Well, I have ONE component at my house, and could not resist popping it in my current build to see how it might boost FSX.All I can say is the above. Seriously! "EVGA 7950 GT KO" 512 meg card for 225 bucks at Fry's on clearance sale. It is amazing. I was struggling to get 25 fps tweaked, and now get 50 to 70 with no changes to a fresh cfg. I simply can't wait for all my parts to come in.... 6750 dual core, new mboard, raptor drive, mushkin low latency ram....fun stuff in store, because to be honest Im happy with how it is right now...!! so, if you are stuck and FSX is running poorly for you, maybe make a move like me...if you can get lucky enough to find this card, as I hear they are not stocking them much anymore to try and push DX10 and the 8800's...but yea...HUGE difference...danon -

> I was struggling to get 25 fps tweaked, and now get>50 to 70 with no changes to a fresh cfg. That's good to hear Danon. Just to clarify, no changes to a fresh cfg would come with an FPS lock of something, so you must have unlocked that to see over 25 FPS. What do each of your global settings tabs default to?Gary

Yep..correct. I unlocked after about 10 minutes just to see how it would run. After deleting my current config, and letting FSX build a new one, I re-entered the game and messed with a few sliders. This is how I am set at the moment.Frame rate unlimited1280x1024 32BilinearGlobal very highAdvanced animations ticked (was off) - flare and bloom offHigh res cockpit, shadows on ground, lights on ground tickedLOD large (was set to middle)mesh complexity 60 (was at 50)Mesh res 38 (was at 76)1 meter textures (was using 2)Water High 1XLand detail tickedScenery complexity DenseAutogen sparse (was running NONE)Special effects lowTraffic at 8, 11, and 10 with land and sea traffic off for now.I could turn other stuff on and up I suppose, but am going to wait until my hardware comes in on thursday to really get into it and see what it can do. But for just a new vid card, I am impressed. Man Im glad I posted the other day, this was one of the cards that was recommended along with yours..so thanks.I use activesky X for weatherGraphics X and Ultimate Terrain X for groundalong with FS Genesis Mesh and landclass

Danon, Thanks for clarifying. It is important that people reading these threads appreciate the basis for your FPS increase, particularly with video card upgrades as these often do more for the high end FPS than the low end (just ask me about my 7900 to 8800 upgrade experience!).When you get the rest of your stuff, you'll have an even bigger smile :-) on your face, as your low level FPS will increase quite a lot, thus allowing you to increase settings for better graphics. Once you unlock FSX like this, then you truly realise it is a big step forward from FS9!Gary

Bilinear? If I run bilinear the sim looks terrible on my rig.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

>>Frame rate unlimited>1280x1024 32>Bilinear>Global very high>Advanced animations ticked (was off) - flare and bloom off>High res cockpit, shadows on ground, lights on ground ticked>LOD large (was set to middle)>mesh complexity 60 (was at 50)>Mesh res 38 (was at 76)>1 meter textures (was using 2)>Water High 1X>Land detail ticked>Scenery complexity Dense>Autogen sparse (was running NONE)>Special effects low>>Traffic at 8, 11, and 10 with land and sea traffic off for>now.>This is interesting. I get 20-25 fps in under 40 AI situations (more than 40 AI begins dragging fps down) with only a slightly faster cpu, with the following settings:Frame lock 251280 x 1024 x 32TrilinearGlobal very highAdvanced animations on, flare and bloom offhigh res cockpit,no shadows on groundLOD maxxedmesh complexity 100mesh res 381 meter textureswater 2.x lowland detail tickedscenery complexity maxxedautogen normalspecial effects maxxedFIBER_FRAME=0.40ASX+ASGtraffic road 30%, AI 100% (custom bgls), sea /ferry 10%.I think your 3800+ setup should have done better for you! That's only slightly slower than my cpu and look what I was running by comparison.I just think comparing things like this is interesting especially when two similar systems perform so differently.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

>Danon, >>Thanks for clarifying. It is important that people reading>these threads appreciate the basis for your FPS increase,>particularly with video card upgrades as these often do more>for the high end FPS than the low end (just ask me about my>7900 to 8800 upgrade experience!).>>When you get the rest of your stuff, you'll have an even>bigger smile :-) on your face, as your low level FPS will>increase quite a lot, thus allowing you to increase settings>for better graphics. Once you unlock FSX like this, then you>truly realise it is a big step forward from FS9!>>GaryYea, thanks. I have not messed with anything at all and actually had a blast for the first time in a long time with this sim. The card has really boosted it for me. Rhett,I have ai traffic off due to flying online most of the time, I have not even tried putting it on. Bilinear for some reason was the default setting, and I have yet to change it, it looks great, but perhaps ill change it and see what happens. It looks to have a TON of breathing room, but there is no reason to mess with it, since I will be building a new box in 48 hours :)Good that you are getting good performance, how do you like that raptor and ram?? I will have some low latency ram and a raptor as well, and can only think it will help out some....D -

I have this same card too, in an AMD4800+ X2 with 2GB of RAM, and get some really nice results. I tried several cards with this CPU/RAM combo, and when installing this card I also upgraded the PSU to 650W. I'm not sure what had the largest effect, the PSU or video card, but it sure works well now.Bruce.