Hi EveryoneHave a two year old system and running FS2004. System specs are pentiun dual core 3.4 GHz 4GB DDR2 533 Ram and Nvidia 7600GT PCI gaphics card.Problem is some time ago I tried to upgrade to much newer drivers than the originals installed to improve performance. The recent generation drivers caused a great deal of shimmering etc and so I deleted them and had to go back to drivers that were released about the time my system was made. I know the drivers were uninstalled correctly and have used a driver cleaner to remove the remenants of anything left behind. Unfortunately I have never got it back running as well as the initial install even when trying riva tuner to overclock the card and thought about upgrading the graphics card as I am not overly happy with the performance I am getting. My question is am I likely to get much of a performance boost with a new card or is my motherboard and dual core chipset likely to be the problem. I get lots of microstutters and frame rates in complex sceneries are not too good (11FPS).Could someone offer some advice on where to go from here as I was considering an upgrade to a 9800GT Nvidia card. Is this a good idea or am I likely to be disapointed in terms of frame rates and smoothness.Thanking you all for any input.Tim

Can't anyone help?Tim :(

You'll likely be disappointed under any circumstances. The P4 at 3.4Ghz is about a core2 at 1.8Ghz. A new Vcard will not help FPS. Try uninstalling the driver with the control panel, then the remnants with DriverSweeper: http://phyxion.net/That might help, but if you want better performance, here's a place to start: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWi...tNumber=7159746O/C'd 3.6Ghz, this will get you to within 10% of anything, at any price for FS'n.

Although the 9800GT won't hurt frames,either. And you would already have it when you upgrade the rest of your system. I recall going up from a 7300 mb256 to a 7950 256mb on a 2 gb core duo and seeing all around improvement. Not a vast amount but it was there. But, make no mistake,you will need a far better cpu.Bob

Hi Guys Thanks for your comments. As I am not that computer technically savy, i am not sure if the specs I gave are totally correct. Reading my imvoice for the computer is says that the system has a Pentiun D 950 Dual Core CPU (3.4Ghz). Is this the same as what I descibed before or is it different> The motherboard is a Gigabyte socket 775.Can I upgrade anything to help or am I up for a whole new computer if I want better performance?Thanks for any additional advice.Tim

You gave the correct info. We need a motherboard model number to see what you can do. Computer brand and model number would help also. The short answer is "Yes" you need a whole new computer. The long answer is " This might be a good time for you to learn a bit about computers" and upgrade this one. It's fun, and as easy or hard as you care to make it.Bob

I agree with D17S. As a matter of fact I am in the process of ordering most of what is in his wish list to build a new rig. My old video card burnt out a while back...7600Gt...and I did not replace it...went with on board graphics... as I don't do much simming except in our short winter here in TN. I got a 9600GT a few weeks ago on sale at 79 bucks and it helped me out a lot and my system is less than your specs...P4 3ghz....2gig ram. While I cannot go around any major airports and fly smoothly I do very well with high settings in the boonies. I stay locked at 25fps and I have FEX...GEX....FTX...which is great but all I fly is GA. Yes I do have some minor texture popping but it is nothing I can't live with. But as they all say "if you want to play you have to pay". Was just reading the post of some guy in Australia on the FTX forum that just built a new Intel i7 system and what few things he has said about it makes what I am going to order look like an antique....but I think he paid around 5 grand for that monster. I do think though with D17S wish list you will have a good experience. If you don't want to build that MWave sells their system that is close to that at around 670 bucks. But you will get more and learn a lot if you build it yourself....and it is fun. regards