I've had a Dell system for about a year and a half now, and am happily running along with FS2002 and a whole lot of add-ons and fairly good performance. I haven't tweaked my hardware in a while and I thought I'd ask for some advice on what I could do now to maximize performance, especially with FS2004 only a couple months out...Here is what I am running:Dell Dimension 8200Win XP ProP4-2.4Ghz512 MB RAM75 Gig Single HDNvidia G-Force TI44002.7.4.2 Drivers (Feb 2002)Santa Cruz - Voyetra Turtle Beach Sound CardThis computer also uses a 23" Sony Monitor and is networked to a Win98SE machine on which I run Project Magenta package. Would a new video card and/or new drivers make much of a difference? How about doubling the RAM to 1024MB?Any advice appreciated.best,

New video card will get you more FPS, you have a pretty nice system from the looks of it. Doubling the RAM may or may not do much. I don't know how much memory Flight Sims like.

...dell...upgrades...wow...not good, dells are a b**** to upgrade, or so ive heard. especially a new PSU upg. but a new video card would get better performance, if you cant afford a 9700 get at least an ATi Radeon 9500 Pro

thanks much guys. Upgraded my drivers to the 40.72's yesterday, and have seen a performance/quality improvements (and I sure like the self-removing/self-installing feature on new drivers now after some of the the nightmares I had in the past trying to do this manually...). The high end ATi Radeons seem to be getting some good press around here. I'm still wondering how good the upcoming GeForce FX5900 will be, it has gotten some good reviews but I don't think it's actually on the street yet.As far as the RAM upgrade, I'll probably just go for it.thanks again,

>...dell...upgrades...wow...not good, dells are a b**** to>upgrade, or so ive heard.Actually the newer Dells are quite easy to upgrade. especially a new PSU upg.Older machines presented a problem but most of the newer machines are starting to use a standard ATX PS but a new>video card would get better performance, if you cant afford a>9700 get at least an ATi Radeon 9500 Pro