Yet another request for upgrade opinions...

[Guest NWBear]

Hi all, great site, great forums!Anyway, getting ready to upgrade, but the landscape has changed a lot since I built my machine. It was bleeding edge at the time, but I want to go to FS9 and I dont think this is gonna cut it-Celeron 300mhz128MB RAMAbit BH6 motherboardVoodoo 3 3000 vid cardWin 98SoooooOn a limited budget (350-500), so just trying to figure out the best upgrade path for the buck.Thanks in advance!Jeff

[gosta]

Hi Jeff,welcome to the Avsim forums! Considering the age of your system, I don't think upgrading parts of it is really an option. I would look at replacing the whole thing, i.e. a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, Power Supply, Graphics Card etc. Basically anything on the market now would be an immense improvement over your current system, and for your budget you should be able to get some decent components that should run FS2004 reasonably well. I just checked a local supplier's website and the slowest CPUs available were an AMD Sempron 2400+ and a Celeron 2.4GHz - quite a jump from 300MHz ;).Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

[Guest NWBear]

Yep, figured a major powerplant transplant was gonna be needed. I figure that I can transfer over the hard drive, cd drive, case keyboard, mouse and floppy drive, and upgrade the rest. Plan on keeping the Voodoo 3 card for eventual multi monitor option, or the whole machine to run gauges & radio stacks etc. Back when I built the machine, the 300mhz Celeron/Voodoo option was the combo for performance in a sim machine. But now with the multiple choices on processors from Intel and AMD, its not so cut and dried as to what cpu to go with. As for the video card, lots to sort out there too.Wheels Up!Jeff

[Guest aigean]

yeah, a 300mhz celeron won't cut it by a long shot haha. these are my recommendations, based on my own experience with my hardware and the sim, and also what i have learned from the shared epxerience of others. while a few might have additional suggestions, i think the general idea of what im saying below is more or less the consensus on what to look for with a limited budget for fs2004:i think you can definately create a decent little machine for $500 ($300 might cut you a little too short in terms of performance) if you get really creative. But understand that fs2004 is very very demanding on hardware, so don't expect any miracles. the sim will run fine, but you'll have to turn down some of the eyecandy options to have realtively smooth flight. however, i was running fs2004 on a 1.6ghz p4 and a geforce 3 graphics card and still enjoyed it immensely.The main focus of your upgrade should be your CPU. Get as much speed in the CPU as you can for your budget. If the choice is between getting a a $50 used ti4400 graphics card and a $170 CPU or a $150 graphics card and a $70 CPUi'd definately put my cash into the $170 CPU and $50 ti4400. you need as much CPU power as you can get for fs2004, muy importante! for other games this is not as true, but fs2004 has so many environment calculations to do (aircraft physics, air physics, traffic, aircraft systems, weather, etc etc etc), it needs a beefy processor. The graphics can be demanding too, but the CPU is usually the bottleneck, so focus your effort here.How big is your hardrive?You'll want at least 512mb RAM, preferably 1 gig. i imagine on your budget you'll probably end up with 512mb which is fine.In terms of cheap graphics cards in your budget, if you go really cheap you can find a working geforce4 Ti4600, Ti4400 or ti4200 for under $50 (ebay) that would work. You don't want to go any slower than this. Another card that might work well is an ATI 9600 for around $100. these are by no means cutting edge, but i think they're ok for a budget computer. again, many have learned here that fs2004 is a more of a CPU hog than anything else, so I think these graphics cards will do fine for now and focus the main effort of your budget on the CPU. stay away from the geforce4 mx cards, the ati 9200 and the nvidia fx5200 cards unless one is given to you for absolutely free. These cards are actually outperformed by the older GF4 ti4200's and even older gf3 ti500. They're junk.for a powersupply 350W should be enough and will keep the cost down. cheap powersupplies give your components junky power, so keep that in mind. you get what you pay for. a quality 350w powersupply will probably put out more power than a "400w" or "450w" cheapie.lastly, for all of you new parts, many here will recommend www.newegg.com. they usually have the best prices are are very reputable, good service. also they'll be much cheaper than your local stores. so when i say "$170 CPU", I'm talking about what $170 will get you in newegg prices, not in your local store. www.monarchcomputer.com is another favorite, although i have never purchased from them.

[Guest aigean]

also, in terms of what cpu's to look for, get a pentium 4, athlon64, or athlon XP. i would not consider the celerons or durons at all.for a $180 CPU, you're looking at 2.8ghz P4. pretty good! (for $15 more you could have a 3.0ghz p4) or for $142 you could have a Athlon64 2800+, which is probably a better deal.+$100 motherboard.+$50-$100 graphics card. (gfti4200 - ati 9600)$50 350W+ power supply$80 512mb of RAM.About (or a little under) $500... Actually better than i expected, that should run the sim relatively nicely! Looking at this breakout, I don't really see where you could get it down to $350. You don't want to go any cheaper on the video card. And knocking $120 off the cost of the CPU is not a good idea. You might be able to save a little on the motherboard, but unless you want to make yourself miserable, i wouldn't get too cheap on the mobo. So really i think closer to $500 is your sweet spot.