I was wondering something in regard to FS 2004 performance.I have a Pentium 4 2.5 GHZ processor 768 MB RAM.What will I gain FS 2004 FPS wise upgrading to a Hypertheading 3.2 or higher CPU and Motherboard, and maybe 1GB PC 3200 DDR RAM.Would I get a 25, 35, 50% boost in FPS?I was just curious if someone has done the same upgrade and really benefitted.Thanks!Barry

Hi Barry,I had a system with the same specs as yours, and did the upgrade to exactly the same configuration you're thinking of. I can say it's definately worth it. I didn't measure exactly how much of a frame rate boost I got out of it, but I guess it's at least around 30 %. It's not the holy grail of simming yet,

Paul,Even though it is a pain, I would start from scratch and re-install Windows, FS, and all the add-ons. I think you really need to do this when you switch hardware. Just my personal opionion and experience. Windows XP does a pretty good job of detecting new hardware, but I think you may have left over driver baggage from the previous motherboard.Besides you'll never know if your current stutters are a result of the upgrade unless you re-install the OS, FS and the add-ons.30% of an average 20 FPS is only 6 FPS, which is pretty good.But I guess I can limp along with what I have, until the AMD FX-XX series processors drop significantly in price.Those are KICK-BUTT systems that would really make an impact, combined with PCI-Express and a SATA hard drive, would give you the most improvement.Now the big question is that if Microsoft releases FS 2006 for the Xbox 360, which I believe is in the works, why not just buy that counsole? Rather than a complete PC system. FS 2006 XBox version will be optimized for the console hardware, so buying a new PC would not be necessary. If it supports USB devices (which I believe it does), and has the ability to install FS add-ons, etc, it would be the way to go. But if the FX-XX SATA Hard Drive, and PCI Express prove to give you double the performance over the XBox version, then some tough decisions will have to be made.Just my thoughts.Barry