Hello fellow simmers,My system is as follows P4 2.4 533FSB, Soyo 4XAGP MB, Radeon 9500 128mb, PC 2700 512mb, 160G HD.On anticipation of the release of FS 2004, and the new PMDG 737NG.Buy 737NG!!:) I'm looking at up grading the video card to the Radeon 9800 pro 256mb or 9800 pro 128mb. What should the differences be with regard to FS. The price gap is widening 128mb can be bought for as low as $280, while the 256 is dropping to $475. Also I only have 4X AGP, I have heard 4 X is same as 8X is this true or should I get an ASUS MB with 8X AGP.Should I upgrad to 1gig ram?Any advice would be appreciatedRegards,BillyBooob

Hi Billy,to be honest - I wouldn't go for any upgrade. Just wait and see.I got a system with almost the same specs (PIV 2.4 533FSB, GBT AGP 4x MB, PC 2700 1Gig, GF4 Ti 4200 128 MB) and have been considering upgrades. But IMHO it doesn't make sense at all.Video card: Currently the 256 MB variant is useless and I don't think that the 128 MB 9800pro will show a significant performance increase unless you're a high FSAA modes and aninso junkie. FS still doesn't make full use of all the bells and whistles modern video boards have to offer - keep that in mind. That 9500 is still a good contender in the video card arms race.AGP 8x: Bare nonsense - performance may go up about 1 % but on the downside there are still a lot of compatibility issues (same as it was when AGP 4X was introduced some years ago). So you might even end up in going back to AGP 4x because your system starts crashing with 8x enabled. Definitely no reason to s###can your relatively current Soyo MB.RAM: Hard to judge. My system was running well with 512 MB and I could hardly see any difference in FS after the 1 Gig upgrade (It's a different game in Photoshop ;-) ). But you might give it try - RAM is quite cheap these days.My conclusion at the very moment is to wait for the things to come. My system runs FS 2002 with complex scenery and aircraft (e.g. Flight1's Meridian) quite well and I think it will also do with FS 2004 - seeing some beta testers' systems. If people report significant differences when using a 9800pro instead of a 9500 or a FX5900 instead of a GF4 4200 I can still do the upgrade for a better price then - ATI and NVidia are going to release new models this fall so prices for the older ones will drop soon. So you'll get more value for your hard earned money then. Concerning the PMDG 737NG: I've heard that it performs similarly to the DF 734 - and that one's running extremely well on my computer.Just my 2 EurocentsCU Thomas :-wavePS: Read this about the topichttp://www.gamespy.com/hardware/july03/pv6/