Okay, lets pretend that I bought a flat panel LCD monitor from a friend that has a VGA connection (the monitor, not the friend). Also, lets pretend that I have a GeForce 4 TI 4400 with a standard VGA, S-video, and DVI-D connection. For arguments sake, lets assume that you cannot connect a DVI-D to a VGA monitor. (Actually, this isn't an assumption, this is a fact). So, if someone was wanting to run dual monitors, 1 CRT and 1 LCD, they would, threaticly, need a different video card.What would you all say would be a pretty decent card (99% Flight sim) for around the $250 mark? I'm kind of prefer the Nvidia brand of things. The rest of my system is as follows:WinXP Pro1 gig DDR 800 ramP4 2.8P4P800 moboSome type of soundcard...Thanks for any suggestions.Dondo

Hi Dondo,One of the nVidia 6600GT series cards can be had for less then $250. But if you're going to spend that kind of money you might consider throwing another $50.00 into the hypothesis (you didn't think I'd let all your theorizing go unnoticed, did you :-)) and go for a 6800GT. The 6800GT has 16 pixel pipelines and 256bit memory interface vs. the 6600GT's 8 pixel pipelines and 128bit memory interface. What this all means is that textures in the sim will load faster with the 6800GT (among other advantages). The only thing to make sure of before buying either card is to check that your power supply meets the minimum requirements for whatever card you choose.Hope this helps,Greg

Great advice! IMHO, a 6600GT (128-bit, 8 pipelines, 3 vertex pipelines) will only perform marginally better than the Ti4400 (128-bit, 8 pipelines, 2 vertex pipelines). Specially when taking FS to 1280x resolutions the 6600 seems a bad choice. IMHO-2, the 6600 is the most overrated card at the moment and far too expensive. One would be better off with 9800pro (256-bit, 8 pipelines, 4 vertex pipelines) if looking for a relatively cheap solution to run 1280x. Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

I bought a 6600GT because a 6800GT is about 150 bucks CAD or more then the 6600GT. I went from a Ti4200 to this 6600GT, what a huge difference, frames never drop below 20, chaning views are instant and textures load no problem and run my game at 1280x960, 4x AA and 4x AF. This is using 32BIT windows. With this card and how well it runs, I just can't see how a 6800GT would be a whole lot better, sure my frames are would be better, but this does so well with everything I throw at it, I mean never lower then 20FPS is great.