Currently I would say my machine isn't too bad.. ASUS A8V DELUXEAMD64 3500+1GB GIEL RAM LOW LATENCYX850 XT PE ATI 256MB.. on AGPStandard HDs.. SATA II.. no 10,000rpm jobs..At the moment it chomps FS9 without too much of a problem at all.. I get pretty good frame rates for it.. at 1600x1200.. which is the res I usually run it at... with pretty much everything maxed out... Even with the PMDG 747 running it's pretty smooth really.. only pausing a little between switching views.. but it's nothing to get frustrated about..Bascially.. since my system is AGP.. I'm a bit restricted in terms of video cards.. and FSX kills my PC totally.. it just starts smoking and falls off the desk.. So I am in need of some more grunt.. The problem is upgrading to a PCI-E system is going to cost a lot.. I've priced a decent system up with the 8800GTS card on it for about

If you're looking to smooth out FS9 and run it at faster frames than now and/or with the sliders pushed up further, that'll probably make enough of a difference to warrant buying the new card. If your intent is to make it run FSX, save your quid for the next machine.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

>Currently I would say my machine isn't too bad.. >Nor would I! Maybe you, I and others (some may be reluctant to ask if the only answer is get a new box) are asking the wrong questions.What I can't figure out is how many users are running FSX on a less than state of the art latest and greast box. Unfortunately I have not found a lot of benchmarks on FSX where older machines are configured.I am sure there must be people running FSX who are not on a dual core, quad core, or pentium D/Athlon equivalent CPU who are also doing enjoyably well with the FSX product. They may not be pushing 140 frames/s but I, and aparently you, wonder what they are seeing for frames 10, 30, 45, 60 and how the rendering looks?The experiences from those folks who are not on todays most recently introduced CPU's, GPU's would add a lot of beef to this forum. Knowing how they are configured would give many of us breathing room while we prepare for bigger and state of the art machines in the not to distant future.It just is not sound financial reasoning that anyone wanting to run FSX has to go immediately out and spend a lot of cash.Let's see if a few good men or ladies will step up to the plate and take this question on.Monty

If you are looking to smooth out the sim I would say focus more on the cpu than anything, I have tried countless upgrades to get fs to perform better, I used to have almost the same video card you have actually. The most noticeable improvement was a long while back. I had an old gateway from 2001, a p4 with a crap nvidia gpu that i dont know the name of. I got a solid 12 fps with that, upgrading to a radeon 9800 pro solved my stutters in the clouds. After that I upgraded to the x800xt pe and saw absolutely no change at all (which really sucked after spending $700 at the time). Then I built a new pc and the move from a p4 to an amd 3800x2 and oc'ing it made the most difference. So I would say to wait until you have the cash to buy an INTEL cpu. (I would have been much better off if I bought an e6600 instead of the 3800, even at 2.8) Fs is mostly cpu intensive so I dont think buying a new gpu will solve all of you problems. So I would wait, and rebuild your pc for fsx, get a new 8800 from nvidia which will drop in price by that time, and get an intel cpu (or if you wait long enough the k8l from amd might be the way to go when it comes out). That will make the most difference with fs9 or x.

Good point Monty. Here goes: OS XP home SP2 P4CPU 3GHz, 2 GB DDR SDRAM (I recently added 1 to the stock 1024 MB)at 400 MHx, 128 MB DDR ATIRadeon 9800, 200GB HD 7200 rpm. I also have A WD USB 400 GB HD. FSX is on it, nothing else.Using default c172 at KLAX in FS9 frame rate49-62 with Megascenery SoCal v2 installed.Using default c172 at KLAX in FSX frame rate 7 to 12 with DEFAULT scenery and all scenery sliders min .I can see no benefit to an equipment upgrade just to hope FSX will work. Besides FS9 is much smoother and I have all of the West coast Mega scenery plus Mid east. I just conclude FSX was a bad purchase judgment on my part. Doug

The only reason I upgraded to a new pc was because fs9 was so bad (blurries like crazy and about 13 fps), so now fs9 runs decent and I have no intention of buying fsx, so if you can live with fs9 the way it is I dont see much point in upgrading the gpu, just keep it the way it is until you can afford a completely new system. Buying that card will only put you in a bad place for future upgrades because i don't think it will make any difference at all for fs9 now, so by the time you inevitably need a new pc a much better gpu will be on the market for the same price.

I'm in a siliar position, so I'd say get the full rig, but wait a bit at that.There's fair price cuts coming, and the DX10 stuff. I'm waiting until Summer for my next go at a PC (now almost 4 years old, but works just fine- mostly)By getting into a new mobo, you can capitalize on multicore (dual OR quad) Plus AMD's K8L will arrive. We'll need to see about performance on that chip. Intel very clearly rules the game right now.

Thanks for the replies folks..The problem is.. like I said.. I've priced up 2 very good machines and I'm looking at

If you want to see any return you will need a new system. But I think the wise choice would be to wait because if you buy an intel and get just ok fsx performance and amd comes out with their new k8l and it blows the competition away having an intel socket mobo will put you in a bad place to upgrade to get that blazing performance, amd should be sticking with am2 for a little while. But right now you dont know for sure how good k8l will be. Its just not looking good for fsx alone right now in terms of fps with the current good hardware, even though some people with the intels are doing ok with some tweaking. So I would say wait and see who takes the market in the future, this could mean waiting from 6-12 months from now until amd gets their k8l out.