I bought this system to use in college. I am 53 and was into Flight Sim many years ago. This system was never intended to be a gamimg system. I know Flight Sim is not a game but to run it with all things on max you need a so called gaming system. The FS 2004 bug bit and I am now flying again. Like most on here I started wanting and needing higher frame rates. The sim is great if you have the machine to run it in all it's glory. I have read a lot of post on here about frame rates, memory, and so on. My system is a 3 Ghz Intel mobo with 1 mb level 2 cache. I have 512 mb ddr ram. My video card is an ATI 300 128mb PCI Express. I was confused after reading so much on here about what was really needed to run FS9 to the max. I went to CompUsa and picked out the ATI 700 Pro XL PCI Express 256 mb. When I bought it I told them if I did not like it I was going to return it. With the ATI 300 I could run at 1280 by 764 but could not fly in anything but severe clear. Any weather added and my machine was brought to its knees. After installing the ATI 700 everything was maxed out and frame rates were huge. In severe clear 40 to 50 with everything maxed out at 1280 by 1024. That is as high as my LCD moitor will allow. With storms and heavy rain the least I had was 25. I have USA Extreme Landscapes and some FSGenisis stuff and FScene. I toook the card back and will purchase the 800XL PRO when they get it in stock. I was going to order more mem as I thought that would also be a bottle neck. With the 700 card installed the sim loaded very fast and unloded very fast also. I will still get the mem but the video card plays, in my opinion, the biggest roll here. Hope this post might help clear up some things for someone who is looking to upgrade. Would appreciate any tips anyone might think I need to know about for better frame rates or anything else hardware wise.

You seemed satisfied by the 700 card. Why'd you take it back then?Gary