Hello,I know this thread is a repeater from a lot of people, however I must have read half of the web looking for a satisfactory answer, and being a bit electronically challenged I decided I'll just have to chance it and ask here. a while back when I first decided to become addicted to flight sim I went out to the stores here in Ireland and wanted to purchase a brand new graphics card. I was given a GeForce 6200. I thought I was great but really for the price I paid I very disappointed in it, I really should have done some research on the issue. Now its Christmas time again and wifey says its time that you rectified your graphics card situation!!So I'm looking for advice on a purchase, I want to know 1. Can you put 2 cards in your PC at the same time, and if so how?2. Whats the best AGP card out there atm3. I was looking at the Radeon x800 XT but whats the difference between a 'sapphire radeon' and a 'powercolour radeon' etc etc, you can see my confusion!My system spec is Intel 4 3ghz processor, 1.24G RAM (Soon to be 2Gig) GA-81848PM (or something) motherboard. I run ActiveSky weather.Any help at all, even being pointed in the direction of more reading material would be of great assistance,Thanks for your timeGeorge Tyrrell

Forgot to add the processor has Hyper Threading.Thanks

You can put two cards in your PC at a time, but only one can be AGP. Higher end AGP cards support dual displays anyway, so this only becomes an issue if you want to go 3+ monitors.IMO, the best AGP card out there for_best_FS_performance is the Radeon X8x0 series, as the Radeon cards don't seem #### bent on straightening out clouds with AA enable like the nVidia cards do. X850XT is the fastest of this series, but the X800XT is nearly as fast in the FS arena and probably the best bang for buck out of this series.Don't worry too much about card naming conventions, just make sure the card is a true X800 XT (ie. not XL or SE or lite, etc) and it's pretty hard to go wrong.Gary

Nice one Gary thanks a lot, on the dual card thing does the second card have to be the same make or power etc? and my Geforce is AGP so if I got a good PCI one would it just be a case of slotting it iin or would there be problems?,Much obligedGeorge Tyrrell

You can get all sorts of problems trying to shoehorn two different types of card into one box, so it would definitely be best to stick to one type - GeForce or ATI. After that the brands shouldn't matter a whole lot.But be warned! There's actually THREE types of graphic card on the market now - AGP, PCI and PCI-X. DO NOT buy a PCI-X card thinking it's PCI. It isn't, it's completely different and NOT compatible with either AGP or your motherboard. PCI-X is replacing AGP card ports on motherboards equipped for it.Some manufacturers make cards of the type Gary describes in BOTH AGP and PCI-X but they are not compatible either. So if you want to keep your 6200 you need to choose a very lowly-spec PCI card (the oldest and slowest of the three formats) to go with it. Very limiting. But I need to ask you this: WHY do you want a second card? If the aim is to run a second monitor carrying some non-3d panels or map then the approach should work well, but if you're thinking two cards will be better than one for FS then they won't. Only the very latest PCI-X format allows for two-cards-as-one and even they DO NOT WORK like that for FS2004 - Basically FS is just too old a design to be able to take advantage of SLI (scalable link interface) to be able to double the power of the card by doubling the number of cards.Hope this helpsAllcott

No I was just more curious as to whether you could or not and the disadvantages of it, yeah I know about the PCI express thing, I'm going to get rid of the 6200 and buy a x850xt instead of it it seems to be the best one out there for my spec, thanksGeorge Tyrrell

thanks,The best that I can lay my hands on here at the moment is a Radeon X800 PRO how does this rate?

That should do nicely!Allcott

Lovely, its a nice price aswell

One more and then I'm done, honest!The X800XT or X800 Pro?And is VIVO very neccessary for FS2004?Obliged,George Tyrrell

>One more and then I'm done, honest!>The X800XT or X800 Pro?>And is VIVO very neccessary for FS2004?>Obliged,>George TyrrellNot sure about this but I think only the X800Pro is available in AGP, so you may not have the option! VIVO is not necessary for FS unless you want to run things through a TV or home theatre and not a monitor. But if its' in the card I wouldn't say no if the price is right!Allcott

"The X800XT or X800 Pro?"They are close to being the same card, except that the XT will have a bit higher GPU and memory clocks. They both can be had in either AGP or PCI-e interface (make sure you choose a card with the correct interface for your motherboard)."And is VIVO very neccessary for FS2004?"VIVO (Video In/Video Out) is not required for FS.Hope this helps,Greg

VIVO is absolutely essential for FS. How else do you watch TV during flights? (Very tongue in cheek :-))The X800 Pro will do you proud with FS2004.Gary