First off, let me impress you with my system specs:800mhz processor384mb RAM32mb Matrox G550 video card5-yr old Viewsonic 773 17" CRT monitorThat's right, I said "impress you". As in, impress you that I can tolerate (and sometimes enjoy!) playing FS9 with such a humble machine!Here's what FS9 is like for me: On a clear day at flight level three-zero (or if it's really foggy nearer the ground), I can get up to 9, sometimes even 12 fps. Of course, there's nothing to see in those cases, but boy does FS9 run SMOOTH. ;-) Of course, the moment I start seeing other aircraft, or some decent terrain, or come down to a general-aviation altitude, I get down to 6 fps, and landing and taxiing is usually between 2 and 4 fps. This no-small-feat is accomplished by employing a ridiculous battery of tweaks and utilities collected from all you fine minds here at AVSIM. (Last night I was trying to land at KIAD with Ultimate Traffic at 100%; the frames dropped to 1 per second on final, and it just became damn unplayable. I couldn't land the plane without crashing; in fact, I couldn't even nail the runway. (Does this surprise anybody?))I'm a family man with very little money to invest in my promising career as a flight simulation pilot, so I've been watching the AVSIM threads closely for info on the biggest bang for the buck I can get with regards to a system upgrade. The consensus seems to be that graphics cards give you better mileage than processor or memory upgrades. (Although considering the age of my processor and paucity of my RAM, that may not apply to me.)In any case, I've been thinking about upgrading my 32mb Matrox G550 video card (a great card, by the way) to a Radeon. There's currently a discussion in the threads about Radeon cards, started by ChrisJake. My question is a derivative of his. Basically I want to know, would I be so impressed with an upgrade from a 32mb Matrox card to a 128mb Radeon 9700/9800 non-pro that I don't need to go full-out and buy a 256mb Pro or XT? In other words, could I buy the cheapest Radeon (e.g., 9700 nonpro, as low as $100 on ebay) and be impressed enough that I wouldn't miss the added benefit of the higher end Radeons? (As I say, money is a real issue here.) Do you think my processor and memory can handle a 128 or 256mb Radeon? (My motherboard is only a few years old, and I'm pretty sure it supports the extra 4 power pins needed by the Radeon.) Perhaps I should re-phrase my question as, what would going from a 32mb video card to a 128mb card (or 256) be like? Considering my system specs, do you think I need an upgrade in another area even more dearly than a new video card?Thanks in advance for your advice, everyone! I know the upgrade question is constantly being asked, and I admire you guys for always answering the question with such enthusiasm, like it was the first time someone asked. You guys are awesome.Here's to my fantasy of stutter-less flight and spot views that don't take 3-5 seconds to display...---Judd

Hi Judd,If you can afford it, get a whole new system. If you buy from Dell, you can specify the internal components and software, all usually at a discount. Short of that, I think a new video card would help. This past summer I upgraded from a 64MB NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 to a 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 Pro and saw significant improvment in image quality and FPS.-- WaltFlying FS2004 at 1600x1200x32Intel Pentium 4, 2.0 GHzWindows XP Pro512MB PC800 RDRAM,8100128MB ATI Radeon 9600 ProCATALYST Windows XP 3.10 video driverDirectX 9.0bViewSonic P95f+ 19 inch Ultrabrite CRT MonitorSound Blaster Audigy2 ZSCreative I-Trigue 2.1 3300 SpeakersMS ForceFeedback 2 joystick

Hi Judd,What an honest post! Here is my opinion. Look up your motherboard and see how much you could upgrade your processor. Your bottleneck is the processor and no matter the video card your FPS could be the same. Your MB is a few years old and what speed is the AGP slot? 2X or 4X? BTW the power pins come from your power supply which raises another question: Can your power supply handle a newer video card? An older 250W PS may not be able to.Others gain from a video card upgrade because their processor is able to keep up a bit better with FS.Good luck in your search! Feel free to ask some more!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Support

Thanks, Jim.I'll take a look at that stuff. I didn't want to upgrade the motherboard because it's such a pain. For some reason I had thought replacing the mobo would be easier than just replacing the processor on the mobo, but maybe a new processor is the way to go.That being said, would a new processor only bring me up to the water's surface requiring me to still upgrade the video card to get better results, or do you think I would see some gameplay improvements from just improving the processor?Thanks again for your help.--Judd

Judd - I think your major problem is the CPU, not the video card. Even though the 550 is a DirectX 6 card with limited memory, it's capable of better framerates than you are seeing. What's needed first is more CPU power. Look at this way, the 550 is waiting on the CPU to feed it information. That's why the framerates are so low. Most all of the polygon processing is done by the CPU and the video card can't display the scenery until the CPU is finished processing it. As the polygon count increases with more and more complex scenery the framerate gets worse and worse because the CPU doesn't have enough clock cycles available to process the polygons. Less scenery showing means higher framerates - good rates at altitude and lousy rates on landing. And the when the CPU also has calculate all the data for the AI traffic the going really gets tough. The scenery will look better with a new video card but the framerate isn't going to change without a faster CPU.DougEdited 'cause I can't spel

The way I see it is that you have two options, and both will require patience on your part! Either, yes, go ahead and buy that Radeon 9700 (FINE card...I use one and am very happy with it :) ), but, you will still need to upgrade your mobo/CPU to do FS9 justice, so after installing the Radeon, keep on shoving a few $/

