I need some advice on purchasing a new/refurbished computer just to fly FS9. I have a dell 8250 P4 2.4 gig, 512Meg RDRAM and 5900XT video, which I am satisfied with in business activities such as spreadsheets etc. I thought about spending $200 just to increase my ram to 1 gig but I don

Carl; I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I doubt you'd see muchimprovement with that setup. Also I doubt very seriously if you'll be able to use your video cardas what you have is AGP whilst the one you're looking at is PCIExpress and I don't think there will also be an AGP slotx( Check out www.cyberpowerinc.com and see whats available forthe same money. Feel free to PM me if you need anything else.:-) DennyProfessional Tourist

Denny,Thanks for the site and info. It was hard to determine if the dell 8400 had an AGP slot. that is a a bummer. I have fallen behind on the latest processors and chip sets out there, especially the Athlons. Still living in the dark ages. What athlon is equivalent to the P4 3.4? I figured anything in the P4 3.0g and higher would give me improvement to my P42.4g.Will take a good look at the site you shared.Carl

Hi Carl; Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I had to make a quick lapfrom KC to Dallas-then Des Moines and am finally back in KC:-wave I bought my last rig from those folks, because I could get it fromthem cheaper than I could buy the parts and assemble it myself. I have upgraded twice though...Video Card and Processor:-lol My advice would be to not get in any hurry. If you have noticedyou can pretty well "Build Your Own" with these folks. So lots of things to consider. Now as a disclaimer; My personal OPINION of FS9 is...I don'tthink The Air Defence Command Computer at Cheynne Mt. with LIQUIDHELIUM Cooling, could let you run it with beaucoup addons...FULLBORE:-lol Go back thru this forum and you will see lots of posts by folks whoare very knowledgeable. Way more so than I am:-badteeth Fellas like Oquvist, Soarpics, Ken Salter, Cruchan,Baksteen, and several more come to mind. Look at Soarpics, and Kens system specs as they have, kind of whatI'm thinking about in the near future for myself. In brief answer to the CPU question, from my research AMD 64-3500should give you what you want...maybe even 3200, not sure. For FS I've had really good results with ATI Video, but I'm sureothers (Par Oquvist) might advise For NVidia:-xxrotflmao Anyhow, take you're time..have fun, and if I can be of any helpPM me like I said. DennyProfessional Tourist

Denny,Welcome back and thanks for the informative post. I have been searching the site for info. Almost ready to go ahead and bump my system up to 1 meg of ram and wait until the next version of FS comes out. There are times when my system runs acceptable with VC and 2D but then there are times I can fly the same flight path a few hours later (similar environment) and get lower fps, slow redraws and stuttering. Will do a search on your recommendations.By the way I use to spend a lot of time flying out to KC (Overland Park)from KTYS on business several years ago. Loved the area with plenty of good places to eat steak. Carl

Check out ad-aware at lavasoftusa.comSometimes spyware slows a computer down a lot. With windows XP you want 1 gb of memory. That will help with texture loading.

The videocard is probably holding you back quite a bit. The 5900XT is a budget version of the already poorly performing 5900U.So, you could just pop in a better videocard such as the X800XL and this should probably result in a noticable performance increase.The problem with doing this is that your current motheroard is almost certainly AGP while modern boards are PCI-e. So if you upgrade to another AGP card now, and upgrade motherboard+CPU later, you'd need to buy a new videocard yet again.Ideally you should get a faster CPU (Athlon64 3500+/equivalent P4 or faster) and a new graphics card. If you keep the old card the improvement won't be as noticable.You can buy a motherboard+1GB RAM (RDRAM won't do as it flopped)+CPU+videocard and probably a new case (Dell cases tend to be crappy and come with weak PSU's). The rest can be kept from the old system without problems, reducing the cost of upgrading. Or, you could buy an entirely new, second PC if you feel you need two but then you need to make sure it comes with good graphics (at least 6800GT or X800XL), not some crappy X300 or such.

Alex and Jimmi,Thanks for your input. Yep, I have been using Ad-Ware SE and spyware for sometime. Great programs.I replaced my old 64mb Geforce4 MX 420 with the 5900xt-AGP several months ago after reading some decent reviews on the XT. I have to say I didn

Well the 5900 XT is better than the MX420 for sure :D You should have noticed a real big difference especially when dealing with lots of clouds and to some extent, detailed VC's.The X800XL doesn't need as much power as the 6800GT or X800XT as it's based on a newer 110nm process where as the others are .13 micron (bigger chip, higher power requirements and more heat) so it will probably work.The improvement from going from 512MB to 1 GB of RAM is noticable, but I really don't think there's a big difference going from 768MB to 1GB. 1GB is considered the sweet spot for FS9 but 768MB is not much lower than that. Since RDRAM is a dead-end and overpriced it wouldn't be very wise to dump any more many into it IMO.

