i have upgraded from a:P4 1.7GHZ 256MB RDRAMINTEL By intel 800FSB motherboardFX5200 128mb to the following:p4 3ghz512mb ddrram (spectec)MSI 865 NEO-2P 200FSB motherboardand same Videocardand here comes the first shock,no FPS improvement at all!!!!!!!so surprising for me at least.Anyway it was a long time ago so im living with it.then i was told that: 1-RDRAMS better than DDR 2-800FSB MOTHERBOARD IS LOT BETTER THAN 200FSBAnd that my videocard is the neck of the bottle so i started looking for a new VGA from the mid range (of course i dont have enough money for the lastest VGA after this upgrade ) so was looking for a midrange cheap VGA and i choosed the standard XFX6600 128MB vga and learning from my first mistake i asked to try before i buy,and oops again no FPS Improvment, HOW CAN THIS BE??is there any reccommendations for a good vga card with reasonable cost?n.b:when i tried the XFX6600 i was getting a message that my power supply is not enough to run the VGA with its best performance although i was expecting a bit better performanceI can afford a 9800PRO or 6600GT is that good enough for the cost or should i live with the fact that i m not allowed to run FS9 smoothlyN.B a reasonable FPS for me is 30FPS or minimuim 25 lower than that is so jerky and i like clouds a lot now with my FX5200 im getting from(25-30)fps in normal situations with default planes(which i dont use ofcourse)and it gets so jerky 15fps in sceneries and bad weather.Thanks a lot for your time

hi MSR740,i hope i can be of help here. first off, your p4 1.7 system had a true 100Mhz. FSB. the Rambus RDRam because it would run in "Dual-Channel" mode only (2 sticks of Ram along with 2 C-Rimms or 4 sticks) gave you a "theoretical" FSB speed of 400Mhz (Quad-Pumped). with your new system your "true" FSB is 200 Mhz. if your using 2 or 4 sticks of Ram in you're new system... you're running your Ram in "Dual Channel" mode which gives you a "theoretical" FSB of 800Mhz. however, you should have seen "at least" a small performance increase with your new system with the same video card. why you might ask? 1. your CPU speed increased 1Ghz+ 2. you're CPU L2 cache doubled from 256K to 512K. 3. you're "true" FSB doubled from 100Mhz. to 200Mhz. why you didn't see a small performance increase i don't know. you're video card is definitely your biggest Bottleneck at this point with your new system. but before you upgrade to one of the video cards you mentioned above check your Power Supply specs. first. i'm not sure about the Nvidia card you mentioned but the Radeon 9800 you mentioned will need to be connected directly to your Power Supply. So check your Power Supply specs. first before upgrading. if memory serves me correctly the 9800 requires a Power Supply of 300 or 350 Watts minimum.hope this helps and enjoy your new system. happy flyin, fm

You have to have the 6600 connected to your power supply and it needs to be at least 350W or more to run well. Also have you installed MOBO drivers for your system?

Yes i'll buy another power supply, no problem in there,and im running 512mb ddr (one stick),so dualchannel option is not present ,does it differ a lot,if yes i can add another 512mb.Thanks for your replies

yes it does. definitely add another stick of 512MB Ram - both sticks should be PC3200 aka...DDR400 Ram. that's probably why you didn't see a performance increase with your current card. running your Ram in Dual Channel mode doubles your "Memory Bandwith". which is what the P4 CPU's really crave. happy flyin, fm

In order for dual channel to work both sticks have to be exactly matched, you cannot just buy 2 sticks of RAM, even though they may be the same brand and same speed and get dual channel. You have to buy RAM that is sold as dual channel for it to work.

Yes ofcourse i'll buy another 512mb 333ddr (spectec),just same specs as my current ramsthanks for the tip Geforce 6600GT OR 9800PRO ??What do u think,is the results that r present in TOMSHARDWARE VGA chart true cause the 9800PRO results for FS2004 r great?

For FS9 I'd go with the 9800 Pro. Both cards are DirectX 9 compatible, and both cards have 128Mb of memory as well as 8 pixel pipelines. But the 9800 Pro has a 256bit memory interface while the 6600 GT has 128bit. Also, the 9800 Pro will allow you to run the sim at higher resolutions.If you play other (current) games alot the 6660 GT might have an advantage in some optimizations.Greg

u r right ,most of the posts highly reccommend 9800pro but i ve read that it has jagged edges problem and u must turn AA to 4x or so,which in my thoughts will give a performance hit,is it that true?

"...reccommend 9800pro but i ve read that it has jagged edges problem and u must turn AA to 4x or so,which in my thoughts will give a performance hit,is it that true?"The ATI cards don't do AA on Alpha textures. The upside of that in FS is that clouds are Alphas, and there is no reason to AA clouds. The downside is that things like electrical towers, trees, etc. are also Alphas, and some folks don't like the shimmering they see in those objects. I don't have a problem with them, but I have my drivers/game settings tweaked to deal with the issue.The 9800 Pro will do 4X AA just fine in this sim. It's a brute of a card and offers great bang for the buck today.Greg

Ok i have made my mind and i'll go for it if you can give me it's price range that'll be great my budget is about 200$ for itThanks so much, u guys r so helpful

You can buy another stick seperately as long as it is the same. The CAS latency should match as well, but even if it doesnt, most motherboards will adjust to the lowest common setting as long as you leave it up to the board to do automatically.The "dual channel memory" that is sold is simply matching memory and has no other features that make it "dual memory" Simply marketing at that point.Dave---------------------------------------------------System Specs:Athlon64 3500+ ClawHammer @ 2.3mhzECS NForce4 A-939 Mobo (1g FSB)1.5G of OCZ Performance PC3200 Ram (Dual Channel)ATI Radeon X800Pro PCI-E (Catalyst 5.5 @ 540/560)SoundBlaster Live 24bitSaitek Cyborg EvoWinXP SP1