004 with a dual head video card, should I go for Intel? AMD? How much RAM do I need? Can you suggest a video card?I am _not_ going for a basic configuration, and would like to have a med-to-high performance system (however, don't want to spend US$600 for the video card alone...)Any suggestions appreciated!Cheers,Yaniv

Hi Yaniv,You can go for a good quality Asus PCIe Asus board (@$200) with full dual 16bit SLI sockets. For now AMD is still significantly superior to Intel, so going for an AMD 64 +3500 or more is a good bet.You can invest into a good videa card. Nvidia are more stable and have more features which are suppoerted by games. ATI might have more featrures on the paper (but not suported by games) and better performance but as always, suffer from driver poor support/stability.My bet would go for a good quality Nvidia 7800 256MB (not GTX) - @$350.I would invest in 1-2GB RAM and that would be it.You would have a spare SLI socket left for another video card giving you a total of full-speed 4 graphic displays (non-SLI) if you need that in the future.I do recommend however to wait for FSX to come out. It is supposed to be released at the end of this year. I would also wait to see how it performs undr Windows Vista which is a multi-processor O/S. It might be that the new MSFSX will support dual core and in that case, you might want to replace your CPU with a dual-core AMD (X2 4200 and up).I for one, will be waiting up to 6mo AFTER the release of MAFSX and only then decide what HW to upgrade to. There are many reasons for this. See what bugs need to be taken into account. LEarn how MSFS performs in various environments etc. History taught us that MSFS is a very moody beast. While games have traditionally relied more and more on Graphic cards, MSFS mostly ignored that potential. As a result, current MSFS benefits more from a CPU/memory upgrade and above a certain mediocre level, upgrading the GPU is a waste of money.It is said that the new MSFS changes alt that. This remains to be seen: will it fully utilize the new SLI technology? What is teh performance gain from using dual cards in SLI/Crossfire confguration?As you see, there are many questions that will be answered only AFTER MSFSX is released. Until then, I stick to my $.

Hi Al,Thanks for the long reply.Lately I found that the more answers a get on a subject - the more questions a have as well...so I hope it's not too much :)So as I understand it - the current MSFS2004 cannot benefit from a dual core CPU? the AMD 64 would be the best choice than.What about more memory on the gfx card? 256 vs. 512? I am not sure I completely understand this SLI interface, I though it's an optional connection between the vid cards...is it also available on the motherboard's PCIe-16 slots?(And what's "GTX" is it the model of the vid card?)We decided not to wait for the FSX version, I agree with you that it would take some time to 'stabilize' it and understand the true performance and advantages of FSX...as far as I'm concerned simulating birds and/or dolphins in the water is a waste of time.... anyway we can re-evaluate that in a year from now, meanwhile the MSFS2004 is good enough.Would you say it's better to have a single gfx card with dual outputs or two independent cards with a single output each?I understand that nVIDIA don't make the cards directly, but other names like Asus, XFX, eVGA, Gigabyte, Leadtech - is there any preferred one?Cheers,Yaniv

OK. here we go:1. MSFS 2004 cannot benefit directly from dual core because two main reasons: the OS is not really a dual-CPU OS and MSFS is not a "dual-CPU" application. IF MSFSX will still not be dual-CPY, it will enjoy the fact that the dual-CPU OS (Windows Vista) will have the other core working on regular OS "background" chores - or even run support applications - while "freeing" the "other-CPU" run the simulator. My bet is that MSFSX will be a "dual-CPU" application - unless MS decides to release another FS2000-line non-optimized monster.2. MSFS 2004 doesn't really utilize the current crop of GPU's either. The only things it recognizes is some T&L and generic anti-aliasing etc. functions. It doews not use any of the cards' more powerful options like shaders, and other geometry setup tools. I hope MSFSX will do. I actually bet it will.2. Graphics memory. Today's games use more and more high quality (read BIG) bitmaps and the video memory can fill up rather quickly. When that happens, the remaining bitmaps are brought either from the main memory or even from the hard-disk. Regular ram is hundreds of % slower than the video RAM, not to mention about the BUS bottleneck. Today we havenot reached these limits yet so you may live quite well with a 256MB until the next card generation is out.3. GTX means "faster, meaner and a lot more expensive".4. Card manufacturer - didn't hear of XFX or eVGA but the rest are OK. You can add Gigabyte and Gainward too. Most of the manufacturers use the CPU designed "reference board" so there is little or no difference at all between them. Some use premium GPU chips (gold samples of the same GPU others use) which are overclocked and thus squeeze a bit more performance - these tend to cost more. You should also consider OEM cards - they do not have any SW bundle or other goodies but why would you want that? Bottom line: you get what you pay for but stick to major brands. Want to know specifically which brand is better? Search the Internet for comparative reviews. All current andmodern cards support PCIe 16x both in SLI and non-SLI configuration. The graphics card BUS width is a motherboard limitation. If you want to keep your mobo into the foreseeable future, buy a motherboard supporting two full x16 in SLI mode. Many mobos drop to 2x8 when in SLI mode BTW, x16 does NOT mean that it is 16 times faster - it means 16-bit wide.5. SLI: this is a relatively new technology which allows TWO identical graphic cards to run together on the same system. In the right setup and configuration, they can share resources, one card "helping" the other and thus getting a better performance. Although you may have installed two cards with ywo outputs each, the graophical output is channeled through only one. Today's applications do not fully utilize this. As usual, applications lag after HW progress and this is not an exception. Another way to use them - for our flight siming needs - is NOT to set the cards in a SLI configuration. This will allow you to have all four outputs available WITH 3D acceleration for multiple view/gauges setups. Gigabyte has a motherboard which allows for FOUR video cards and EIGHT outputs! You will need a very powerful power supply for that and a lot of $$.This was a very superficial description of what actualy SLI means. Want to understand more? Go to http://www.tomshardware.com/. PS: to be fair (and confuse you a bit), ATI also has its own "SLI" technology: it is called "Crossfire". Performance-wise it has been shown that it does not differ much from SLI although marketing might claim otherwise. Its main advantage though is in the fact that it can support ANY (ATI GPU) card - the cards do not need to be identical as in the SLI case. So you can go with a very expensive card used for the outside 3D view and buy a cheaper card for those gauges. As you may guess,for as much as I know, SLI is supported only by Nvidia cards (and Mobo chips) and ATI supports crossfire.

Al,Thanks for sharing your knowledgeSomeone told me that unless I can get the 7800GT for a really low price, it would be better and more cost-effective to go for the 7900GT.I don't really think I need SLi or Crossfire right now.your detailed explanation really make some order in this chaos for me,Thanks!Yaniv