I am not sure if this is the right forum but I 'll try anyway. Tom's hardware had a comparison charts of different video cards for FSX. Its interesting that FSX doesn't benefit from the newer video cards such as 8800GTX. No performance gain. Nadda. Zip!http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...2=722&chart=293

When the drivers mature (especially bad in Vista right now) you will see much larger gains.The 8800GTS/GTX hardware is much more powerful than the older stuff. I have a 7900 GT and the 8800 series smokes mine

The results given for my card are not even close to accurate. This chart would be nice if you could enter more information, such as processor speed, ram, etc.

No need for Tom to tell us that. We've known it all along. Every version of FS has been severly CPU-limited. The video card has never been a major player in FS performance. Nothing's changed with FSX. At least not yet...time will tell.Doug

>I am not sure if this is the right forum but I 'll try>anyway. Tom's hardware had a comparison charts of different>video cards for FSX. Its interesting that FSX doesn't benefit>from the newer video cards such as 8800GTX. No performance>gain. Nadda. Zip!>http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...2=722&chart=293But it appears an 8800 at 22.5, and my old 6800 at 11.3. Seems like about double! I guess it depends on what you are calling "newer". I must be missing something?

I have to agree, sitting here with my ATI 9600XT. Maybe not a big jump between 8800 and top of the line 7xxx Geforce or equiv, but it does make a diff for older cards, at least at that resolution. It does seem, though, that the 8600 may be sufficient for Dx10 and FSX.scott s..

Whilst my XFX 8800 GTX may not improve frame rates for FSX which is CPU bound, it does enable me to switch on 16AA without a frame rate hit and that certainly improves the appearance of FSX. It will be interesting to see whether the FSX performace dependancy swings back to the graphics card for those with lightweight graphics cards when FSX SP1 makes an appearance. It would be a reasonable guess that when SP1 is available there will be comments on this forum that SP1 didn't live up to expectations, and no doubt the FSX team will be blamed, when in fact the older and/or slower graphics cards are stopping the full effect of SP1 from being seen.Remember the old adage "There is no substitute for horsepower". ;)

what surprises me is the dominance of NVidia cards. not just the 8800 series card, but also the 7xxx cards outperform most ATI cards- cards which in other games are vastly superior.

The "FSX performance dependancy" has never been on the graphics card (nor was it so with any other version of MSFS). Nor will it be so after SP1. As always, the CPU-bound nature of the sim will continue to be the issue.Doug

> It does seem, though, that the 8600 may be> sufficient for Dx10 and FSX.You really meant:-that the 8800 may be sufficient for Dx10 and FSX. ;-)

> The "FSX performance dependancy" has never been on the>graphics card (nor was it so with any other version of MSFS).>Nor will it be so after SP1. As always, the CPU-bound nature>of the sim will continue to be the issue.>>DougI think the proof of this often stated fact is that there isvirtually no difference between thefastest bigger dearest SLI 8800's at 1820 x 1200and the slower,smaller cheapest 8800 at 1024 x 768It was rather interesting to see Doom on SLI 8800's at 1600 x 1200achieving 171 FPS.

>> It does seem, though, that the 8600 may be>> sufficient for Dx10 and FSX.>>You really meant:->that the 8800 may be sufficient for Dx10 and FSX. ;-) No, I think he meant the 8600.If you are wondering why he meant 8600...think about how much FS uses the graphics card...and how FS looks vs. other DX9 apps...and then extrapolate that out into DX10 + FS...RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

That depends on how you define "Superior". I use an Nvidia card because I have two monitors and as far as I can tell the Nividia management of two monitors is (both with and without SLI) is currently better than ATI. My 8800 is also DX10 compliant so it is a little bit of future proofing. There can be little doubt that, as for most hardware bits, different manufacturers will technologically leap frog each other from time to time so it comes down to which is best for the user at the time of purchase.So "superior" is a relative term, does it matter if a card produces 110 or 120 FPS in a FPS (there's a bit of acronym heaven)? Some users, led by the media, get too hung up on small FPS performance differences and we all know that the next set of drivers could change this. However, this is an FSX forum and any good graphics card will suffice for all the FSX FPS performance one can squeeze out of the CPU(s).

Are you .........??We don't allow name calling on these forums-first warning..

>I remember my first beer, too.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case