new hardware upgrade for FS9

My framerates are in the text. I am seeing about 1 25% to about a 300% improvement. To get the single digits you mentioned, I now have to expand my view up over my more complex add-on ATL with full Flight Enviroment clouds and all my other add-ons maxed. When I normally use flight sim, I don't use my view extended out that far. It kind of reminds me of the FS98 days when I switched out an old Voodoo card to the Nvidia TNT card.The last time I got results half this good was going from my Voodoo 3 2000 to the GeForce4 Ti 4200 using FS2002. Using FS2004 and when moving from the 4200 to ATI 9800 Pro, I did not get any increase in frames per second, but I was able to utilize some AA and AF without loss of frames-per-second and the quality looked better. Back then, I used an Athlon XP Barton (overclocked 2.436 Ghz).My scenario was the following (using the Barton 9800 combo: Sitting at the default Seattle Int runway in the default C-182. All sliders maxed (1600x1200) with the exception of 30 miles visability, partly cloudly. I used X2 AA and X4 AF - I believe. I just know those two settings were not maxed.My frames per second ranged from 11.8 - 13.5When I switched to an ASRock MB with an AMD Athlon 3800+, using the 9800 Pro, I obtained the following frames per second range with the same AA and AF settings: 17 - 22.4 Also, in FS2004, when I dumped my 9800 Pro for the PNY Nvidia 7900 using running an AMD Athlon 3800+, I did not get any increase in frames per second, however, I was able to turn up AA and AF all the way with no loss in frames-per-second. Also, there was a quality improvment as well. I was still 17 - 22.4I then build a new system around my current Athlon FX 57. My frames-per-second went to the following: 23 - 27 with the 7900. I installed the latest drivers from the Nvidia site, so there should have been no driver issues.When I overclocked the the 7900, I saw no improvement in frames-per-second. That was what led me to believe that FS2004 was CPU limited. I figured that I had maxed out the videocard end of it.However, I also then overclocked my FX 57 from 2.8 Ghz to 3.0 Ghz and also saw no improvement.Since that time, I had started putting add-ons like Level D, Flight Enviroment, Ground Enviroment Pro, Active Sky, and Radar Contact. I usually max out all options on those programs. The only times I had problems were with heavy cloud coverage in placed like JFK and that. My frames would occassionally drop to the 9-10 range. That's when I inquired into upgrading to the Blackbox XP 6400+ and then someone suggested trying an 8800. I was very skeptical (sp?). I then read the post of some others who had upgraded to the 8800 with great success. I then figured what could I lose? If it did not work, I could always run it back to Best Buy for a refund. I placed it in and with the old scenaro, I got frame rates in the the following range: 58 - 64!! and higher once airborn. I about fell out of my chair. But then figured that my maxed out FS204 setting must have reset. They had not; they were still maxed.Now in places with heavy clouds and complex scenery, I am getting frames in 18-24 range, never lower that 14 to 16 (and that was with a complex ATL scenery I downloaded from AVSIM. Before with the 9700, I was getting as low as 7-9. Since upgrading with this 8800, I really believe we were wrong assuming that FS2004 was entirely CPU bound. I just don't think the right video cards were out. I am curious as to why I got such an increase you did not. RH