Ebayed the ole 6800-GT and suprisingly got 2/3rds of what I paid for it, but being an XFX with transferable lifetime warranty helped.The new Card is much more than any 7800-GS or 7800 GT, in fact it has a 7900GT core!not to be mistaken for the 20-pipe "Bliss" GS, this is the new Gainward 7800-GS+ Silent 512bm AGP:Core: 450 (look for 500 easy or with a volt mod and 600+)Mem: 1250 with great O/C ability 7900 series 24-Pipe GPU Architecture 24pipes on AGP? Hmmmmm!This should hold the old box over for a bit!So what will a 7900gt do for a 2.6ghz XP? ...

My bet is heaps better graphics performance for most games EXCEPT FS2004.Gary

>My bet is heaps better graphics performance for most games>EXCEPT FS2004.>>Garythough it is going on a lowly AMD-XP, at 2.6ghz it still sends enough data to overwhelm a 6800ultra when filtering.The pure speed and power of another 100 million transistors, the extra 8 pipes and 2 extra shader units of the new card will impact 10-15% of FS9 Raw performance, the real fun starts when you run high res and turn on filtering plus the fatc that you can turn on Transparency AA idepndent of what level of AA you use for the whole scene, in that equation expect 40-80% improvement depending on level of Rez/AA/AF.Now I have to replace the 19 monitor...

I have the luxury of trying most the latest hardware and although you will see improvement, just do not get your hopes to high.

>I have the luxury of trying most the latest hardware and>although you will see improvement, just do not get your hopes>to high.>Yeah me too, my hopes have nothing to do with it. I am very familiar with the math involved and and have done my homework.You seem to imply you have sampled this part for AGP? Only one site I know of on the planet has been allowed to sample...This is not ordinary, not too many are going to get to "try" this card, they are very limited number and only a few have shipped, What did you do to resolve the thermal pad issue?please tell us what you know...

Its got nothing to do with the hardware but Fs2004 itself.I just do not think throwing in that card, or any card will eliminate the performance and graphics limitations the sim has. I hope I am wrong but Ive ran a 7800gtx/512 with well over one ghz faster than yours. Yes, there were improvments after I was able to get the sim to even accept the card, but IMO they were not enough to justify the cost and the same old problems Fs2004 had were still there.I wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing your results.

>Its got nothing to do with the hardware but Fs2004 itself.I>just do not think throwing in that card, or any card will>eliminate the performance and graphics limitations the sim>has. Agree, but wise choices, good hardware and a well tuned system are key.>I hope I am wrong but Ive ran a 7800gtx/512 with well>over one ghz faster than yours. This little XP can run neck and neck with near any P4 running @3.4Ghz, (run any bench you want) not to get in a pissing contest but that means very little unless you are talking about an X2/FX or P-DDE.>Yes, there were improvments>after I was able to get the sim to even accept the card, but>IMO they were not enough to justify the cost and the same old>problems Fs2004 had were still there.Not sure what problems you had that were still there, I have no stutters, though I have enough scenery/AC and other add-ons to bring it to a crawl (My owm Rochester scenery w/lots of 1024x1024 textures, all of the megascnery titles, Level-D, CaptainsSim, Flight1, FsGenesis, Mesh Roads and rivers...)You can add Polys on top of polys untill it just stops even with a 8Ghz machine if you want, So I'm not expecting nor run the sim with 100% 3-d clouds (70) nor terrain detail 100% (mesh=92%) etc.With the memory running at nice low latency (2-2-2-5) everything snaps back rather quickly, and since the 7900 core O/Cs so well and the very fast Samsung 1.2ns memory will improve the filtering levels while maintaining FPS and thats all I am expecting. >I wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing your>results.Thanks, I have a good "canned" FS9 flight with no variables so that a benchmark can be run, but I am having some trouble with Fraps, it is winking out between test and is giving blanks spots in data...fixing...well have test results for Ti4600 Golden Sample/XFX 6800 GT (ultra+ speeds) and 7900-GT.

Well what a great subject, here is my two cents, I have been using Microsoft since the 98 days, and im not impressed with the explanations on why we cannot get above 20 frame rates, I have been upgrading vid cards, cpu, s just to keep up with 98 thru fs9, I have bought vid cards costing five hundred dollars, I buy or upgrade cpu, s just about every year and when it comes to FS9 I have to cater to its needs, tweak this or tweak that, in fact it is the only game that I know of that I have two tweak on a daily basis, I have doom , unreal , fear, etc. , and all I have to do is turn it up and none of those games talk back to me, except FS9, it bosses me around.Im not going out to buy any more equipment just to get minimal results, I have spent well into the thousands on this beloved hobby, (and I probably will continue because im hooked)JSo from my experience yeah you can go out and buy the best system out there and you will find it still is not enough. You will still find yourself in the most used part of FS9 and that is the settings section:)Microsoft gives you the specs on the system you should have to run there software, well that is if you are running all default planes with no add-ons what so ever, and guess what I still only get 29 30 35 fps. And gentleman im well aware of all the anti, AA, setting s and stuff, to me even though with the price of high end vid cards and cpu, s, and trust me ive gotten the best out there, and I still get poor performance from the sim. So bottom line is this Microsoft is telling me that there software is ahead of its time because no matter what hardware you get it still is not good enough to turn all its sliders up. All im saying gentleman is that FSX will probably be no different, and it will demand the most of your machine giving no respect to what ever vid card you have or cpu, this is from my experience only, oh and one other note I also wrote a long email to nvidia about there product, and they said with there high end cards they guarantee 100 fps or more on games if not it is the software manufacture we need to look at HHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMm.Avsim will be having a conference this year in Washington D.C. and it is close enough for me to attend, and Microsoft will be sponsoring Avsim, I will be there to ask a whole lot of questions:)Oh and by the way Avsim congratulation on your new sponsor

Yes Im talking AMD 4000.No Im do not get involved in pissing contest.Everyone thinks they are right and winning a online argument without things getting ugly is almost impossible so whats the point.I would talk to,light candles and massage my FS2004 disk if I thought it would make the sim run better. You do what you think you need to do and as I said, Good Luck.

You are joking right?You have been with FS from FS98 days and you can't get it?Forget the fact that the sim allowed for a huge amount of backword compatability, but trying to fathom any "game" that handles all the calculations that FS9 does for flight, the cockpit invironment, gauges, navigation...constant changing of shaded objects as sun moves across the sky...wind effects against flight path...Now start to add all the high detailed mesh...detailed airports, detailed AC (Level-D etc) crowded AI skies and terminals....please...and whats this, you can't get above 20 FPS?Ok, Ok. I still don't follow you, sure I get very constant 26-40 FPS in megascenery/MegaCity Sanfransisco with other 3d party detailed airports added, at High rez with 8xAA and 16x AF 70% 3d clouds mesh at 93%. Does it dip into the low 20's at times? sure and even more under the worst conditions....so what! keep adding and adding to FSX and we wounder what will happen to the FPS...You want to simulate the whole little planet on your desktop AND Fly a Jet at the same time and expect you are being robbed out of 100 FPS?ROTFLOL!!!

>Yes Im talking AMD 4000.4000 runs at 2.4Ghz

nVidia's statement to you is completely without merit. I would make the same statement if ATI was dumb enough to say something like that too. No one can guarantee anything.100 fps is just blowing smoke up peoples arses. Had they said something like 30-40, it would have been an acceptable statement.