Dear People, I have a Microstar MSI 6378 motherboard, AMD 2400+ CPU, 1GB of SDRAM 133, SoundBlaster Audigy 2 card, and Gainward Nvidia GeForce Mx 420 card (64Mb only). I have my Frame rates locked at 15 fps in FS2002.I can only afford to upgrade one component at this time, and I feel that the graphics card should be it. First question would you agree with that? I read, in another post on the MSFS forum, about someone advising another to get rid of the MX440 (mine is MX420; most likely very similar).Next question, is then, what card would you advise me to get? It has got to be a PCI card, because my MS6378 does not have an AGP slot!Any advise would be welcome, and thanks in advance to those that respond.

Well then if your MOBO doesn't have a AGP slot, I would say your first upgrade is a new MOBO.

Thank you for your response.Yes that would be nice. (Changing the motherboard and the whole system). But as I said in the original post, I cannot afford to do that. So the question is: Is there a better PCI card out there than the GeForceMX420?

I don

Thanks for the advice. i guess you are right. Best is to leave it the way it is until time to upgrade. I believe that this will be in time for FS 2006 (if there will be an FS 2006).I was looking to buy a used card that would be a minimal investment. Perhaps was not a good idea. I can live with what I have got till it is time to by a new PC.

Well since you are on FS 2002 now maybe you can upgrade to FS 2004 when FS 2006 come out? FS 2006 is surely to put even more demand on your computer and there isn

No I will not use FS 2004. I will go directly to 2006, the same way I did from FS 98 to 2002. And by the time I want to go to FS 2006, I will have a new pc for sure. I just hope that it will be good enough.Certainly when buying outdated components, used is the way to go. It can be soo much cheaper.Not that I am complaining with what I have now. I know the limitations, and live with them. Works good for me. Just that from time to time, the temptation to make it better comes!Thank you for your advice.

Hi Ejiro As others have aready mentioned, you're in a little bit of a dilemma there with a non-AGP mainboard. However, 'Intelligent Component Exchange' (ICE) can sometimes allow more than one component swap at a time... Generally, you have a powerfull CPU, tons of RAM, but your GPU-interface is definitely holding you back. It's a shame really. It's not SD-DDR RAM you have? How many sticks and how big are they each? Also, you probably won't be able to get much more than 16 frames out of the PCI bus anyway. I've tried this with a FX5200/128MB Gainward on 3 gig P4. Ca. 16 FPS was the result (@ 1024x w/ FS9). I tried this quickly after reading the thread yesterday. So no difference between your 420 and my FX5200. Now, since your RAM is your dearest component, your (in case) evaluation about the idea of changing your mobo, will be mainly determined by this factor. Besides, I'm not going to let you give up that easy, on you reaching the 20+ FPS heavens..! You have almost everything for a great system! I'ld say, you're maybe some 100 Euros away from getting 30% or more frames easy. You could even perhaps do it for 80-90 euros. Without selling anything. But still the RAM question remains? For a dual, SD/DDR board you''ll have to hurry. My local shop ran out of them two weeks ago (30 Euros sale!). I saw one or two simular models for 50 Euros (not on sale). If you have DDR, it's a totally different ball game. The cheapest, reasonable AGP display adapter is a (don't laugh!) Nvidia GF4-MX440-4000 (!), priced at roughly 40+ Euros. I hope I'm not disappointing you. But, I wouldn't feel good for having lead you down the PCI-path and recommended a relatively pricy PCI adapter. Specially if money is a concern. The PCI-interface has hit its limits a while ago... Is your case flexible enough to receive a new mainboard? Is your FlyTendo home-built? What's your power supply like? What's your max budget in Euros or Dolores? Perhaps you could send MSI an email asking for the missing AGP slot om your board. A la: Dear Sirs, I'm an owner of your mainboard Nr. etc, etc. Somehow, your factory forgot to mount tha AGP-slot. Would you please mind, still sending it to me, so I can solder it onto the board? Thanks for efforts in advance. Faithfully yours... YOUR signature. Hehe. Please Ejiro, don't give up too easy! Anyway, I hope this adds food to thought and I'm not banging on a closed door. Good luck for now and kind regards Jaap

Thank You, Dear Sir for your suggestions. No you are not banging on a closed door. Actually I am not surprised that the limitation is from the PCI bus; I have done a small bit of reading after I mad this post, and that was suggested as well.The RAM I currently have is SDRAM; two DIMM sticks of PC133 RAM each on 512MB. I know that even this is old technology, but I will live with it for the next year at least.My "Flytendo" was homebuilt; I out it together myself from a pre-selected list of components. (I did not do the selectin myself; it was available as one package from the website I found it on. Not that I would have made a better selection at the time.)The power supply is rated at 300W.Thank you again for the suggestions. I will investigate this option and see how it plays out. Would you happen to have any suggestions as to web sites where I could find such cheap components? I live in Norway, if that is any help.Thanks again, and best regardsEjiro.

Yes that RAM will definiatly hold you back too. Memory bandwidth and memory latency means so much for games. However 512 mb should be enough for FS 2002.Norway you could check out www.tradera.com. That is the biggest auction site here in Sweden I have found. And of course www.blocket.se. That site is huge!That is the two main sites for finding cheap used stuff in Sweden.Then you can also find some in www.64bits.se and it

>Yes that RAM will definiatly hold you back too. Memory>bandwidth and memory latency means so much for games. However>512 mb should be enough for FS 2002.>Please could be kind enough as to elaborate? I am afraid I do not understand what these term mean exactly. Is it that to say that 133 PC Ram is not good enough?Thanks a lot for the links, and for your help so far.

Well it

Heja Ejiro Sorry, but I don't have much time now. But I'll get back to you. 133 MHz RAM isn't that much slower than say 166 or 200 MHz RAM. I'll try to dig out a few boards part nrs. with flexible RAM slots. Another question: Is your RAM CL2 or 3? 2 being faster. I got to go watch some soccer now! Cheers Jaap

Not SDRAM 166 or 200 DDR Ram 166 200 ;) Those are twice as fast as the SDRAM equivalents.