And can tell us about the difference in FS2004 performance you have seen since installing the new card? ;) I am just curious. I don't plan on getting one these new cards for while but I'm surprised that no one(ok, maybe one person did) around here has posted about having gotten one and what the result was, yet.I know these new cards are pretty darned expensive, which is why I don't have one yet. I should quit buying addons for a while. :-lol But I am pretty surprised there isn't a couple of people that have upgraded to one yet and came on here to post about the glory of it! Or about how it only made a ho-hum not too big a deal difference, if that is the case.Cheers,JimFootnote: The one person I have seen that got one of these cards and posted didn't really say what the 'difference' was in performance in comparison to an older card, such as an ATI 9700, or 9800, Nvidia Ti4600, or 5950, ect. Or at least not enough to satisfy my curiosty I guess you could say.

Hi Jim,I don't think there are too many of these cards on the street yet. I did read on a board last weekend that some X800 XT's were selling in Mesquite, TX from CompUSA's Internet shipping store... some folks were able to walk in and buy one. Haven't heard of any 6800 Ultras available yet.I'm waiting at a few months before going to these new cards. As it is now there are few systems available that can take advantage of what the cards offer. I recently got a great deal on a 9800 Pro (that easily flashed to an XT BIOS and is running at 425/398 24/7). I'll stick with it for a while till the dust settles.Evenso, I agree that it will be interesting to read the first reports of these cards in this forum.Cheers,Greg

GregHow did you flashed your 9800pro??'TIATunka

You first must make sure that your card has an R360 (XT) core. If it doesn't then you'll be making nothing but alot of heartache for yourself. Mine does (as do most 9800 Pros made by various vendors since the first of the year). You then have to find a video BIOS that matches the core/memory combo of your card.The actual flashing is done in DOS, and is very easy. There are alot of BIOS choices out there (especially for the Pro cards that have R360/Samsung combos... mine is an R360/Hynix card and there are fewer choices). I flashed my card to a modified HIS BIOS for a R360/128 Mb Hynix 2.8ns card). Windows sees my card as an XT with default speeds of 412/365.You must remove the cooler on your card to check the core. Despite what some software packages may tell you the only way to know for sure is to LOOK at the core. R350 is the Pro core, R360 the XT. Find out what your memory is on your card and you're good to go.If you wish to check your card (core/memory) I'll be happy to assist you in choosing the best BIOS (whether you have an R350 or R360). None of it is rocket science... I find it much easier to flash the video BIOS than my motherboard BIOS.Greg

>Hi Jim,>>I don't think there are too many of these cards on the street>yet. I did read on a board last weekend that some X800 XT's>were selling in Mesquite, TX from CompUSA's Internet shipping>store... some folks were able to walk in and buy one. Haven't>heard of any 6800 Ultras available yet.>>I'm waiting at a few months before going to these new cards. >As it is now there are few systems available that can take>advantage of what the cards offer. I recently got a great>deal on a 9800 Pro (that easily flashed to an XT BIOS and is>running at 425/398 24/7). I'll stick with it for a while till>the dust settles.>>Evenso, I agree that it will be interesting to read the first>reports of these cards in this forum.>>Cheers,>>GregHi Greg,Thanks for the reply. Even though the cards were released(?) over a month ago I guess we just have to be patient and wait. Sounds like the release of the Intel P4 Extreme Edition. Released yes, could you actually get one? No, not until months later. At least that is what I heard. I wouldn't know, I didn't try to buy one.I would be interested in hearing what system you believe is necessary to take advantage of these new cards.Cheerio Mate,Jim

"I would be interested in hearing what system you believe is necessary to take advantage of these new cards."LOL This is just my opinion (which is worth a bad cup of coffee and a handful of spit), but I believe these new video cards are way beyond any system currently available. When all is considered--- system bus, memory, OS capabilities, CPU speed--- these new cards are waiting for things to happen within the system. This is especially true of applications like MSFS that are more system intensive than VC intensive. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't kick one of these new cards out of my house if someone gave me the beast, but I'll stay with what I have for a while. At least until my next major upgrade (maybe later this year based upon what's happening in the hardware arena).The card I have now offers me alot of bang for the buck. FS9 runs very nicely on my system (now that I've Terrain.cfg'd away the seasonal CTD's), so I'll stand pat.Cheers,Greg

They are very hard to come buy. I will have a X800XT PE coming in ev tomorrow if I am lucky but since my mainboard aren

I look forward to reading your report of your new video card.Cheers,Greg

Dell is selling them now, or at least in Canada-www.dell.ca. They use the PCI Express bus so need the new motherboard with the new Intel chip set. I'm going to let it all shake out for a few weeks but I want one!!!! :-)billg

You can also get a standard AGP X800XT..I am interested in hearing about their performance. :)

With this card, i notice an increase in the FPS aprox. to the double compared with my previous Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro.Very smooth, stable, the image quality is superb but i think the 'drivers' are now born !!! so we must wait until ATI give to this 100% value.Most of the time i fly with PMDG 737NG / PSS / AS2004 ...I can tell you for sure that for now is the 'Queen' for FS9 !!!Asus P4T533cPentium4 3.06Ghz HTSamsung 1Gb RDRam PC800GeCube/ATI Radeon x800 Pro 256mbPauloLPPT

Does it now AA the lines covered by alpha? (You know how some horizontal lines were all fuzzy)

Hi John,Sorry, about your question, but could you please be more detailed about your question ??? or i will try post a screen shot !!!PauloLPPT

>With this card, i notice an increase in the FPS aprox. to the>double compared with my previous Hercules 3D Prophet 9700>Pro.>>Very smooth, stable, the image quality is superb but i think>the 'drivers' are now born !!! so we must wait until ATI give>to this 100% value.>>Most of the time i fly with PMDG 737NG / PSS / AS2004 ...>>I can tell you for sure that for now is the 'Queen' for FS9>!!!>>Asus P4T533c>Pentium4 3.06Ghz HT>Samsung 1Gb RDRam PC800>GeCube/ATI Radeon x800 Pro 256mb>>Paulo>LPPTAhhh, Thank You Paulo. :) I had heard that these newer cards were supposed to nearly double your frame rates just by getting one of them. I am currently using an ATI 9700 Pro and am happy to hear that I can expect a large increase in performance with a new ATI X800 model of card. :DBy the way, what resolution do you run the sim at, how much Anti-Aliasing do you use, and how high is your traffic slider? Do you use a Traffic addon?My settings are 1600x1200 resolution, 4X AA in my 3D display settings(in-game AA unchecked), and in-the-sim Trilinear Filtering checked. I use MyTraffic 2004 with AI Traffic slider at 100%.Cheers,Jim

I use in FS9 the current settings:All the sliders max (only...MIP mapping quality=4)1280x1024x32 (Samtron/CRT monitor 96BDF 19")AA=4xAF=8X (16 will be the same perform.)Traffic slider=40% (100% will be the same perform.)No traffic addonBilinear filteringbut i can tell you that i still continue in the process of tests for this card and the results are VERY GOOD.I think the next set off new drivers (Cat. 4.7) will be better than this ones.I use always the Omega drivers (now 4.6)My 9700 was the best card for me, but with the x800 i have the Ferrari and the Lamborghini in the 'pole position';) PauloLPPT