Hi GuysI would like to upgrade my system in the quest for better frame rates. Currently 2.4 Pentium 4, 1024RDRAM, 128 GeForce 4. Windows XP Professional. FS9.1.Should I upgrade to 3.06P4 or go for a 256MB card?If it's the card what card is best?Many thanksGerry

Hahaha,sorry Gerry, could'nt help but laugh when I read your post. It's a bloody nightmare for prats like us. Money to spend, but not a clue what to spend it on. According to the useful information I got on a similar quest for knowledge, as long as you have a decent card, you will see best results upgrading the CPU. I suppose it makes sense really, you'll never get Porsche performance out of a ford mondeo. Good luck.Russell.

Probably true if the video card is good, but is the geforce 4 a fast card? I'm not sure, being I don't really keep up with all the versions. Seems like thats an older model though, if I remember right...Myself, I'm convinced overall, the video will give the biggest increase if the card is semi-slow. Take my fx-5200 card which is overclocked a bit. It's the bottleneck on my system, not the CPU as far as frame rates. I can overclock my cpu to say 3 gigs, and the frame increase is quite small. So this question was easily tested here. I've had it up to 3.2...Not a drastic change over 2.4. Not what you might think anyway... 2.4 is a fast enough speed, that it takes quite a bit higher to really make a big difference. If I want big increases in frame rates, the only way I'll ever get them is to upgrade the video card. From my tests, a P4 2.4 is not much difference compared to a P4 3.0 if you are video card limited. The difference is small. I've tested it. The only real difference is a slight time decrease in any stutter's, loading, etc...Maybe 2-3 fps difference, if that, as far as video. Now if you have a card like the 9800 pro, or one of the newer whiz bang cards, of course, a higher CPU is the only option. But if your video is semi lame, I'd put my $$$ on better video any day. It will make the most difference. I could use a better video card myself, but I'm actually getting by ok with the 5200. I'm now clocking it at 315/425, compared to the 250/266 "safe mode" , and it's usable. I'm locked at 30, and many times I'm running about 30. medium dense cloud stuff, maybe 20, and in the killer cloud/dense scenery, I might drop down to 10-12 or so. But I'm running all scenery settings max, except for clouds, and AI. Running 1078 at 32 bit. All my clouds are 3d, but about 1/2 density, and I run AI at about 20% usually. Heck...If I set AI too high, it's hard to get a word in edgewise on the radio....:) BTW....A hotrod video card is nearly a MUST for high resolutions. Thats why I stay at 1078...I can go higher ok, but I prefer the slightly faster rates..1078 looks ok to me for the most part...If the frame drops are AI related, a cpu would probably do more unless the graphics of all the AI planes were the problem. Of course, there are special AI planes to reduce that load...MK

Thanks Guys. I also spoke to the local computer upgrade store. He reckons that the video card is the way to go. He also reckons that 3.06 will not give that much more compared to 2.4 and also that there are sometimes problems simply by installing a new CPU. ATI or nVidia that is the question?

ATI 9800 PRO 128 is what I would go with. Don