I've been flying FS2004 since it came out. My system started out As an Athlon 2000+ with 512mb DDR266 RAM and a Ti4200 video card. Worked well and with the settings turned low enough it was certainly flyable. But lately I've been craving more performance. First I ordered another 512 MB DDR266 ram (to total 1gb). That helped alot with texture loading and such, but I still couldn't fly with antialiasing on or the detail settings very high. Then I upgraded to an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. I could now notch the sliders up a touch and could fly with AA on and recieve resonable framerates, but it would still bog down when flying into a large airport with AI traffic and some weather.So this past weekend I decided to bite the bullet and do a major PC upgrade. My specs are now:AMD Athlon 64 3200+Asus K8V SE Deluxe motherboard1 gb DDR400 RAMATI Radeon 9800 Pro (carryover from previous system)With this upgrade my 3DMARK2001SE score went from 13509 to 19817!!!WOW, what an improvement. I have my FPS set to max 22 and I have only once dipped below that...to about 18 for about a second when flying out of LAX and panning around outside the PMDG 737-800. Otherwise it's so silky smooth I can't believe it. With all my settings the same as my old box, I am now getting 22 FPS (limited to 22, would probably get more!) where I used to get 8-10 from the cockpit of the PMDG 737 departing KSEA. No more slideshow on landings! Feels so much better to hand fly. Just wanted to let ya'll know if you didn't already...FS2004 needs above all else, PROCESSOR POWER. :)That's all...time to go fly again!Nate

HI Nate,congrats on Your new rig...Sheesh, I guess I'll do similar when my tax refund comes next week. Already got the RAM and Radeon, but my processor is a 2700+ running on a NForce2 Board.Can anyone comment on performance of the Athlon XP3200+ compared to the Athlon64 3200+? Nearly the same? Much worse? Anyone, please?ThanksTorsten

I get the impression from posts around these forums that the A64 cleans up on an XP of similar rating when it comes to detailed situations in this game. For example, my system (specs below) can pull up to 70fps steady in heavy iron cruise and peak into the low 100s. But if I park my PMDG 737NG at EGLL, switch to VC, all sliders right, 100% AI (UT - all gates full), load nasty weather, and throw a few panels to my left and right monitors, I am graced with a throbbing 7fps. Now if an A64 can pull me up to 17fps or greater in similar settings, as some people around here say that they get (probably not with multimonitor though), then I'm seriously tempted to cough up the cash for the upgrade.Gary

Seems to be fairly close. Some tests the 32bit 3200+ seems to be ahead, others the 64 bit does. Either way, it's not a very big gap between the two. I doubt you'd see any actual performance difference to the naked eye between a regular 3200+ and a 64bit 3200+ in FS2004. MAYBE an FPS or two, but not double all else being equal.http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040106/a...64_3400-15.html

Glad to here about your improvments I am thinking of a similar system Athlon 64 3500+ instead, and the graphics card would only be a GeForce 4 for the moment, but still, that's good to here how much better it is!

i just ordered a 3500+ and an 6800GT tonight. i can't wait, im running a 1.6 p4 with a gf3ti500 right now.and to answer the previous question, the athlon64 chips are clearly faster than their xp counterparts by a pretty good leg (in 32-bit apps) in every benchmark i've seen. the athlon xp chips always seemed to lag behind their p4 counterparts, but the new athlon64 chips are more on par with the p4's (in 32-bit apps). Athlon XP is a good budget CPU, but if you can afford it, definately look for a Athlon64 or a P4.The biggest bargain right now (i think) is the athlon 3400+. only problem is that it's on the 754 mobo, which will limit your upgrade options in the future. however, if you're not going to be swapping CPUs on the same mobo, the athlon 3400+ is definately the sweet spot right now in terms of price for performance (in the AMD systems at least).

A64 isn