My impression after my previous thread is that it's for me rather pointless to try to upgrade for FSX.So what kind of FS9 system could I have if I keep my Asus A8V Deluxe with AMD 64 3200+ 1 Gb 400 MHz RAM and replace my NVIDIA 6600GT 128M DDR3 with the AGP version of ATI X1950PRO 512M DDR3?In FS9 how much difference would the lower CPU and RAM make?Regarding harddrives I have three options1) Continue using IDE drive like I do now. 2) Buy a SATAII RAID controllercard so I can use my current WD 160 Gb for RAID specifically designed drives in raid 03) Get a raptor drive 150 GbThis option would cost far less than replacing mb cpu ram in addition to the video card. Maybe it's all FS9 could need?

I know you know this but what is acceptable to one is not to another. I'm running FSX on an Athlon XP 3200+, 6800GS, 2 GB 400MHz RAM along with Active Sky, Cargo Pilot, and Trackir. Traffic is down very low but the visuals and smoothness are great. Now, I'm primarily a bush flyer so I generally keep away from big cities, though it is flyable there (just not very high FPS).I did see a difference moving to SATA drives--OS on one and FSX on the other.I tried FS9 again a couple of weeks ago but could not stay with it.To each his own.Randall

>I know you know this but what is acceptable to one is not to>another. I'm running FSX on an Athlon XP 3200+, 6800GS, 2 GB>400MHz RAM along with Active Sky, Cargo Pilot, and Trackir. >Traffic is down very low but the visuals and smoothness are>great. Now, I'm primarily a bush flyer so I generally keep>away from big cities, though it is flyable there (just not>very high FPS).>My CPU is better than yours 64 bit 3200+ but you have a better videocard and more RAM. I have tried FSX on my current system and my main impression was more harddrive influenced stutter.>I did see a difference moving to SATA drives--OS on one and>FSX on the other.>What drives do you have?

Your CPU is not that much better. LOL. Not even worth comparing.I have a 3400 and nearly identical system to yours but I have two raptors in raid0 and an ATI 1600 vid card. Plus a ATI PCI card running four monitors for Fs9. Its lighting fast to get to where you want to go with those raptors (XP loads in like 35secs..) but it really doesn't help the game much when flying. Oh, you can get to menus quicker and XP loads up fast as karp, but not a real advantage for FPS. I do recommend it though IF you can fork over almost 400.00 alone for two raptors.There IS NO substitute for a screaming CPU and FS9/X. Our stuff is just plain OLD....You ask "how much difference" the AGP card and HD would make? Who knows? What slider settings to you want? All the way to the right? All the way to the right, but no AI? The previous poster is quite happy flying where there is no traffic. How about you? And then lets decide on what Video card settings you want. Full AA? Maximum visuals? The possibilities are endless.Unless you are running the exact same slider settings and add-ons and are over the exact same spot flying at the exact same altitude going the exact same heading, you cant compare one system to another. Perhaps some calculated guestimates, but thats about it. What is fine for one guy is not for another, just like the previous poster says. There is no magic bullet for our older systems. ANY money you invest should NOT be on an AGP system. Spend it on the new updated MB's and dual core processors. Buy the MOST CPU you can possibly stand. What are you getting ready to spend on that vid card $175.00? and a controller card? $50.00? and another Raptor? $175.00? You spent more on those parts than a X2 6400. That and a new PCI MB very reasonable right now, maybe less than $300.00. Get a mid range vid card to hold you over, 1gb ram and plan to upgrade later when your funds replenish. If you want to throw money at a raid system fine but you might as well get raptors and REALLY get some speed. By that time, you will be able to run X. Building a system for FS9? Not really wise. IMHO. I'm right where you are and will start a FSX system at the end of the year. No more money towards my AGP system. Not one dime.SATAII on an AGP system? Wasting your money my friend. Wasting your money. You've got to let go.Good luck,Bill Clinton

You will only see a slight difference upgrading to an ATI X1950 pro in FS9. I upgraded from an ATI X800XL to an ATI X1900XT 512, and only seen a few more FPS. It did help a bit with stuttering though.I also upgraded to SATA drives, and found that a nice improvement in access speed from IDE drives.Bill

>Your CPU is not that much better. LOL. Not even worth>comparing.My reason for thinking so. It's a 64 bit CPU with more registers. Prior to my current setup I had a Atlon XP 1800+ which I upgraded to XP 2400+. I didn't notice any difference in FS performence. Then I upgraded to my current AMD 64 3200+ and experienced a significant increase in performence.>the game much when flying. Oh, you can get to menus quicker>and XP loads up fast as karp, but not a real advantage for>FPS. I do recommend it though IF you can fork over almost>400.00 alone for two raptors.>But what about blurries? Shouldn't a raptor help there? For example I can't use the Megascenery titles in urban areas because of excessive long loading times.>There IS NO substitute for a screaming CPU and FS9/X. Our>stuff is just plain OLD....>Another poster reported great performence with 1950PRO and a P4.>You ask "how much difference" the AGP card and HD would make?>Who knows? What slider settings to you want? All the way to>the right? All the way to the right, but no AI? The previous>poster is quite happy flying where there is no traffic. How>about you? In FS9 yes all the way to the right with 90% traffic and PAI like I do now?>replenish. If you want to throw money at a raid system fine>but you might as well get raptors and REALLY get some speed.Situation is that I have already spent money on two WD RE drives that are designed to only be used in raid setups. These drives simply refuse to work with my motherboard.> By that time, you will be able to run X. Building a system>for FS9? Not really wise. IMHO. I'm right where you are and>will start a FSX system at the end of the year. No more money>towards my AGP system. Not one dime.For me there is another reason to follow this advice. According to the Asus support it's fully possible that my problems with SATAII is because my mb is broken>SATAII on an AGP system? Wasting your money my friend. Wasting>your money. You've got to let go.>But I can get a SATA1 raid PCI card very cheap ($25). One idea would be just for testpurposes to see if the drives are faulty or not.

Hi Bill!I was reading this thread and couldn't help notice you have a system similar to what I'm planning to upgrade to within the next month or so.One of my biggest back and forths has been with the video card with the Dell 24" at 1900x1200 rez.What kind of performance do you get with the ATI x1900 512 card and the Dell monitor at that resolution? I've been leaning towards the nVidia 8800 640 GTS but would like to save a buck. The DX10 thing is irrelevant with FS9 and might be better to get a later generation DX10 card.How do you like the x1900 512?Thanks!Ed Lin, D.O.S.

>You will only see a slight difference upgrading to an ATI>X1950 pro in FS9. I upgraded from an ATI X800XL to an ATI>X1900XT 512, and only seen a few more FPS. It did help a bit>with stuttering though.>But a ATI X1950PRO is far more powerful than the X1900XT which in turn is more powerful than my current NVIDIA 6600GT 256M DDR3. So I rather think that upgrade will be very significant. Toms hardware suggested tripled fps.

Actually an X1950 pro is not that much more powerful than an X1900XTX, if it even is at all. Don't let the naming conventions confuse you. With ATI, the higher the number is not always better.I researched the X1900XTX, and the X1950XTX in depth before I settled on the X1900XTX. There was a good sale on at the time, and there was not enough performance difference between the two to warrant an extra $100. I didn't even consider the X1950 pro, as the pro line is the weaker link in the chain. It is basically a neutered card. Are you sure you aren't confusing the performance of an X1950XTX with an X1950 pro? The following review: http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-cards/ati...7-32114240.html puts it in perspective. "The Radeon X1950 Pro is designed to replace ATI's former midrange stalwart, the Radeon X1800 GTO". If you look at the graphs, you will see that the X1950 pro comes in behind the X1900XT when it is not paired with another card in crossfire.If you really believe you will get trippled FPS, then more power to you. Spend the money. Even an 8800 Ultra will not tripple your FPS. You will be much better off replacing your CPU et all.If you think this upgrade "will be very significant", then why are you asking for opinions? Most informed people will tell you the same thing I did.Bill

Hi Ed,I get very good performance with my X1900XTX and my Dell 24" at 1920x1200. In FSX, I have my FPS locked at 30, and rarely dip below that unless I am in extremely large cities. Most of my sliders are full right, and I don't have any tweaks to the cfg whatsoever, and FSX runs pretty well with my system.FS9 also runs extremely well, although I am primarily using FSX for the most part now. You should have no problem with an X1900XTX 512 and a 24" Dell in FS9 if you get an E6850. At one time I used to run FS9 with an X800XL, and an AMD X2 4200, and didn't have any problems with the card and the Dell.If you shop around, you should be able to pick up an X1950XTX for a pretty good price now, comparable to what you would pay for the X1900XTX. The X1950XTX performs better when you are running in high resolutions like 1920x1200. This should give you a bit of a boost with the Dell 24".I'm not interested in DX10 or Vista for that matter, at the moment either, so I will be staying with my X1900XTX for awhile. Since FSX and FS9 are CPU intensive, it is really not worth it to get an 8800 for the few extra FPS. I will wait and see what developes with the next gen DX10 cards.Bill

>If you really believe you will get trippled FPS, then more>power to you. Spend the money. I understand that even though Toms hardware chart list a triple increase in fps compared to my current card , the issue is more complex and might not apply for my particulary setup. But there has been postings about the ATI X1950PRO used with a CPU not much different than mine and with very good performence on 24" monitor.Therefore I would expect such a card to make significant improvement on my setup with a 19" monitor. >If you think this upgrade "will be very significant", then why>are you asking for opinions? Most informed people will tell>you the same thing I did.>Since I don't know until I actually test and I wan't to find out as much as possible to make the best decision about how and when to spend the money and how much. People who have used components I consider buying can give valuable information through their experiences.

