Hey there I just needed some sugestions on what u think. I have a new computer with on board sound and video card, The sound crakles and I can't use 3D clouds or frame rates drop into the singles.The rest isP4 3.2 Ghz HT1 MG DDR Ram200 HDDVD and DVD burnerWindows XP350 Watts power supplyIntel Augsburg D915GAGL-G1 Mother BoardI was looking at the Radeon 800 Pro 512 MB PCI express 16 Pin since I have the Slot for it or would I be better with a 850 something or other PCI express at 256 MB. And the sound Card a descent one.Thanks for your time. Scot

Hi Scot,Video card: Depends on budget. Right now, NVIDIA is on a roll with the releases of the 7800GTX and the more recent 7800GT. I've been a big fan of ATI in the past (some readers may remember me raving about the 9800 Pro, which lasted me for nearly 2.5 years, almost unheard of in the graphics card market) but it's had problems with the as yet, unreleased R520 so I'd go for NVIDIA for the time being.Sound card: Creative Labs pretty much owns the market right now. I've read that the Audigy 4 is good but not good enough to worth the hefty price tag. I'd go for the Audigy 2 ZS series.Hope this helps.Edwin

Thanks for the help, So your prefer the nvidia, I'm only used to getting 17-19 fps with what I have. I would like to max out the settings and just wanted a card to handle it. For the sound card thats about what I had my eye on. Hows your FPS and at what settings. sliders and e.g. 1280X1024X??.

Scot,See my post here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...11097&mode=fullSystem specs:AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ CPUThermalright XP-120 heatsink and Delta 12cm fanASUS A8N-SLI motherboardCorsair TWINX1024-4000PRO 1GB RAM2x Western Digital Raptor 360GD in RAID 0Leadtek PX7800GTX graphics card (Forceware 77.77 drivers)Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZSLite-On DVD readerLite-On CD-RW writerCooler Master ATC110 caseAntec TruePower 2.0 550W power supplyViewsonic VP201b 20.1" LCD monitorKlipsch Promedia 5.1 Ultra speakersMicrosoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro keyboard and mouseMicrosoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystickMicrosoft Windows XP Professional with SP2Hope this helps.Edwin