Hi,I realize that the upgrade question is relative to my system and the price of the upgrade. Currently my older Ati 9800 is providing good FPS and visuals once the textures load. I can get the card for around $210 US. I have to stay with AGP as my MoBo will not support PCI Express. I'm looking for faster load times for my MegaScenerys and hopefully some improvement in "the blurries". I have tweaked the fs9.cfg to minimize the blurrie effect but could use some additional improvement. As always any good increase in performance is a factor. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.JayDubLian-Li Aluminum PC-60 CaseAntec 400W ATX 12V Power SupplyAMD ATHLON 64 3500+ 90nm Winchester CoreAbit AV8 - 3rd Eye VIA K8T800 Thermaltake A1172 CPU HeatsinkATi 9800 with Omega 5.60 Drivers1GB Corsair DDR 3200Windows XP SP2

Display adapters connect to displays or specific resolutions... Why is it, that folks hardly ever make this connection..? I'm stumped. :-) You probably won't see a benefit if you're @ 1024x now.

baksteen33 Now you have me confused big time. Not sure what point you are making. But in any case too late, bid for and won a new ATi X850 XT AGP card on eBay last night at a great price close to what I would have paid for the 850Pro.... These cards are almost impossible to find now that the rest of the world seems to have moved to PCIexpress. I can only hope it works out for me as will be staying with AGP for for quite awhile...... Many owner reviews indicate large performance boost from the Ati 9800pro to this card, and I had the lowly 9800 non pro version. Any more info you can provide appreciated. Even though I build this system myself from scratch, and have upgraded the mobo cpu twice. I have been known to make a mistake or two along the way. Hope this isn't one of them......... Thanks for replyJayDub

Sorry if I confused you, JayDub. Your new header is very funny! :-) Whether you'll see a difference or not depends on the resolution you use (provided you have an adequate CPU). Since many folks use 1280x these days, there's a fair chance you'll see an improvement compared to the 9800. At a 1024x or lower resolution, you shouldn't notice a difference. AFAI would dare to judge, it's almost impossible to see a big boost when going from a standard 9800 to a 9800pro since the basic technical data of both models is pretty much the same. If this does happen with the b.m. cards, something else was probably poorly configured. Typically, a better card will allow you to increase resolutions whilst maintaining relatively high AA/AF levels. Again, provided you have a decent CPU to power that high-end GPU. In numbers, going from 1024x to 1280x is also practically doubling the amount of pixels which need to be rendered (750k vs 1.3million). This is what computing and particularly gaming is all about. As you probably know, FS performance increases usually derive form better CPUs, not GPUs. It's 'only' important to have the right display adapter for your display. IMHO, display adapter questions without a mention of the display (and/or resolution) plus some other system details are hard to answer and often lead to 'non-conclusive' replies. Of course the best display adapters are the best, buuuttt, the question should be: Is the best (or any specific) component really the best for MY particular setup? Without proper specification, it could result in dumping a lot of money for absolutely nothing at all. Only few posters will insist on getting more FlyTendo infos before posting their ideas. Then, you'll often see responses like: 'Sure, best card around!' Or alike... Conclusion: If you think display when thinking display adapters, you can hardly make a mistake. :-) Please excuse me if my first reply wasn't clear or helpful enough and I hope I improved my performance! :-) Wish you heaps of fun with the X800XT, kind regards Jaap For your reference, below is a site which lists technical details of Radeon GPUs (at the bottom of this page there's a link to the same in Geforce): http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=0

Jaap,Good information and much appreciated. Have been running FS9 at 1600x1200 resolution for the last 2 years and will never be able to go back to less...... My AMD 64 3500+ should be ok for another year or so. Hopefully the match with the new ATI X850XP will be a good one................ Thanks again.JayDub

You're welcome, JayDub. And there ya go, 1600x is key. :-) You'll almost certainly see a difference, specially if you didn't have the 256MB 9800pro (which is pretty rare). GDDR2 vs GDDR3, plus a couple of extra pipelines, etc, should do a nice job in combination with your CPU. Have fun and kind regards Jaap