HiI currently have a prehistoric PC and would like to upgrade it to something a bit more sensible. I currently have an Athlon 1900+, a 64mb GeForce2 and 512mb of DDR RAM. I'm on something of a budget so I can't upgrade everything at once. My primary concern at the moment isn't framerates, but stuttering. And of course the fact that to get anything useful out of FS9 I need a DirectX 9 compatible card. The owner of the local computer shop (who also happens to be a simmer) recommended taht upgrading to 1gb of RAM and getting a new graphics card (something like a GF6600GT) should be the first thing I should do.Is this good advice? I'm concerned (and have been advised by others) that my slow processor would negate any improvements brought by getting a new card. On the other hand, surely I should buy the best card my budget can stretch to so that when I upgrade my processor I'll have a decent card already?My other concern is with future upgradeability. A new porcessor for me woule require a new motherboard. I've been looking a bit on this and othe forums and am a bit concerned by talk of AGP vs PCI Express. Not that I really understand it, but supposing I upgrade my graphics card now, will I be able to pgrade my processor (and motherboard) at a lter date with no problems or will I run into issues with differing standards?Many thanks for your helpMike

Hi Mike, hard to advise without an idea about the budget? Additionally, what kind of screen resolution do you use or intend to use? Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hi Jaap, thanks for replyingI'm in the UK and am looking to spend in the region of

And the res? Cheers

Hi again - sory for forgetting to post the res!At the moment I'm running FS9 at 1024x768 and find this to be acceptable. In an ideal world I'd prefer to run at a higher resolution, but my primary purpose is an increase in performance, so I'd happily remain running at 1024x768

Hi Mike, I insist on the res because IMHO, it is the thing 'the whole thing' evolves around. For example, if you'ld try lowering your current 1024x to 800x, you should see a slight improvement. I'm sorry I didn't ask a couple of other questions I should have asked, so here they come: When will you be able to invest next time? Are you prepared to buy and/or do you have access to second hand components? When upgrading little by little, are you intending to continue using the other components you have? Which OS is in use? It would be great if you listed everything. I.e. 2x256MB PC2100, HD, etc. I think you're right to have reservations about a 6600 not being sufficiently supplied with data because of the CPU. OTOH, a RAM upgrade will almost certainly help to reduce certain stutters (without a performance increase). If you're not tied to a specific display adapter brand and can live with 1024x, I would suggest looking into a Radeon 9600-class adapter for the moment being. They're much cheaper than the proposed 6600 and will likely perform just as well as the 6600 @ 1024x (specially with clouds). But then again, FS is a CPU hungry game and a true upgrade will only be achievable via a better CPU... Unfortunately and from what I've observed, England is a horrible place to buy new components. :-) Cheers, good luck and kind regards Jaap