"If you shop around, you should be able to pick up an X1950XTX for a pretty good price now, comparable to what you would pay for the X1900XTX."Well, if you can find an x1950xtx, the price is still up around/above $400 USD. The "XT" is just a little bit cheaper.I'm going to keep this info handy though. I've got the e6850 and the ram I'm using for my new board. I'm waiting on a check owed me before buying the balance of what I need for my new system which is the video card and the board itself.Thanks for your note.Ed Lin, D.O.S.

Hi Ed,It was a few months ago when my X1900XTX crapped out on me, that I was looking around at the X1950XTX. There was a guy on EBay from Toronto that was selling new X1950XTX cards for $320.00. NCIX in Vancouver had stock, and were selling for $375.00. You're right, now both X1900XTX and X1950XTX are extremely hard to find, if you can find them at all. Sorry to have given you outdated info.I ended up sending my card back to ATI as it was still under warranty, and they sent me a new card within 3 days. I was worried that things would have changed at ATI after they were bought out by AMD, and that my 3 year warranty would not be honoured since AMD have put 1 year warranty's on their cards now.Bill

Looks like your mind is already made up on all accounts. Wonder why you even bothered to ask? Your current equipment is broke. You want to spend money on an aging AGP system that wont run FSX OR FS11 for that matter.Why not save all your money and get yourself a copy of FS2002? That software should scream on the system you have now. If someone GAVE me the parts I'd probably spend some time building an AGP system but I wouldn't spend $100.00 on a setup that is just plain outdated. I'm not knocking AGP setups, mine is running satisfactorily for FS9 at reasonable slider levels, I'm just saying I wouldn't invest much money or time in one thats all. I've been flying and building systems since FS2000 and I haven't ever seen a triple digit increase in FPS. Perhaps if you had a 16MB PCI video card and you went to a 256 AGP. BTW, The size of your monitor really has nothing to do with FPS. Somewhere along the line you got to figure what "X" amount of FPS is worth to you. Do you really want to take the chance on spending all that money and only get 6-10 FPS? What if you don't even get that? You going to return the parts? You're stuck with AGP at that time. You'd be out money (around $250 I figure) and A LOT of time screwing around with it. Go back and look at Toms hardware again. What sliders was that test on? What location in FS and what time of day? If you dont have EXACT specs from that review, and that review wasnt based on FS9, then it isnt worth what its printed on relevant to this discussion. Also BTW, I have that MB and my 2 raptors work fine. You dont have it setup correctly. Learn how to install them and save yourself $25.00 No, I cannot run megascenery at a satisfactory level with the raptors. They dont make that big of a difference.With the way you want to run FS, you just are NOT going to get triple digit FPS performance increase with any AGP setup modification you are speaking of.. and all that for one 19" monitor? Put your money into real immersion.This is what you do with that old system. LOLhttp://eecherrors.homestead.com/flightdesk.jpg

>Looks like your mind is already made up on all accounts.>Wonder why you even bothered to ask? Your current equipment isNo it's not and that's why I ask.>Wonder why you even bothered to ask? Your current equipment is>broke. You want to spend money on an aging AGP system that>wont run FSX OR FS11 for that matter.Will any today existing system run FS11?> If someone GAVE me the parts I'd probably spend some time>building an AGP system but I wouldn't spend $100.00 on a setup>that is just plain outdated. I'm not knocking AGP setups, mine>is running satisfactorily for FS9 at reasonable slider levels,> I'm just saying I wouldn't invest much money or time in one>thats all. My current system is running FS9 at max slider levels and does so fairly well.>I've been flying and building systems since FS2000 and I>haven't ever seen a triple digit increase in FPS. Perhaps ifI missed to point out an important thing here. It was not in FS I saw the triple increase but in other games.> BTW, The size of your monitor really has nothing to do with>FPS. Does not a bigger resolition (more bits) put a heavier load on the system?>Also BTW, I have that MB and my 2 raptors work fine. You dont>have it setup correctly. Learn how to install them and save>yourself $25.00 Oh Yes I had them correctly setup otherwise I wouldn't be able to install Windows on them and run it on them for a couple of weeksand be able to test them with WD own testprogram. Also the HD I returned was tested was tested bt the reseller and found out to be broken.