I'm still in the FS2004 world with my DELL XPS Gen 4 and a 7900 GTO card (512MB). Despite 2GB of RAM and a 3.80 Intel P4 processor, the performance of the sim very specifically in the VC of complex add-ons such as PMDG with a Triplehead2Go set-up varies from generally pretty good to not so great. I mostly find that the combo of light to medium clouds, dense airports and cities, and modest AI traffic (Ultimate Traffic) in the arrival area reduces my frames greatly, often not exceeding 10 to 12 on approach which is in the Land of Stuttering. Visual fluidity is usually superb in SPOT and FLY-BY views with these add-ons, with frames averaging 30 and often hitting 50 or 60 for a moment. And visual fluidity in the VC is excellent after climb out, climb to cruise, cruise, and descent to about 3000' pre-approach: that's when the stuttering challenges start to come into play.I upgraded my video card from an ATI x850 XT PE about 6 months ago and have found that the 7900 GTO card definitely improved texture loading by a very large margin. The doubling of RAM to 2GB also has halved all loading times. I am now wondering, if my XPS Gen 4 can accept an 8800 GTX card (768MB), which DELL says it can, is this a further upgrade worth doing? Will it improve fluidity at low alitutdes and on approach in any significant way for me or am I essentially processor-bound at this stage?Appreciate any comments and suggestions, thanks!JS

Your present card is well matched to your processor..any gain in performance will be marginal and certainly not worth the cost of an 8800GTX. It's your CPU causing the low framerates around airports/weather/AI not your Graphics card.RegardsJim

Hi JSI went from a 7900GTX to 880OGTX with my TH2GO. Much to my suprise the FSX frame rate increase was marginal. However the loading and presentation of textures was much improved. There was also a huge improvement in 3dmark06 - went from about 2700 to 7700 on 3840x1024 or about 6600 to 11000+ on 1280x1024.

Howard..what processor was that with?..your spec says you have a C2D. JSACKS has a P4 so it is unlikely he would see the same benefit as you...and like you said, you saw no real improvement in fps.RegardsJim

Short answer - no. Longer answer - no way! ;-) Qualifier - FS9 only.Seriously though, I have benchmarked FS9 to death with different video cards, video driver settings, CPUs and and any other bit of hardware that might make a peep of difference with FS9. I have attached a graph of one of my more recent set of tests, where I ran FS9 through a 12 min dynamic benchmark that I originally made for FSX at different screen resolutions and AA/AF levels with my current hardware (see sig). The benchmark is a FRAPS capture of FPS achieved each second while flying from KPAE, over Seattle city (4 mins 30secs), over KSEA (7 mins), then out towards Mt Rainier. All sliders in FS9 are maxed, except 95% AI traffic and vis 80, cloud draw 50 are set. Normal res is 1680x1050 and Spanned is 33680x1050 (ie. getting close to TH2G res territory).http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/174870.jpgAs you can see, the resolution makes negible difference (compare the yellow and magenta lines). AA and AF levels do make a difference but, except in the case of 8XSAA/16XAF, only when FPS levels above 50 - in other words, who cares! It takes a setting of spanned 8XSAA/16XAF to finally start bringing the FPS down into noticable territory. But if you look at the lowest FPS they all get to, there is only a couple of FPS between them (ie. within 10%). In other words, my CPU is determing FPS for the most part. It is only when I max out res and AA/AF settings that GPU performance becomes even remotely noticable and the worst case FPS is only marginally affected. Since I don't run at max AA/AF (don't need to with such big screenage :-hah), GPU performance is not a factor for me at all.In your case, JS, with the same GPU and a previous generation CPU, your CPU is an even bigger bottleneck on FS9 performance than mine is - ie. your GPU is not the problem! One final suggestion (sorry for waffling on!) is for you to briefly try dropping down to a much lower resolution (like 1024x768) when the FPS levels take a dive. If your FPS stays the same, as I strongly expect it will, then your CPU is the one carrying your FS world. Gary

Gary, I am running the PMDG 747-400F on my FS9 rig. All sliders are maxed and my FPS are very adequate, everything is smooth as silk and enjoy flying the Queen daily. Presently I use dual DVI 19

Scott,Before I built my C2D / 7900 rig, I had my two 22" displays for a couple of weeks and tried them out with FS9 on my Dell Inspiron 9300 notebook (2GHz Pentium M, 1G RAM, 256M 6800 Go). Whilst the test I did was nowhere near as scientific as what I did above, the resulting experience was similar in that FPS in complex scenarios were pretty much the same whether I ran them on my laptop display (1440x900), one 22" screen or both 22" screens spanned. I reckon you'll be OK with what you have now with the 7600, as long as you don't get too carried away with AA/AF settings. As stated above, the need to turn up AA/AF levels (AA in particular) diminishes significantly the more pixels you are pushing anyway, so it is a self fixing problem :-)Gary

Gary, Thanks for the reply. As it turns out, I was reading another thread where you suggested to run dual LCDs in span mode instead of Dual mode. I tried this with FS9 and was supprised to see a increase in FPS. I then tried my SolidWorks modeling application in this spanned mode and found that I could stretch the application window such that I can have an entire right display for the model and then part of the left display for the toolbars and other stuff. I also can have IE open on the extreme left most side of the left monitor. Sweeeet!All the above boils down to I now effectively have a 2560x1024 desktop which is even better than 24" monitor at 1920 pix wide. My 7600 vid card is a GT not a GS and it is more than adequte for FS9.I let the vid card yield to the App for AA and AF. Not really to fussy about the visuals when I am focused on landing the 747 with all that is involved.FSX is a whole other ball game. It will be interesting to see what the performance delta is with the G9 cards. Once again thanks for your help and expertise. It saved me a signif amount of cash that I can put towards my FSX rig.Cheers,Scott

Gary:Thanks for your reply and chart--that was neat-o!I guess I shan't tempt FATE: I shall leave my rig as-is and turn down a display setting here and there instead. It's taken me 10 years to get to the point I am at and I am generally satisfied with things. Ain't no point destabilizing or wrecking the whole thing now.JS