So many nice stuff has happened since I installed this card. I won't bore you with the details but all I can say is besides awesome performance and visuals in FS, the thing makes my whole rig run better. I do some digital audio with Gigastudio and that even is become perfect since losing my Radeon. This card is recommended by yours truly as an Editor's Choice if I do say so myself :() Noel

How do digital audio affect your video card :)

Good question. I don't know. I DO KNOW though that as complex as Windows is it wouldn't surprise me if there were some unanticipated interactions.Here is what happened. I have been using a m-Audio Audiophile 2496 for some time on this Win2K machine for running Gigastudio. In the 2496's driver, one has the choice of the dma buffer size and codec sample rate. You have to understand I am serious tweaker when it comes to trying everything under the sun to improve performance. With Gigastudio, one shoots for as close to zero latency as possible in the audio subsystem. I am playing the usual huge sample sizes in this disk streaming sample playback software. There is an inverse relationship between DMA buffer size and latency. The lowest possible setting on the Audiophile is 64. I had to have codec sample rate at 44K or less, and a dma buffer of 256 with the Radeon in place, otherwise I would get the typical pops, crackles, etc with any kind of playing (piano samples of 2GB or so in size). This translates to 5ms latency was the best I could get. This was true with all Catalyst drivers, with the leanest of boot ups and all other known tricks, etc. 5ms max. Since I put in the 6800, I am running Gigastudio at 96K sample rate, at a DMA buffer size of 64 and it is absolutely flawless. Not a crackle to be heard no matter what I'm playing. This translates to essentially zero latency. Amazing, and I don't know why. Also, with TW04 we used to get random desyncs on online play with our 9700s, or half lock ups where your mouse would move but the game would freeze, and for the past year we continually tried stuff and would be thinking it was just "too much network traffic" or that powerstrip was running or any of a number or red herrings. Nothing seemed to hold up forever. Since 6800 came along, not one, nada, lockup ever. Great . . . GREAT product.Cheers,Noel

TW 04 I totally understand since it

Can you tell us how good it performs compared with your old radeon card? And how high the fps are in some standard situations (I know it's difficult because of all the different possible settings and addon's), but can you max out everything with addon Ai traffic, photorealistic scenery, high-quality plane like the pmdg 737 series and realtime weather still get perfectly playable framerates(>25 fps)?I very curious!:-jumpyregards,Claudio:-kewl

Feel free to guess why. I am just reporting the reality of the results I reported. What do you know about latencies in midi samplers? It has to do with the kernal level efficiency of the GSIF driver, and different audio cards and machine specs will determine performance. All I can tell you is that the new video card suddenly changed the latency best of my delta card. I could be Par, that even without a robust video interface, that their are connections that come into play.Noel

Here is what I am set up with: 1600 x 1200 x 4xAA x 16xAF, Highest Quality38m or better terrain meshActiveCameraActiveSky (7 layers of weather)Flight Deck CompanionMax cloud settings--except for top slider at 80m(sight distance or something)Default cloud texturesMax everything elseMax soundPMDG 737NGPMDG B1900DFlight1 Piper MeridianEaglesoft Citation XIn all aircraft EXCEPT the PMDG 737NG, performance is always smooth, with frame averages from 20 to 35 or more. This is in dense weather and with very complex scenery, such as around Seattle. Having done the FS-GS service, I am focused most on smoothness over all else. Thus, some runs in the high teens that are silky smooth are ok by me. I use a lock of about 34 for most areas of my flights, which it maintains quite well. In a big terminal, with weather, the 737NG still can bog down, but not to less than about 18-22. The Radeon would have choked to about 10-12. I was not able to run 4x AA with the 737NG prior to the 6800. To be honest, it is rare to not have near perfection at all times with all other aircraft with this card. Even so, every once in a while she slows down. In fact I saw a 12 the other day while in the 737NG. But usually, it is locked at around 34. I think, in a nutshell, you get about ~70% improvement over the Radeon 9700. But I am comparing 4x AA against 2xAA, and that has a big hit in dense weather. That's alot of smooth flights through clouds and weather that didn't happen too much before. Textures load exceedingly fast. The card is extremely stable, has stereo drivers ready to go, and has excellent visual quality. I would give the 2xAA crown for IQ to nVidia. I prefer this setting for TW04 over 4xAA. And actually FS looks better with nVidia's 2xAA over Catalysts'. But 4x looks the best. I am graced with an exquisite testbed for image quality--a Sony GDM-F520 21" crt w/ 2048x1536 resolution and .22 dot pitch. Noel

I know nothing about midi thus I ask :)Really nice performance there. Did you play with mip map levels anything when corresponding with FSGS?I will have my system up soon so will see what I can expect.

Hi Noel,"Having done the FS-GS service,..."Wayhey...nearly missed that one ;)Dare we ask how you got on? I for one would love to hear about your experience.http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...sg_id=159&page=Any aileron challenged a/c in your hangers yet...maybe too soon to be asking :)Regards,Mike

I agree, they're a nice, quick card.I have to return mine though, its getting artifacts already :(

Dang John that is a bummer. So far so good here. Noel

Yeah, looks like an excellent card. I "studied" this card against ATI's X800 Pro. Read every possible review. Same price and FS2004 performance seems almost identical (at least based on various reviews). But X800Pro wins just tiny bit in image quality in FS2004 - particularly in cloud "puffiness" and water reflections (less banding).Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

In MSFS, the X800 and 6800GT look about the same. The GT is a quicker card with more pipelines etc.Either choice, you can't lose.

It

>In MSFS, the X800 and 6800GT look about the same.That's the whole point. I compared X800Pro with 6800GT in terms of image quality - hardocp.com has some great side-by-side images and in my opinion (and theirs) X800Pro wins - albeit slightly. And specially in terms of water reflection - which I am an absolute sucker for. And price and performance otherwise being the same my choice is easy. I personally don't care for other games or how many pipelines are on the card. So if FS2004 likes 6800 it must love X800Pro. ;-)Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg