A question I've had for a while is, would upgrading my video card to a 8800GTS 320 or 640mb version do anything for all my games, like FS9, BF2, BF2142, and of course FSX?I have a pcie 6800XT, with 256 mb ram. The factory clocks are 350/1000 for core and mem speed. That's all I know about it.The 8800 320mb can be had for 280ish +/-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130082the 640 version (is it worth it?) is a little more, around 330-350http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130071Would it be a decent upgrade for image quality and performance?

I upgraded from almost the exact same card. (OC'd 6800 GT 256mb). It gave me a big boost in anything except FSX. In most games the 320 mb version does basically as well as the 640 mb version. But there are a few where it makes a decent difference. At this moment I would say the 640 isn't worth the extra cost, but I was trying to "future proof" and assume that games would use more and more mem in the future.

Do you run FSX with application controlled settings or force it with hardware? I run right now with in-game settings only....I'm wondering if I could run all that 16x AA and AF (or is that on the GTX only?) in FSX

These are my settings for FSX with my GTS at stock speeds. It does not ever appear to be a limiting factor in my FSX fps:- 1680x1050- Force 16x AA (though not 16Q)- Force transparency AA supersample (to help with tree shimmering)- Aniscopic filtering at 16xEDIT: Most games I cannot use the transparency supersample because it kills fps (often cutting it in half). Multisample transparency AA doesn't have a bad performance hit, but it also has virtually nill visual effect.

ooooh thats how to get rid of tree shimmers...i actually made apost earlier about trees shimmering...anooying!hmmm ok i'd prolly stickwith 1280x1024, which is my monitor....it doesnt go any higher does it?

I've just gone up to an 8800 320 and the difference is huge. Maybe not so much in flight sim but games like Stalker and Rainbow Six Vegas are just DOMINATED by this card! Worth getting deinfitely.

If that's what your monitor does, no you cnn't go higher.And that would actually be further reason not to go for the 640 version if you are in limbo-- the lower resolution you run at, the less video memory it will use, generally.

what did you upgrade from though?yeah i know it will help in BF2 etc (any time arty drops everything is choppy lol)

hmmm but I thought having more video memory helps with loading scenery tiles farther and farther away???

Sorry, from an X1800XT 256.FS9 and FSX have been improved, but I went up in Card and RAM at the same time as SP1 so don't know which one gave me the performance jump.