Hopefully within the next month the new nforce mbs will be out allowing for fx 55 and 2x 6800 in sli. I think that should give a noticable fps increazse as well.

>If it turned out he was getting 35fps with all the complex>stuff running, it would have been a revolution here at Avsim>and a windfall for PCI Express video card manufacturers>because I have no doubt that we would have ALL been down at>Best Buy drooling on our wallets and selling our children to>buy em :-lol.>Mike T.Be careful because you will get 35fps with all the complex stuff running . . . but when you bank into those cumulus the guarantee goes out the window . . sometimes! Very tough to really nail down--performance in FS that is :()Noel

Noel, (LOL)...maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut and just used the thing...LOL!Oh well...too late now...Yeah, my trip has been from a 500 MHz (BX chipset) Celery running a GForce 2/32 meg to a transitional 1.4 Celery Tuliatin, and then finally onto something that can run FS9 where I need the performance. That is take-off and approach...then flare. From the earliest days when i got into PC'ing (BTW, my first Pentium 200 MHz system with, get this---32 megs of RAM and cost me $5,000.00 No B.S.!) FS95/98 was a major pain in the a** upon final. Chunk and ladder, prayer book in hand.Now the Dell....OMG!I really now see virtual flight. Even the take-off rolls whether myself or A.I., have that sense of spe---------->ed. I have never seen that before two weeks ago.I won't chase the high-end curve anytime soon. The only thing I plan to do is to upgrade to three GIGS of 533MHz DDR Ram as soon as the modules come down. I have 2x512 of the stuff right now.BTW, do you know...can you have two modules of 1 GB each in the other interleave? My setup would then be A: 2x512 B: 2x1GB for a system total of 3 GB. Do you see any stability issues here? I'll always run Dual ChannelCheers!Mitch R.

You should atleast try and get the same kind and amount of RAM to put in the computer. There shouldn't be any stability issues, but have a look at google, there's a lot of talk going on about whether it's good or bad, or look at your RAM manufactorer or motherboard manufactorer website.

3Gigs? Why? Try running TaskMan and note available free ram with your 2G. You should never be running out of physical memory with 2G in FS, even with all the addons you wish to run . . . IMO.Noel

OK Everyone,I would have the true test!!!First of all I am using a Matrox Parhelia card that projects a 3072 x 768 graphics display over three 21" monitors. Which means I am driving the scenery graphics with approximately 6 times the average Flight Simmer screen size.All of you would be amazed how much you're missing with these extra views. Those of you using WideView or Multi Monitor / Multiple PC configurations can really relate.The most common Flight Sim configuration is half of a screen 17", 19", 21" with the A/C Panel covering the bottom of the screen. So this basically equates form 1/2 to 3/4 of one monitor screen space wise.Mitch, it would be interesting to see how your hardware would drive this configuration. I have to back down my sliders somewhat, but it WELL worth it to enjoy this extended view. I which I could add an additional 4 moitors to extend the Right and Left views further. But I will say that this will probably bring up a debate of Processor BUS Memory versus Video Card. Which gives you bigger bang for the buck.Thanks again Mitch. I hope Intel gets off their duff and starts releasing faster processors, it seems like the 3.4 GHZ has been our for YEARS! This is the slowest progression of faster processors I have seen in 10 years. And I hope Microsoft makes OPTIMIZATION a primary goal of FS 2006, do more with less, not more with ALOT more resources.FS 2004 should not have been released without a few more "Optimization" passes through the weather engine! This area along with Complex A/C Panels / AI traffic are most taxing FPS wise!Mitch, you need to load that machine up with third parties add-ons USA Roads, Active Sky, and Ultimate Traffic, and then see what happens to your FPS.Get a Parhelia Card and Fly in an Extended / Expanded Scenery and then come talk to us.. I sure it will perform better than my 2.5 GHZ, but until Intel can double the speed to 5.0 GHZ or better, I really don't think it is worth the extra investment to upgrade at this point. Better to wait until FS 2006 had been out a couple of months and then see what the best hardware should be. Barry

Barry...funny you should mention this...this loading up of the machine, LOL!I started the process yesterday---Active Weather 2004.5 (Simply Fantastic! Great skies since...)Simflyer's Toronto. (Also fab eye-candy and most accurate, but alas, this is the FPS-sucker-upper.)With the two running, and myself running around in the Simflyer's T.O., I am getting between 20-22 with everything cranked on FS9.I guess if you want to stick with the default, you will see the 'big numbers'.Getting back to Active Sky. In a word?----impressed! The 'stock' weather engine?---NO COMPARISONCheers!Mitch R.