Hi, I am using FS 2004 on the following hardware MB Asus A7v8x-x with AMD Athlon 2400+ 32, NVIDIA GEFORCE FX 5200, 1GB RAM. I do have performance problems (slow build up of scenerey especially, when using add-on scenerey , e. g. German Scenerey and add-on aircraft, e. g. Katana). I am thinking about improving my system. What would be the best option: a) new graphics card (which one?):( new CPU (I have an option of exchanging either my CPU agains an AMD Athlon, 3000+ Barton 32 or exchanging the complete MB incl. CPU against an Asus K8V-MX with an AMD Sempron S754 3000+ 64)c) a completely different optionThanks in advanceRegardsMarty

Hi Marty,Frankly, you'll need to upgrade both CPU and GPU in order to get substantial improvements in performance. If purely for the sake of FS9 performance, then I'd lean a bit towards the CPU option since FS9 scales more with CPU. Having said that, I'm quite concerned that you'd be upgrading yourself into a dead-end since socket 754 will be phased out very soon.Any chance you could increase your budget a bit? How much exactly do you have to work with?Edwin

Edwin,thanks for answering. I know I'd be upgrading into a dead-end but this option seemed to be slightly cheaper than the other one (new MB) and for the next possible upgrade (maybe in a year) I might also upgrade the new MB into dead-end. Upgrading seems to be a neverending story and I tend to leave the PC as it is for a good while once it fulfills my needs. Currently I could get the option with the new MB plus new CPU plus new cooler for about 150,-

Hi Marty,Well, if your new MB/CPU/cooler is only going to cost 150 Euros and you have another 100 Euros to spend, you could get yourself a new VC as well. Say you substitute your motherboard for one with PCI Express (which would give you better upgrade options in the future anyway), then at 100 Euros, you could get yourself an X800GT 128MB or an 6600GT 128MB. That should give you a fairly nice boost in FPS (considering the budget).Hope this helps.Edwin