WOW!!! I just upgraded the processor and motherboard in my computer from a P4 2.4 GHz to an AMD Athlon 64 3000+. I know it was only a 600 "MHz increase in speed" (realizing that the athlon is actulaly 400MHz slower), but it sure did make a difference!I didn't upgrade anything else, still have 512MB DDR 2700 and a GeForce 4 Ti4200, but WOW! I can't believe the framerate jump I'm getting! It's acceptable now to fly at Heathrow with Ultimate Traffic maxed out, and everywhere else things are very fluid.The only time my frame rate takes a dive seems to be when I'm in clouds. Do you guys think that that's because of my video card perhaps?To think, I really didn't notice all that much difference in speed when I went from an AMD 1.3 GHz to a P4 2.4 GHz, but I notice all KINDS of difference going to the AMD 3000+.For those contemplating a system upgrade, I'd recommend AMD for sure!Kenneth

Congrats... Just wanted to mention that, keep in mind, you didnt just upgrade to a 3.0 GHz... you upgraded to an Athlon 64. Big difference there. Once again... congrats, and enjoy your new system.

i did the same kenneth. from a 2.4 to an amd3000. pretty big difference. later i added another stick of 512ram to give me a good meg of ram. BIG WASTE!!! all the ram did was make things load faster. did absolutly NOTHING for simming. i'm NOT in so much of a hurry that i can't wait a FEW extra seconds for fs9 to load. god, that was really a waste of money. as far as i can tell the extra ram is useless other than loading time. what i did next was to go from a 5200 nvidia 128 card to a radeon 9600 card and that's where i see the difference. almost more so that the cpu upgrade. everything's alot sweeter now. have fun. william

Do you have antialiasing enabled? nvidia cards antialias the clouds. Also make sure you use Chris Willis cloud fixes for better performance. Clouds can be a killer definiatly. As for RAM it depends on the rest of your system. If you have a 9600 or slower you are unlikely to play with high res high aa/aniso levels and thus you don

If you only have FS running, and not many addons, then 512M is fine. It's when you start lumping on the addons and supporting programs that an extra 512M really comes into play. eg. If I am flying the PMDG 737NG using Activesky 2004 for weather, FSBuild for flight planning, my VA's ACARS program, VATSIM applications (eg. server info, SB relay, SB host), FS Realtime, MS Word for my flight details, and a couple of web browsers, all spread out over my three screens, then 1G makes the world of difference for smoothness and performance.Gary

Do you have Chris' replacement clouds (http://fsw.simflight.com/)?I think AMD has won this round hands down. I pretty much doubled my frame rates going from a P4 3.0 to an fx-55.

roger on the ram guys. thanks, william

Now you guys are making me regret I ever got my P4 system. See below for my computer specs.

I would not regret those system specs! I upgraded from a P3 2.4 to a P4 3.2 last fall. I saw a pretty substantial performance boost with that alone. I don

Clouds have always been the killer. I have a P4 3.4 hitched to an ATI800XT 256 meg vid card. When I get towering thunder-bangers, my frame rates can drop to 12-20 from the normal 30 FPS I run with. As soon as I clear them, I jump back to the stated 30 FPS.As you stated, only clouds seems to bleed frame rates.----------------Cheers!Mitch R.

That is super to know! Did you get the 939 90mm version? What motherboard did you pop the A64 in? Also, you are only using DDR 2700. I would suggest moving up to 3200 to take advantage of the higher bus speed of the A64 which is 400Mhz. The videocard will make all of the difference as well. I used to run a 4200ti in my computer but now run a 9800Pro and can crank out the max settings on clouds now. There are less stutters when you pop in another stick of 512 SDRAM.RH

the true test of how a machine runs is to download real NASTY weather in a BIG city. that's what i do and it's a scarey test to do after a major upgrade! if you guys are getting a big frame hit with the mainframe size computers you're running, then i won't even worry about the framerates anymore with downloaded BAD weather. guess the weather can't be beat. may be able to tame it a bit. it was my major concern regarding add-on aircraft. they fly fine as long as the weather is pretty good but when it gets bad...it gets bad. maybe that's just something i will have to live with. william

Or fly into O'Hare KORD... With AI at 95% +:)

gag me with a spoon! :} william

Thanks to everyone for all the comments! Just to touch on a few points from a couple of the posts...I didn't think it really made a difference at this point that it's a 64 bit processor. Windows x64 isn't out (in final) yet, and Flight Simulator hasn't been designed to take advantage of 64 bit. Whatever is the case though, it sure is faster!I've heard mixed opinions on the effectiveness of both RAM and video cards to fix the cloud frame rate problem, seems like there's a little more attention placed on the video card. That may be the next piece of hardware that I try to justify getting. I'll have to give Chris Willis' clouds a try regardless though. Is this FS Sky World that you're referring to, or another file?To RobbieHe... I put it in an Asus K8V-X, socket 754. You recommended going to PC3200 RAM... which would be better, going to 1GB of PC2700 or replacing the 512MB PC2700 with a 512MB PC3200?Ken