Ok, I'm still trying to sort out how best to maximize my older system - PIII 500, upgraded to a 1.2 Celeron. 384 RAM... upgradable to 768.The existing card is a Diamond Viper 770 Ultra 32.I don't know how to evaluate which new video card is right, i.e., which card will I get the most performance from without wasting money?And, as in the subject, I don't know how to tell if I should get a "better" video card, or if I can get better performance from adding a stick of 256 and buying a less expensive video card.I don't know how dependent FS 2k4 is on RAM, and I know more never hurts, but I'm wondering if I'd even see much of an increase just with adding 256 megs.Thanks,Andrew

Andrew,RAM - you are of course correct here. More is better. You will see a difference going from 384Mb to 640Mb.Vid Card - the TNT2 Ultra chip was fabulous in its day. Unfortunately, its day was 5 years ago. You can certainly benefit from an upgrade here.My thought would be buy the ram and then set your vid card budget according to the cash remaining.A word of warning here. Make sure that the card you are looking at will be compatible with your motherboard. My very recent experience... On Thursday I went out and bought an FX5700LE 256Mb card to replace my GF3. Problem was, I got absolutely massive texture tearing with the new card. Spent 6.5 hours straight trying to fix this problem. The only things that worked were limiting the AGP port to 2x in the BIOS and disabling T&L in the sim. Both of these 'solutions' had horrible impacts on frame rates, thus completely defeating the purpose of having bought the new card.Yesterday I bought a new motherboard, which supports AGP 8x, to replace my A7M266, which doesn't. Spent 2 hours transplanting MB's and I'm back in business. Lesson learned: Don't buy a Leadtek Winfast A360 FX5700LE if you have an old MB.Find out what your MB can support by way of AGP transfer rate. You might find that looking for something used on EBay would make more sense than buying a new card that will be handcuffed by the motherboard's limitations.Doug Dawson

Thanks Doug!I've just downloaded Ken Salter's FSAutostart app here, and will go get some more RAM.My motherboard only supports 2X... plus, I need a new power supply (mine's 200W) and will probably go to 350W.Regarding AGP transfer rate, how can I determine what my computer is capable of?CheersAndrew

Andrew,Sorry for the confusion. By transfer rate, I simply meant AGP 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. You indicate that your MB is limited to 2x.Doug

Aha!Thanks.

Hey Andrew,Did you ever consider buying a new system? In my opinion your system has come to the point where it cannot be upgraded anymore largely so you won't really benefit from an upgrade. Likely you'll get problems with hardware compatibility and finding drivers that still work with uptodate software. If you want to play fs2004 I would recommend you to buy a new system, sell the old one and be happy for the next 3 years!just my two cents,Claudio

Exactly buy a new system. Cheaper and you get more performance ;)

Hi Guys - Believe me, I would. It would also be a little hard to justify my purchasing/building a new system just for FS, as I don't exactly use it to make my living ;) Which is why, on my other desk, I have a G3 dual 2GHz... THAT one I do make my living with. Runs X-Plane, but it's not the same.I figure if I can somehow push my current system, I can get a lot more fun out of it, and when I can justify a new build, I'll keep this one to run my gauges...Plus, learning to maximize what I have is probably good prep for going from scratch.CheersAndrew

But you can still buy a faster computer used for less or equal money and if it don

I can't buy a faster computer if I want to keep this one running, I think, because:MotherboardCPU Video CardPower SupplyRamOSKeyboardMouseMonitor??

Well first of all Celeron is extremely crappy for gaming. You won

Well, I put the 1.2 Celeron in it like 2 years ago...Also, I just added 256 MB of RAM last night, since I figured I could use it anyway, and saw an immediate +5 FPS, so that's pretty nice.Again, I can't honestly see where a new motherboard, cpu, and video card can possibly be less expensive than, say, $300 or so, since i still need all the other stuff, primarily a power supply and a case.Now, if I could re-use my case and my hard drive, for now anyway, that might be another story, because I wouldn't have to buy a new OS - or would I?If you were in my position, what hardware would you purchase?Cheers and thank you for all your help!Andrew

You already got the Celeron I thought you where going to upgrade from the P 3 500 to it?Anyway! I bought you a new system for fun. Note I didn

btw why do you need 3 computers all suddenly if you have 2 now??

Excellent, thanks!The only thing you mention that I'm not familiar with is chip set drivers... not sure what they are. Also, I don't have another hard drive, but can get one, as they're always useful.And actually, Powerleap now makes a 1.4 Celeron, but as I have a 1.2 it's not worth the upgrade.RegardsAndrew