HIbeen out of the hardware scene for a while,whats currently the best nvidia based card for fs9,I have a TI4600 128mb at present but was thinking of upgrading it.Any opinions would be welcome,I am also upgrading my cpu at the same timecheers keith

The best cards for FS currently out are the Geforce 6800GT and Geforce 6800 Ultra. There's also a 6600 chip that's going to be released this fall. It's better than the Geforce 5950 and Radeon 9800pro but will retail for $150-200US.

I would addd the best two video cards for playing FS2004 are ATI Radeon X800Pro and Nvidia 6800GT. Both 6800 Ultra and X800 XT will add only a miniscule amount of performance for 25% higher price.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjMyLDQ=http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjMyLDc=------1600x1200 4xaa/16xaf geforce6800u atix800xt atix800pro min max avg min max avg min max avgp4 3.4c 35 59 43.4 34 57 44.8 28 45 34.3ath64 3500+2.21 s939 30 61 37.5 30 54 41.3 26 42 33p4 3.0c 34 57 43.6 30 55 42.3 27 42 33.6ath64 3000+2.45 s754 32 53 40.8 33 55 40.5 28 42 33.5p4 2.4c 26 57 39.5 24 57 40.9 21 40 30.9xpbarton 2500+1.83 23 54 38.6 19 55 37.9 18 41 31.2------Kurt M

thanks for the opinions guyscheers keith

Keith, I also have a TI4600 and just ordered a FX5900XT, if you can wait until Monday when it arrives I can tell you how it works out. I paid $174.00 for it and according to what I have read it should give me some increase in quality and performance. I thought about going with a top of the line card but I am putting a new system together in a couple of months so I thought that it would be a waste. I know that 15 minutes after Fed Ex drops the new card off I will be firing up FS9 for my first flight with the new card and then I'll report back here with what I find. Take care,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Ok Philip that is great thanks,will wait and see,fingers crossed!cheers keith

Well, I have only used the new card for about 20 minutes with no tweaking and no over-clocking. I had my TI4600 over clocked as fast as it would go without any failures but I forgot the exact numbers. I loaded up FS9 with the same config that I used with my previous card, almost all of the sliders to the right except autogen which was at dense, cloud draw and terrain draw was one notch above the lowest settings, all of PAI's traffic installed at 100%. The new card seems to be giving me about 8 to 10 FPS better than the old card, that is an average sometimes it was higher sometimes lower but over all an improvement for sure. The sim seems more fluid for sure. Also I noticed that the visual quality is improved as well, I seemed to always have some jaggies with the old card but not any more. I can not exactly explain it but things just look better now. Anyway I am going to do some tweaking and get things where I want them and then I'll tell you some more, but the intial impressions is that this was a great purchase. Take care,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Ok Philip,thanks for the rundown! looks like i will be doing some shopping tomorrow!!cheers keith

I hope that you will be able to do even better than me though! I am running an AMD XP2500, and an old Asus A7V333 mobo so it only has 4X AGP. Everything looks really good for me though, it is almost a brand new sim! I have not had a chance to do much tweaking yet but I did take some screen shots for a comparison that I will post tonight or tomorrow, I thought that I would do this since I had some old screen shots from the other card. This purchase did excede my expectations! Good luck to you and I hope you find the same joy that I did. Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg