The thread "WOULD IT BE WORTHWHILE TO UPGRADE FROM ATHLON XP 2800+ TO ATHLON 64 3500+" in this forum, covered an upgrading of my CPU and mobo, with lots of help and suggestions in the different messages. An overlaying message though, was that my graphics card (an Albatron GeForce4 ti4200 Turbo 128MB) was throttling my new CPU. Rather than adding to the thread, I have created a sequel about upgrading my graphics card since it has relevance to several current messages on the forum.I had planned on getting a Nvidia 6600GT ($Can 300), I have been a Nvidia fan for years, but some of the messages were suggesting that the improvement would not be that significant over my Ti4200, particularly with clouds, a real fps gobbler. Fortunately, before doing so, I had several strokes of luck.Firstly, a friend got a new Dell which had the ATI Radeon X800SE on it. I had seen Flight Sim on an ATI 9600 at our local Seniors Centre and was not impressed by the colours and textures, but did note that the frame rates were much higher than on my machine at home. But when I went and saw my friend's machine, I was very impressed so started re-assessing ATI (it is amazing the way you get stuck with computer loyalties, I just couldn't visualize moving from Nvidia!).Then secondly, I got an e-mail from Jaap, who gave me all sorts of good advice and pointed me to the Rojakpot website where I could compare the parameters of all the Nvidia and ATI cards

Hi Nigel, great news and thanks for the kind words. I also don't like the v.5.4 drivers too much, v.5.2 seemed ok and I haven't tried v.5.3. NL2000's Schiphol is probably more a drag on the CPU than anything else. I don't know whether one could remove a couple of scenery objects to improve this? In your sig you mention 4 suckers and 1 blower, I hope the suckers are into-the-case suckers because otherwise you're risking to produce an underpressure inside the case. Again, thanks for the kind words and great feedback, I'm glad to have been of service. It's this kind of detailed feedback which makes posting worthwhile. Take care Nigel, good luck and kind regards Jaap

nigel..what are your sliders at and what type of frames can you get with the x80xl? im looking into the x800 series. I think i would go from 24FPS to around 40 atleast on near max settings.as far as the NL2000 scenery goes, it killed my system. I think i got 13. I removed it. Very nice, but deadly on frames for some reason..

Hi jaap,just curious as of what your specs are? :)i havent forgotten all your help back in december that you helped me make for a new "budget" system.I do plan for the X800 or 6800. I run at 1280x1024. So would the 6800 be better?

Hi Chase, my rig has been pretty much the same in the past 14 months and I 'only' changed the mainboard a couple of times. I'll add the current rig below. Anyway, what to get and what to recommend? As usual a hard call. I think it depends most on what you plan to do on the display side for the duration of the component, your budget, the kind of software you use and where you weigh your priorities with FS. Maybe also which other hardware upgrades you're looking at over time. I.e. find an answer whether you still want to invest into AGP or not? From multiple reports and some personal tests, I've concluded that 128-bit cards (this is the most common factor) like your 9600pro, or 6600 Geforces aren't powerful enough to do FS in full glory @ 1280x. They'll do 1024x very well but at larger resolutions they don't seem to suffice and specially for eye-candy junkies. So, for 1280x I'ld generally recommend a 256-bit card. Here's the link to Rojakpot Nigel mentioned for the specific technical details reg. Geforces: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?locat...&var1=88&var2=1Here's the same list for Atis: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?locat...&var1=88&var2=0At this point I'll note that -unfortunately- there's no optimal solution. Geforces still suffer with clouds and Atis have the tendency to shimmer. P

Hi ChaseWhat frames do I get? It's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string! There are just so many variables.I have been using Schiphol of NL2000 as one bench mark and it is good for a bottom line, I have not shown much improvement there but it is now just flyable. But flying elsewhere is great. As I mentioned, at my CYVR, frame rates more than doubled at 26R spot plane view from about 14fps to over 30 with AI at 45%, and if I increased AI to 100% they dropped to about 24fps. The best feature is bad weather where they do not drop much, if at all

Hi JaapYes the sucks are into the case. I am e-mailing you an article on cooling that I found at www.gdhardware.com which I have found very useful for guidance.I tried installing the new Omega drivers and they turned out be a disaster, my machine didn't like them at all and I couldn't even get into FS9, said I had invalid video drtivers. I followed the instruction of uninstalling all previous ATI files and re-installing my chipset drivers but to no avail. Yet other recent messages have people really praising themNigel