Others have posted the same thing. Another thing to throw into the mix is your monitor. What is its maximum resolution and refresh rate?All of this depends on your expertise level in working with computers and the $$$$$ you have to spend. I built my last 2 from scratch, but never replaced a processor, seems like too much work.A good place to start for prices is: www.pricewatch.comFYI an AMD 2400XP combo. is selling for $92.I use an AMD 1900XP combo. and that is selling for $74. I get 25-30 FPS in most situations. Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Support

I got only one question for you? How much can you afford?Because: buying Radeon will require mofo-PSU to run it. I had 300Watt, and it was crashing the graphics. Bought 550Watt, no more crashes, simple as that.If you upgrade from your current position to the Radeon, and it really works (with the current PSU), my guess is you will maybe notice none to few FPS performance increase. Doesn't really pay off the $400 card.What you need is again, a balanced system. Right now 800mhz and your Matrox are "balanced" in the power.If you would get for instance 1.5ghz CPU (or similar) and a Radeon say 9500 or so, it would be balanced. Or for instance 2.5ghz and Radeon 9700, or 3.0Ghz and Radeon 9800. Now I'm not talking about these XT or Pro versions, those bring a little, but not really THAT much.Said that, one important thing remains: for FS, CPU is more important. But still, can't work without decent 3D graphic card.I've gone through lots of steps of configuring, old, new hardware, and since I'm a passionate simmer, I got myself few months ago best I was able to afford back then...specs are down...it was expensive, but well worth...And btw., you really wrote one damn honest post! Respect!

I hate to say this man, but to be completely honest, that entire system needs to be upgraded. It's been my experience that you can't hope for performance gains unless every componet of the system is on an equal footing. You can buy a 9800 XT and on that kind of old system you're not going to get any sizable performance increase and this is assuming the card even works - power and the voltage of the AGP slot may prevent it.My advice would be to save up 1000-1500 dollars and when you get to that point, you'll be able to build a whole new system with pretty much top end stuff in it.I did my new system, salvaging only the harddrives and optical drives from my old one for about $900 and it's got a 2500+ running at 3200+ speeds, 1GB of PC3200, and a Radeon 9800 Pro. The difference between this and my old 1.4 Athlon in FS is astounding. I attribute this to the fact that I upgraded everything and really have no bottlenecks anywhere in the chain.

JuddMy system is pretty close to yours. 700mhz, 384 MB Ram, 64 MB MX440 nVida. I've trimmed my system and get 10 - 20 fps. I use 1024x768x16 in the FS9 hardware page to get the fps up with only a couple of minor complaints, also Chris's clouds and play with the sliders.I did have to replace the display cfg in the main FS9 folder with a file that had my card included in it to get my aircraft reflections to work. Check the display cfg and see if your video card is listed.It is a big fps difference when you use 16 bit as opposed to 32 bit. I do plan on getting at least a DELL 8300, but it will take around $1500 for what I want. You can get a stock 8300 for around $900.

"If you buy from Dell, you can specify the internal components and software, all usually at a discount." Before buying from Dell look them up at www.resellerratings.com . They were such a good company is kind of shocking to see what they have become.David

Thanks, everyone, for your great insight. I really appreciate it.You know, I've been reluctant to buy a new system, not just because of the prohibitive cost, but also because, despite my low performance specs, I've got a lot of decent hardware that I've no good reason to get rid of (good CD/RW, DVD, and floppy drives; Firewire card; two 80-gig hard drives).So I'm thinking that I need to upgrade just these components:- new motherboard/processor- new 128mb or 246mb Radeon video card- new monitor- get more RAM- upgraded power supply (is this part of the mobo?)- probably need a new case too for the new configuration- *perhaps* a new sound card; I like what I have, but recent posts suggest I might get some improvements with a newer sound cardWhat recommendations might you make on the brand or performance specs of these components?I can supply my own drives and peripherals, but I know two people who build computers for a living; I'm going to ask them for quotes on the new parts. If anyone has suggestions on reliable and inexpensive sources for these parts, please let me know. And share any opinions you might have on timing these purchases (e.g., "wait two months, cuz the Radeon 9700 will be dropping in price then").Thanks again, everyone. It may be a little while before I get the money together, and I may do the upgrade in increments as some of you have suggested, but I'll let you know how it turns out.Thanks again!

www.newegg.com is one of the best Internet stops you can make.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Support

Hello Hotwheels:One word of caution:Your power supply is in the case. You mentioned that you might get a new case. You can do that with the power supply included, but you need to be sure of what you are getting. Last year I upgraded (for about the eighth time) and bought a new case which included an unknown high powered power supply. Had all kinds of troubles. (with PS9 only, but it is the big power user). Finally patched in my old power supply from the system I was replacing (and going to upgrade my wife's unit with) and everythbing worked perfectly in spite of it being about 3/4 the power. (Weighed about twice as much too which is a good indicatior. I since have replaced the unit that came with the case with a name brand unit and everything works fine. DON'T get a cheapy power supply regardless of the power rating. Cooling is another consideration depending upon which CPU you choose, but fans are dirt cheap. Shipping will be more than the fans.I think you are pointing in the right direction. Order of importance in my opinion is Motherboard/CPU combo, then Memory, then Graphics (Assuming you have a compatible case and Power Supply). If you are a tinkerer by nature, the experience is worth something too in my opinion and after a few Uh Oh's you will have leared a lot and be better prepared for the next upgrade. (I promise you will!).Finally, the conferences at the top of this forum are probably a better location for this subject, and I am sure the moderators would appreciate it.Best of luck.RTH