So for the last many years I've been running a P4 1.8 Ghz. Rather than shelling out the $$$ for a fully new system, I just purchased a P4 2.4Ghz OEM processor to upgrade to.I'm hoping for a significant performance increase in FS2004.Has anyone done a similar upgrade and can comment on performance?

Not exactly what you did, but I added a new Motherboard, and CPU going from an Athlon 1.2ghz to a Athlon XP bartone Core 3000+, and it has made a very large difference, as I have it slightly overclocked running at 2.327 instead of 2.167.I also have a radeon 9600xt.My upgrade is here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=8401&page=4What Vid Card are you running?I'm sure you will notice some increase, but it also depends on Ram and Vid card as well. The diff between 1.8 and 2.4 on an Intel is not that great, IMHO.Did you already Buy it?There are a lot of benchmark site sout there. Here is one example:http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.htmlRegards,JoeGrab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Yes, I already bought it. It's the max my board can handle so I decided for $130 I try it. 600 mhz should make a difference. 512 MB PC2100 ram with GF4TI4200 - not the best video card by any stretch of the imagination but not too shabby either. Served me well over the years!

I'm happy and have remained so since my session with FS-GS in May 2004 :)I was once advised that for every 700MHz increase in CPU (Intel) grunt you can expect an average 10% increase in frame rates in FS9. But then, as we should all know by now, it's not all about fps. Rather it's more to do with hardware integration, smooth performance and a well maintained system.Current installation: 31.2GB and counting!MikeP4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.6.05a), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 (160GB) + IBM Deskstar 120GXP UDMA100 (40 GB), Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP2), DirectX 9.0c, AGP Aperture = 128MB

If you didn't install it yet, run a benchmark for FPS comparison.Don't expect to be able to max everything out. keep your same settings now, run the Default Seattle flight, and then write down a few fps in each view.Then when you install the new CPU, you can run the same flight and compare.BTW, Since you bought an OEM version, did it come with a new Heatsink and Fan, or are you planning on using the old one?If your using the old ones, you should have bought some thermal paste, and may need to clean off the old stuff first.I'm not sure how the intels ship, as I'm an Athlon guy.If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can walk you through the process.Regards,JoeGrab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

I recently upgraded my heatsink and fan and found the following link very helpful:http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_...ctions_big2.htmMike

I think you will see about a 33% boost in frames, EXCEPT when you are in a video card limited environment, which IMO is what you go in and out of continuously as you fly, ie, the sim vacillates between CPU limiting and video card limiting, depending on the hardware set up and situation. In a given high requirement situation, if you are CPU limited, you will see a 33% increase overall.Noel

Thanks for all the responses.The processor is on the truck for delivery, so provided my fiance doesn't kill me I'll be able to install and test tonight. I'm a former systems integrator turned programmer so I've done my share of processor upgrade. I've got the old heat sink and some heat sink compound to transfer heat from the processor to the heat sink. Can't wait to try it out...I'm hoping to at least get some 3d clouds in the mix. I've had to turn them off to get the display rate I want. haha, it'll be fun no matter what.Details forthcoming :)

Well got my new processor installed. System is now running at 2.4Ghz.Unfortunately, the performance increase is minimal at best. I can hardly tell any difference at all. I guess that identifies my RAM and video card as the weak links in my system.sucks...what a let down! Oh well, everything else runs a bit faster, just not me games! :)

Yep, you need a video card upgrade :().Noel

I'm not sure if I should go for the video card or the ram. Probably the former.After spending a bit more time with my system last night I turned off most of my eye candy settings (3d clouds mainly but some other stuff too). Then I fired up the Flight One ATR. In the VC I was getting between 20 and 30 FPS with a few dips into the teens. Again, I had some stuff turned off but I had not had any experience like this in a VC since I've had FS2004. I think I'm going to hook up a video card this week. Granted, the next best thing to upgrading a processor (which I just did!) is to upgrade ram. But I'm not certain that applies to gaming systems. One piece at a time :)

OK, so to update this...I've made 2 additional upgrades. I've pitched my GF4TI4200 for an ATI Radeon X700 with 256MB ram. This is the AGP version. I've also upgraded to a full gig of PC2100 ram.Performance is still not what I expected. I never thought I'd crank all the sliders and get 30+ FPS. But what I am getting is 13-17 fps in the VC of the Flight One C172 on the runway at KSEA with 3D clouds set at 30, all sliders on the scenery/terrain page in the middle, special effects totally off, Virtual cockpit guage quality low and high (tested both settings), reflections off, 1024X768X32, bilinear, texture size medium.Quite frankly this is very disappointing to me. Forget trying to be in the VC for the F1 ATR. Even with the minimal panel loaded with lo res textures and VC cabin only I get 9-12 FPS. Weak. Just weak. I may try the utility that kills processes before starting up, but when I look at my task manager the CPU is pegged to 100% and the ram is hardly used at all, so saving memory by killing the few tasks that are executing isn't going to do that much. I do remove all processes that are crap before I start so I doubt I'm going to see much improvement.I did kill my fs9.cfg file and let the game rebuild. This didn't have any effect for me.On my other games (BattleField:Vietnam, Call Of Duty mainly) I have seen major improvements. I can easily run BF:V at full detail 1024X768X32 without any issues. Same with CoD. I don't really know what else to say. I'm pretty disappointed that after spending $500+ on upgrades that I have an FS that runs very similar to the pre-upgrade system. Bleh.