Just got back from a quick trip to my house in Bahrain to gauge the situation out there. To cut a long story short, after doing a quick flight I decided I couldn’t go another couple of months without flightsim so packed my main FS PC and flight controls into a ‘Massive suitcase’ and hoped for the best lol! Anyway as you can imagine it didn’t survive the trip! I removed the hard drive and carried it as hand luggage but my GPU became unseated and after rebooting my machine back in London it’s dead..So.. time for a new GPU, I already have a Sandybridge CPU running at 4ghz and 4gig of ram but I am still sticking with FS9 until the 777 goes beta. My system is also win xp 32bit but I will using a dual boot win7 64 bit for the DCS A10.What would be the best GPU for ‘FS9’ running on a 32bit system? I guess it’s no point getting a 1/1.5 gig card since it will just drain resources on a 32bit system.I could just go for a top end card but I Imagine the 777 won’t be released for another 9-12 months at best, by that time a better card is bound to be on the market.Thanks guys

I would go for a 560Ti. It may be overkill now but when you want to go to FSX it will be great. FSX is way more CPU bound than GPU. You could probly get away with a 260 or less...

I would go for a 560Ti. It may be overkill now but when you want to go to FSX it will be great. FSX is way more CPU bound than GPU. You could probly get away with a 260 or less...

Thanks Ash, just found one for a good price http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-077-GI Before I pull the trigger on this thing is anyone still using Nvidia? I have always prefered the visual quality on those cards.

is anyone still using Nvidia?

I think most people who buy a new video card for FSX goes with NVIDIA these days. That's definitely what I see recommended most.

I think most people who buy a new video card for FSX goes with NVIDIA these days. That's definitely what I see recommended most.

Oops sorry, was meant to say ATI I have always seen posts about driver updates, shimmering probelms etc with NVIDIA cards. My last card was a simple ATI 4870 the visual quality was so much better then NVIDIA and it was rock solid. I'm not biased at all and will happily go back to NVIDIA if it is the best option, as everyone says, FS is CPU bound so I would like a card that wont give me any hassle and allows high AA/AF like my old one.Cheers

I think you will be stoked with the 560Ti it is a steal for the performance. ATI/AMD has yet to resolve their consistent driver problems. Intel/Nvidia is always the best combo for FSX!I know this may sound crazy but alot of people have great sucess with baking their gpus! It helps reflow any solder that may have been cracked or broken.Check Overclock.net if you are interested in giving that a try.

I think you will be stoked with the 560Ti it is a steal for the performance. ATI/AMD has yet to resolve their consistent driver problems. Intel/Nvidia is always the best combo for FSX!I know this may sound crazy but alot of people have great sucess with baking their gpus! It helps reflow any solder that may have been cracked or broken.Check Overclock.net if you are interested in giving that a try.

Great thanks for your halp mate! I've just finished reading Ryan's sticky and bunch of posts over on the hardware forum. I'll go for the GTX 560Ti Super OC from overclockers and see how it goes.

Stick FSX on your Win64 parttion, and give it a try. It will take time to get it dialed in and I somehow doubt if you will be able to completely ignore the NSX when it launches. Just for future reference, you do know that you can run FS9 on Win64 and that way the GPU won't take any of your system memory.

Choose one of the following:460, 560 Ti, 570, 580Those are in order of increasing GPU power the latest generation Nvidia units, all based on the same GF110 chipset core.And yeah, why are you keeping the XP 32-bit dinosaur around? FS9 and FSX both run just fine in Win7 x64. That's what we all use here on our dev machines. If I recall correctly there's problems with FS using the newer Nvidia cards in XP anyway - Nvidia has moved on and are focusing on Win 7 with their driver development.

Choose one of the following:460, 560 Ti, 570, 580Those are in order of increasing GPU power the latest generation Nvidia units, all based on the same GF110 chipset core.And yeah, why are you keeping the XP 32-bit dinosaur around? FS9 and FSX both run just fine in Win7 x64. That's what we all use here on our dev machines. If I recall correctly there's problems with FS using the newer Nvidia cards in XP anyway - Nvidia has moved on and are focusing on Win 7 with their driver development.

Thanks guys, I do own FSX and Win7 64bitBasically I spent so many years tweaking the sim downloading Add-ons getting hardware to work etc etc on my FS9 Rig everything works super smooth, I couldn’t go through the hassle of tweaking and re-installing a new OS just for 64bit in FS9. As mentioned I will dual boot for the DCS-A10 and then shift to Win7 and FSX permanently when the 777 or possibly NGX get released. I really just want to fly for now instead of tweaking :) Ryan you brought up a good point, all the driver posts I have been book marking are probably related to Win7 64 bit and not XP :(One last question - Would it possible to move my Fs9 install onto a Win7 64 install without re-installing FS from scratch? For example install another drive and run FS of my old drive? I don't mind reactivating my products but I don't have the time to rebuild FS9 again, especially since it's near the end of it's life for me.

Hi Rob,The Gigabyte 560Ti card is a great choice. I have read a few reviews and it goes like stink...I was considering this card and also the EVGA. I went for the latter as it was a little cheaper and had the better warranty knowing I could overclock it to SC speeds if needed, but I'm quite sure you will not be disappointed with the Gigabyte.Good luck with the FS9 rebuild.RegardsMark