Hi Carl, I think you could go for a minimal budget upgrade by adding another 512MB of RAM 'only'. I say this because your main concern are the stutters, texture reloads and adding RAM does help in such cases. As usual there are always a couple of 'buts': I'ld say, try to keep your resolution as low as possible and perhaps don't exceed 1024-1152x (if you can?). I hope you are flexible here. Besides, RDRAM is much quicker than DDR. Furthermore, another detail you have to be careful about, is, getting the right type of RD for your mainboard chipset (Intel's i850s come in various 'flavours' which again require specific RD-modules). I guess you got the concept of the -so called-'continuity modules' since you didn't mention it. On RD-mainboards all the RAM-slots need to be occupied so some are often such dummy modules. Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

Jimmi, I guess that was an over statement on comparing the two cards. I used weather sparingly with the old card. I didn

Hi Carl, you're welcome. I'm not too upto date anymore about i850 chipsets, are they dual channel? If they are, I would upgrade the RAM in pairs, that's all. The display adapter will only require upgrading if you seek a specific resolution. IMHO and AFAIK, your XT isn't that bad as it has a 256-bit bus, 8 pipelines, etc. As you already know, Geforces are only known for suffering a bit with mucho weather. AIM, if you upgrade your RAM and stick to relatively low resolutions (max 1152x), you shouldn't need a new display adapter and if at all, I would probably upgrade the CPU first. So, which res do you use? Here's a link to Rojakpot for GPU specs (for Atis, sorry!). If you scroll down to the bottom you'll find a 'connection' to same list for Geforces, you'll see your XT isn't that bad and should i.e. outperform a 6600GT with FS: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?locat...&var1=88&var2=0Finally, apart from checking the status of the mainbord chipset drivers, another detail worth looking at is installing 'Intel's Application Accelerator' (if you haven't already done so?). Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind reagrds Jaap

Jaap,Thanks for the quick response and the site. The web just amazes me with so much stuff out there. First as you may have noticed, I am not a computer guru, I know just enough to get myself in trouble. The system chipset is intel 850E. I do have to install ram in pairs, which is PC1066 RDRAM, 16bit, nonECC, which I have 2-256mb installed. I found 2-128mb for $45 each. That is the cheapest so far. The question is can I add two 128mb with the existing 256mb ram or do I have to install 2-256mb to match the existing ram? I have been using 1280x1024, 32bit. I have dropped down to lower res in the past but didn

Hi Carl, indeed, the web is amazing! Right now, I'm guessing you have a CRT (tube-type) monitor as flat-panel TFTs aren't as flexible when it comes to changing resolutions? Taking it to 1280x ideally requires a 3000-class CPU for mucho eye candy and advanced AA/AF settings. This in return would ideally be combined with enough RAM. That's why I mentioned I'ld probably upgrade the CPU before the display adapter and well after the RAM. But before getting hardware, you should perhaps try to make sure your driver/sytem environment is right? Therefore and with regard to mainboard drivers (Intel's so called 'inf' files) you should maybe start by verifying them first. To do so, go to the Intel site and download these latest 'infs'. Whilst there also download the 'Intel Application Accelerator' (IAA). Then either read the readme of the 'inf' file to check whether your mainboard drivers are properly installed or simply run the 'exe'. After this, install the IAA which should thereafter be listed in the 'Add/Remove Programs' section of the OS' 'Control Panel'. This alone should/could already signify a significant improvement. Please be aware that RAM is a treacherous matter with those i850 chipsets. You CANNOT just buy it. It's an imperative that it's 100% compatible with your chipset because otherwise the system will not even boot. Personally, I would go for 1GB if using a lot of addons which i.e. include 'heavy loading' aircraft, mucho AI and/or great big sceneries @ 1280x. My guess is, your system will function best when using the 1152x reslution. This because it alleviates your 2.4GHz CPU and doesn't force too much work for your display adpater. Please also note that I'll be away starting Friday. I hope you'll either have things sorted or somebody else can continue to support you in case it's necessary. Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hi Carl, adding to my previous post, here's a link for the Intel chipset stuff: http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/In the last section you'll also find a link to the IAA. With the IAA installed, the drivers will read 'IdeBusDr' and 'IdeChlDr' etc. AIM, once installed, the IAA will be listed in the 'Add/Remove Programs' section in the OS' control panel. The date-stamps of other devices (USB, etc) will read later dates than 2001/2002 once you have the latest mainboard drivers (the 'infs') installed. You were right about the 1066 RAM for the i850E chipset. To be precise it should be PC1066-32P RAM (needed to dig into the archives...). Hope this helps, good luck and kind regards Jaap