OK, Im sitting here with an AMD 1800 that clearly doesn't get it with FS 2004. And I'm waited for something better in the way of new hardware. Then I read here of people with the best of the best right now, not always getting top results. Some even have bad or shaky (no pun intended) results on top-end equipment.And I really don't think I see much significant change in hardware coming for quite a while.So should I just take the plunge at about 3200/9800, or, since I've waited this long should I...... as my wife always says.... "hold off a little longer".....*:-*Should I wait, or should I fly ?I'd like some opinions.Bob (Lecanto, Fl)AMD, Athlon XP, 1800+MSI, K7T266 XP ProPC 2100 DDR, 1024 MBXP, Home Edition Elsa GLadiac 920, GF3/64Mb andPNY, Verto nVidia TNT 2-M64/32WD, 100 MB, 7200, Ultra 100Sound Blaster, Audigy MP3+CH Prod, VPP Yoke - Sound CardCH Prod, Pedals - Sound Card

What makes you think your system won't cope with FS2004?It should be up to the task with quite good results.Dave

we have/had similar systems. Im running and AMD Athlon 1700+ on 512megs of pc133, BUT i just upgraded to a GF 5200fx ultra 128mb card. Im locked and rock solid at 25fps, lots of autogen, little clouds. If your asking if you should stand pat or upgrade... I would rip that GF3 out ASAP. Spend some of your coin on a new card. I only gave up 90$ for my card and I got a TON of bang for that buck.plus its an easy upgrade. Im not even an expert at this stuff, but since we have such close systems, and similar depth of pocket, I'd chime in.I think its weird that a guy spends over a grand upgrading this and that, and my dusty 3yr old tower with 90$ worth of upgrades is running a champ...good luck, buy a card! and avoid ancient addons...joe

Of course you should fly! Get up there every chance you get! Your system specs look pretty god. If I had to make one change it would be the video card. Get a nice ati 9800np for about 250.00 or shop around and get a 9700pro for less. Both great cards.In the meantime, fire up yer favorite aeroplane and go fly!!

Bob,The others have said it, get up and there and fly, your XP1800 can cope.I had an XP1800, 512MB RAM and a GF3 Ti200/64 and had accepatble results in all but heavy clouds/ detailed airports. Chris Wills' replacement clouds helped.I decided to upgrade and switched to an XP2500 (Barton) and saw a massive fps increase of 2!When more funds were available I changed my video card to an MSI GF4 Ti4800SE, now that DID make an impact.So my suggestion would be to get a better graphics card, one with 128MB or more, first and see if that is to your liking.

These are great replies and the video card alone is not one I had thought of.What happened to me is this. I was landing in Vegas at night with very few sliders moved all that far up, and the frame rates were so bad, any kind of a decent and realistic landing was totally impossible. So I backed them off even more and everything was OK, as to making a decent landing. Then for the fun of it I maxed everything out at Vegas while on the ground, and I was sick.....A whole new world of realism opened up that I had not seen before including nice ramps and many other things. I then tried this at altitude over some major cities and got the same surprise about the improvements, but I knew I had no chance whatsoever of landing from those settings. Things were choppy there too.And I just said "screw it", I'm gonna stop flying until I get something better. And I did !Now I do have a AMD 2200+ with an Nvidia GeForce 4, TI 4400 /128MB DDR in it. (My internet machine that I'm on right now.), but because the other machine was so dismal, it never occurred to me that this machine would be that much better.Everyone talks about the sim being so processor dependent, that I did not realize the video card is that important. I have read that on many posts in this forum. Looks like I may be wrong here though, in my interpretation of what has been said.ThanksBob (Lecanto, Fl)AMD, Athlon XP, 1800+MSI, K7T266 XP ProPC 2100 DDR, 1024 MBXP, Home Edition Elsa GLadiac 920, GF3/64Mb andPNY, Verto nVidia TNT 2-M64/32WD, 100 MB, 7200, Ultra 100Sound Blaster, Audigy MP3+CH Prod, VPP Yoke - Sound CardCH Prod, Pedals - Sound CardBob (Lecanto, Fl)AMD, Athlon XP, 1800+MSI, K7T266 XP ProPC 2100 DDR, 1024 MBXP, Home Edition Elsa GLadiac 920, GF3/64Mb andPNY, Verto nVidia TNT 2-M64/32WD, 100 MB, 7200, Ultra 100Sound Blaster, Audigy MP3+CH Prod, VPP Yoke - Sound CardCH Prod, Pedals - Sound Card

Yup the video card does the trick. I had similar frustrations till I upped to GF 5200. Happy flying

This might interest you. I am using a XP 1700. A few weeks ago I was using a GeForce 2 32 MB Hercules for video. Had a SB Value card for sound. 512 MB of PC2100 Memory. Two 40 GB Maxtor hard drives. And my hard drives stayed full up to the hilt. And you guessed it: it was pretty doggy with FS9. So here is what I did. I boosted up to 128MB of video with the XFX Ti 4200 GeForce Video card. I added PC 2100 RAM up to 768 MB total. I put in a 120 GB Maxtor hard drive on a Ultra ATA/100 Maxtor controller card. Now I can't complain at all. This thing sings. My clouds might be off a bit now and then. But I can now load up the sim in 15 - 20 secs. I can change from any airport in the world to any other airport in the world with a new aircraft in less than a minute.Compared to what I had, this is a world of improvement. Should I buy more to have more?