Bloody 'ell Gary! That's a lot of graphics card changes! :-eekIsn't it depressing that processor speeds have slowed right down? If we could have sustained the rate of improvement from a few years ago we'd be running 6GHz 4096Mhz bus speeds and switching off the redundant central heating! :-hah

I should have noted that I did upgrade CPU once during that whole graphics card shuffle, from A64 3700+ to C2D 3.2GHz and that made the most marked improvement in FS9 performance - nearly double my low end FPS! But double 8 FPS (my worst case that I could pull my A64 down to) is still only 16 FPS. I'd have to double my CPU again to get 30 FPS min in FS9.Gary

Hi Gary,I've never swapped CPUs in a mobo. Now that I have two desktop systems the main PC gets relegated to a support role. My 5 year-old Athlon 2000 (1.7GHz) will probably go into the loft or to a good cause.16fps is still very flyable. I'd be happy getting that on a EGLL approach. 25fps will do nicely for me. Anything over that is a bonus.Cheers,

>Hi Mitch,>>I'm amazed that you can get such high frame rates with 100% Ai>on a 3rd party airport as busy as CYYZ. I'm guessing it's>nowhere near as busy as Heathrow where it drops into single>digits on mine.>>The X1950Pro didn't increase my frame rates at all over the>9800Pro it replaced. It simply allowed me to keep the same>rates at higher resolutions. And for the record I fly with no>panel visible as I use Project Magenta software which is>displayed on a second computer.>>Our two systems aren't that different.>He hasP4 3.4 GHz 3 Gb 533 MHz and X1950Pro PCIe.Your system differs in three regards1) You got P4 3.0 GHz (slower CPU)2) You got 1 Gb RAM (what frequency?)3) You got AGP instead of PCIeSo it seems that these differences is significant. My system seems more like yoursAMD 64 3200+ (OC to 2.15 GHz)1 Gb 400 MHz RAMNVIDIA 6600GT 256M DDR3 AGPFrom what I have heard is more than 1 Gb RAM overkill for FS9 and AGP vs PCIe shouldn't matter for this card. So it seems to be the CPU or maybe also RAM speed.

>I'm running UT. No General Ai here either.>Would General AI be a bad thing in this regard? BTW I do run both general and commercial AI.

>I'm with you Ray. I can still get FS9 down to mid teen FPS>on my rig below if I try hard enough. At that point the CPU is>calling all the shots, so it doesn't matter how fast your>video card drivers are. Similar to your experience, my FS9>low end FPS haven't improved a cracker since upgrading from>9800 Pro to 6800 GT to X800 XT to 7900 GTO to 8800 GTS. >What! that low on your system with a duo core CPU and fast RAM and a 8800? I usually drop down to around 15 fps if I throw in addon plane and sceneries and bad weather.I gotAMD 64 3200+ (OC to 2.15 GHz but that didn't make any noticable difference)1 Gb 400 MHz RAMNVIDIA 6600GT 256M DDR3 AGP

<>RAM frequency is 800MHz - fast in its day. RAM doesn't affect frame rates - only load times. PCI-E and AGP are virtually the same as you say.Of course the one thing you haven't mentioned is what settings we have in FS. That's why I have a standard test at Meigs I use for any hardware / setting change.

>http://www.wholesalepcstuff.com/Cart1.php?...CFR3BYAod7m41Kg>>$59.95After looking this up I doubt that this is genuine (legal) copies. They state that you don't get automatic updates. But that shouldn't be any problem with a genuine CD with content that is identical to a retail copy.