Im thinking of buying one of the new Cards... 260, 280 or 285 gtx..... Im only playing Flightsim X...But I have seen a lot of reviews and at forums, that 260, 280 or 285 is making poor performance in FSX.How is the situation today, and what about the newest drivers....????My system: Intel quad 3.0 (overcl to 3.5) - Asus mother p5 pro - Ge 9800 gtx+ - 2 x 2gb ram pc 6400 - Vista 32 bit -Is my Ge9800 gtx+ good enough, or will 260, 280 or 285 make better performance.. lots of times my fps drops a lot in big airports, when I have to landShould I try to buy a new card ??????Chris from Denmark

I've got a 260 and I can run the FSX sliders to the max with no issues.

Im thinking of buying one of the new Cards... 260, 280 or 285 gtx..... Im only playing Flightsim X...But I have seen a lot of reviews and at forums, that 260, 280 or 285 is making poor performance in FSX.How is the situation today, and what about the newest drivers....????My system: Intel quad 3.0 (overcl to 3.5) - Asus mother p5 pro - Ge 9800 gtx+ - 2 x 2gb ram pc 6400 - Vista 32 bit -Is my Ge9800 gtx+ good enough, or will 260, 280 or 285 make better performance.. lots of times my fps drops a lot in big airports, when I have to landShould I try to buy a new card ??????Chris from Denmark

Chris,If you look through this forum you will see that FSX tends to be CPU bound rather than GPU bound. Therefore there may be little value in upgrading your graphics card if your CPU is holding the frame rate back so make sure that it is the graphics card causing the hold up rather than other things such as disk tuning, cpu etc. I went from a Nvidia 8800 to a Nvidia 280 card but it didn't have affect on the frame rate in FSX. (I swapped due to to a GPU overheating issue). It is possible that you might even improve performance by swapping your CPU to a Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 or E8600 and overclocking that to 4Ghz or greater. I don't think there is any definitive way to project likely performance increases with any particular upgrade due to the many variables involved and of course the position of your FSX sliders. Approach any graphics card upgrade with extreme caution is my best advice.John

One thing that I'll add with regards to CPU vs GPU, is that where you have complex aircraft and you may experience CTDs or even some FPS issues, upgrading card did solve issues for me. Still FPS could be better, but I've got sliders to the max and FSX seems quite happy to run like that. I think my old card was a GeForce 7900 or something like that.

Chris,If you look through this forum you will see that FSX tends to be CPU bound rather than GPU bound. Therefore there may be little value in upgrading your graphics card if your CPU is holding the frame rate back so make sure that it is the graphics card causing the hold up rather than other things such as disk tuning, cpu etc. I went from a Nvidia 8800 to a Nvidia 280 card but it didn't have affect on the frame rate in FSX. (I swapped due to to a GPU overheating issue). It is possible that you might even improve performance by swapping your CPU to a Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 or E8600 and overclocking that to 4Ghz or greater. I don't think there is any definitive way to project likely performance increases with any particular upgrade due to the many variables involved and of course the position of your FSX sliders. Approach any graphics card upgrade with extreme caution is my best advice.John

I concur with John on this. I don't see any signficant improvement (that I can tell doing anecdotal analysis only :()) over my 8800GT. I was looking for a faster GPU for OTHER titles besides FSX, but didn't want to drag FSX down in the process. The 280GTX works well for FSX and other titles so I'm happy. Noel

What!? I don't believe it for one second - sorry.Regards,

I've got a 260 and I can run the FSX sliders to the max with no issues.

Hi,I replaced an 8800GTX with a GTX285 on my current pc (see sig). Got a nice performance increase on about 25% in FSX. Could increase bufferpools a lot and got a smoother FSX with higher settings. If you got a fast system a fast card with a memory bandwidth like the GTX 280/285, you'll get a better experience with FSX.

Hi,I replaced an 8800GTX with a GTX285 on my current pc (see sig). Got a nice performance increase on about 25% in FSX. Could increase bufferpools a lot and got a smoother FSX with higher settings. If you got a fast system a fast card with a memory bandwidth like the GTX 280/285, you'll get a better experience with FSX.

Ahh, Ulf, you are right. I forgot it was not until bufferpools could be increased that I resolved my sound issue.

"I've got a 260 and I can run the FSX sliders to the max with no issues."With all due respect the above statement is really quite meaningless without providing both your system specs (keeping in mind thatFSX is processor dependent) type of aircraft (hang glider vs. Level D 767) and area where you are flying.Just because your machine supposedly can handle sliders maxed out does not mean that it would apply to everyone who has purchased or is considering the purchase of any type of video card.Regards,Craig

:( Thanks for all your answers.... I have ordered Asus GTX 260 ... And will have it by the end of the week....In the next week I tell you all, what I think about it :)

Go ye and get an ATI 4890. Mine just came in today to replace a dead 3870X2. FSX is now playable at full sliders (also depending on the rest of your system) and with the addition of another 4890 in Crossfire mode, is the fastest video card combo on the planet. Not to mention that the video quality is crisp all the way to the horizon.As far the the 260, the 4890 beats it up hands down, so the poster must have one heck of a monster system to max out sliders with an inferior card. My specs.QX9650 OC @ 4Ghz4GB of PC 10666 OCZ RamAsus Maximus MoBoetc, etc, etc...

I can't even max everything out with > 15FPS on my 4GHz E8400 and GTX 285 @ 1080P. Ant's comments are meaningless without further clarification.

I already got my new Asus GTX 260 Card... Now I tell how its perform....I fly from KORD to KJFK (both from FS Dream team) Flying in Airbus 320 from Wilco pub vol. 1 (Livery Jet Blue).. I use FS2crew, Live ATC chatter from cielosim, XPax from HIFI.. MAP from Feel there... Freeware add on with a lot of cabin announc. My traffic 5.2 set to 50 %....Dense Autogen.. Traffic 12% boats 19% Ferrys 19%... All scenery almost in top.. ..... Clouds at about 100/....3 GHZ overcloc. to 3.5 ... Asus pro 5... Kingston ddr2 800 mhz.... 22