Hello everyone,just two brief questions concerning video and sound cards and FS2004.Currently I'm running my vanilla FS2004 (no non-certified addons or tweaks) on my PIV 2.4B, ASUS P4PE, 1 Gig DDR-RAM PC333, GF4Ti4200 128MB. FPS are in the range between 20 to high 50ies (almost everything maxxed out, 1240x1024res, 4xAF, NO FSAA, 45.23 Det) except for very dense sceneries with lots of clouds when they drop to 12 - 15.Would a GF4Ti4600 128 MB make a huge difference in terms of performance? It's just that I could get my hands on a quite cheap one (and use the old 4200 to upgrade my old computer). But if it doesn't help much I'd save the money...Second - does a PCI-soundcard give any advantages over onboard sound? Got an Analog Devices Soundmax onboard here - and a friend's Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo 7.1 that I could probably check out. Would it make any sense? Just want to save me from some unproductive work... ;-)Any hints appreciated.Regards Thomas :-wave

No, you won't get a huge difference, just a little bit (if at all) To see a bigger diffeence you need to go to a Radeon 9800/ FX series card and even then you will see more in the graphics than the performance. With those kinds of FPS in your post try locking the FPS at a lower level, this will give you a little boost.Can't help on the sound though, but the herc sounds like a good deal over the onboard sound. From past experience, unless its the Nforce2 onboard sound, you are better staying away from integrated sound.Regards, Michaelhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpgCalVirAir International VAwww.calvirair.comCougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviationwww.cgrmtnhelos.com

Hello Michael,thanks - that's mostly what I thought by myself (but it would have been a quite expensive real life test though ;-) and a Radeon 9800 or FX 5900 is definitely beyond my financial limits). But as I'm quite pleased with the overall graphics quality of my system - no major glitches, blurries or display troubles yet - I'll just get into some more tweaking to even out these minor FPS-issues in dense airport sceneries. Maybe I just pushed the (slider-)envelope a little bit over the edge for my poor little PIV 2.4B :-lolAnd just FYI - usually I keep my frames locked at 22/s. I only posted those unlocked values to give a more detailed impression of my system's performance.Maybe I'll give that Hercy card a try (but I'm still fed up with my recent mobo nightmare - no, not the ASUS - and I'm definitely not into "computer component swapping" right now ;-) .Regards Thomas :-wave