Im upgrading my system and i need your advice aboutthe video card.these 2 are about the same price butare they offering the same image quality ?how about the drivers? advantage NVDIA ?Here are my future specs:INTEL P4 S478-800 2.8 512 HTKINGSTON KVR 400 MHZ DDRNO-ECC 2X256MBP4 S478ASUS PAP 800865PESB AUDIGY X-GAMER360W POWER ATX P4 ALPHA HIPOWER...Louis

There should be a big red sign for the search button... I would recommend the Radeon 9800 Pro because it produces a better image than the GFFX, and doesn't lose as much performance when utilizing AA & AF. It really is as simple as that.-Max Cowgill

Yep. I'd also vote for that. -- Doug

Okay then... I'm gonna slip into my helmet and vest now. The nVidia guys will be showing up any minute :-) .

No they won't be because what was stated is true... ;) The FX is still having major issues with 2D panels not displaying too (Nvidia didn't fix it in the latest driver) ATI only has minor issues when accesing menus in full screen mode - the actual sim runs beautifuly. ATI is aware of the issues and I'm sure it'll be fixed in the 3.7 driver, which should be out any time now...Ryan

The 9800. Period. Stan

Any one with a ATI Radeo 9800:I'm curious to know if with your ATI Radeon 9800, you can undock a window (GPS, radio stack, etc) while in full screen mode. (I mean is the "undock" menu item grayed out after you right click on the window while you are in Full Screen.)I have this problem with nVidia 45.24. (Problem didn't exist in FS2002 and is a pain with two monitors.) nVidia wrote back and said they were aware of the problem and would fix it in a future driver release. So I'm more likely to believe that if I hear that ATI doesn't have the problem. Maybe the problem is embedded in FS2004. ;-)Thanks,Larry JonesFlorence, MT

My 9800 Pro has the same problem Larry. I can only undock windowed with FS9. The option is greyed out fullscreen. And I agree, it's a pain with two monitors.Doug

Cosmo,If you haven't already, get a 400W or 420W power supply. You won't regret it - esp if you plan to overclock your system a little. More power will help system stability. These GPU's are also power hungry.Cheers!Cloud9

Reading that, I am glad I got the Antec TRUE BLUE 480 watt quiet power supply with dual Blue smart fans with the rig I ordered.By the way, when setting up AA and AF (i don't have FS2004 or the 9800Pro yet but will here in 2 weeks) what are the best levels to set them at? I assume it is set through the ATI control panel or through the FS2004 menu? I have a GeForce card now on my old system with FS2002 so I am unfamiliar with ATI cards. Thanks for any help.

What are the specs of the computer you bought?

Hey Greg,Here you go:The powerr supply as mentioned above, Intel 875P chipset, P4 3.2GHz, Zalman Copper Heatsink w/Air Shroud, Quiet 8cm Blue/Red Light fan, Artic Silver 3 Compound, 1024MB Corsair PC3500-XMS DDR433 CL2 Extreme Memory with Heat spreader, 128MB ATI 9800Pro, Buss-Cool PCI slot fan system, (2) 160GB Seagate 8MB Cache SATA drives in striped RAID array plus the usual DVD-ROM, CD-RW, Soundblaster Audigy 2 6.1 channel. It will be hooked up to a Viewsonic 21.3" viewable LCD.

Well, first of all I don't think that box is gonna cut it. You should send it to me immediately for extensive testing (should take no longer than 6-8 months). :-) Seriously, that is a kick ### computer!!! Now this is no "set-in-stone-use-these-settings-or-else sort of a recommendation, but it would certainly be a good place to start:In the ATI Control Panel, starting at the top of the D3D page:Click on "Custom Settings"In the Smoothvision box, make sure AA and AF "Application Preference" are UNCHECKEDAA at 4 (or 6... your system should do quite well at 6, but 4 looks nice too)Click on "Performance"AF at 16Texture Preference... slider all the way to the rightMipmap detail Level... slider all the way to the rightWait for Vertical Sync... slider all the way to the rightTRUFORM... ??? I don't see any difference with my 9700 Pro whether this is left or rightOn the SMARTGART page:Set AGP to 8XTurn OFF Fastwrites (little or no gain with it... some systems become unstable if it is on)On the Monitor page:Set your preferred Refresh RateOn the Troubleshoot page:Set Hardware Acceleration all the way to the rightClick on Enable Write CombiningOn the Options page:Whatever tickles your fancyFor other games that use OpenGL, you can use the same settings as the D3d page.Hope this helps... let me know when it arrives. I'll give you my mailing addy so that I can get right to the testing for you. :-)

Thanks Greg for the info. I already copy/pasted it to a text file and printed it out for use.

> ...>By the way, when setting up AA and AF (i don't have FS2004 or>the 9800Pro yet but will here in 2 weeks) what are the best>levels to set them at? I assume it is set through the ATI>control panel or through the FS2004 menu? I have a GeForce>card now on my old system with FS2002 so I am unfamiliar with>ATI cards. Thanks for any help.With: P4 3.2Ghz, 875P chipset, 512x2 PC3200 memory, and 9800Pro 256k...I've got AA and AF maxed out in the ATI control panel, AA unchecked in FS9, and most all of the sliders pretty far right, but a few of them not maxed out. The resulting framerates at 1024x768 and 1280x960, GPS up (locked at 30) are most all of the time 29.9 and go down to 23 or 24 on some landing approaches. As far as undocking these windows, I have no trouble moving the radio stack and/or gps around whereever I want them, in full-screen mode. I don't actually do an 'undock' on them, I just click and drag them whereever I want. Sorry, but I don't have 2 monitors up on this so I don't know if I'm answering this question properly.sj