>The Geforce 5### series were a joke. Really pathetic>performance. You may want to look at getting a better card as>the Ti4200 is also quite slow.>>I upgraded from an XP 2400+ with a 9700 Pro to an Athlon64>3500+ with a X800XT and I basically got twice the performance>in my test scenario (13 FPS on the old one, 26FPS on the new>one). This scenario is basically KSEA with full traffic and>lots of clouds and its as slow as the sim ever runs for me. That is true of course for most 5XXX but my 5700 Ultra beats any GF4 Tis series and this I know because I have owned most of them ;-). Best card for the money would be a 9800 PRO at discount pricing. If I had the $$$ I would certainly go GF6800 Ultra OC..Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]http://www.rawbw.com/~bdoolin/shinault/southparkcartmad.gif[h3]PMDG 747![/h3]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)ASUS KV8 DLX | AMD 3200 64 | 1 GIG PC 3200 DDR | GIGABYTE 5700 ULTRA | ViewSonic VP192b 19" |

I had pretty good performance from a 5700 256mb. Certainly numbers that were in line with the price. My 6800GT 256mb is a horse of a different color.

"My 6800GT 256mb is a horse of a different color."Your 6800GT is a horse. A big, strong horse.Cheers,Greg

Point made Brian...I reread his post, and didn't realize he was loading up the add-ons. -John

with your system, and you mentioned 300$, i would for shure look at the 6800GT 128MB. About $320. That card on your system should easily get you 30FPS.For prices up to 300Check on the,ATi 9600XT 128 (should provide 20-30FPS9800Pro 128 (20-35 or maybe 40 in a few cases)6600GT 128MB (which is having recalls, so stay alert on the 6600GT) up to 30-40FPS6800GT 128MB which is about $330. Also, i have seen a few on sale as low as 280. (Possibly up to 35-45FPS)Your system specs look great, just need to get you a good card. All the cards i have listed would be the best route to go for 300 or less. If you want the best card in my opinion, go for the 6800GT OC 256MB. Now you could get 65 or 70 with that big brute. ;)haha.. just check out on some good cards and you should run fine. If all you want is to lock at 16, you dont have to go that far, but you can easily get better with that system.Happy Holiday! :-wave

Hi all,I think you may want to set up a better profile.I have an Old AThlon 1.2ghz, FX5600 ONLY 128mb, 512 mb Ram, and I can spin in spot view all day long without pauses.I run 1600x1200 in Game and that profile also uses the same resolution on the desktop.But I also run a very lean Profile. :-)1) I run 4 seperate Hardware Profiles, with one being just for gaming. I've followed Black Viper's advice for After WinXP SP2. DON't Confuse hardware profiles with user profiles.DefaultGamingSafeEverydayInstructions Here: Not for nervous nellie's. These are Hardware Profiles, not xp user profiles.Main Site:http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htmIn my gaming Profile, it is a user profile so no Admin rights in xp, which you shouldn't be online in Admin mode anyway, IMHO, and others.2) Shut down as many useless services running in your services.msc as necessary. You would be surprised what you don't need running. Like Printing, unless you print hwile you fly. or if you don't fly online, shut off your network, and if your network is shut down, no need for virus protection in that particular profile. Also means no real Weather, but you can still program that as well. I also run my Voice Recognition Software in this profile as well. Also consider Ken Salter's FS9 Startup Utility available here in the library. 3) A 5600 is also ok to Overclock, IMHO, if you know what you are doing. You can Follow Guru3d's advice on their site for that one. Don't overclock too much, or you will fry your card.Tips and Programs like Riva Tuner:http://downloads.guru3d.com/Tips are here:http://www.sysopt.com/articles/VCOGuide/A 5600 is a very middle of the road card, but I find my best stable results with the 6177 Drivers. YMMV.If you do start tweaking, you may become addicted. Look around for other cfg suggestions on settings and such.It still comes down to lowering sliders for higher frame rates after you are done tweaking. I leave shadows off, and leave AA up to the application.If you have questions on the XP tweaking, let me know, and I can helpo you out on that end.Regards,JoePS - One of these Months I will (accidently of course) ;-) fry my MOBO, and vid card and have to go get new stuff. Hmmmm... Gives me an Idea. Maybe I'll kick my 1.2 up to 1.9 or so, and fly the vid card until it is snowing on the screen before I turn on FS9. :-) :-)PPS - I always forget this part. If your Vid Card does NOT have its own fan, go buy one for it, or drill some holes in the cabinet and suck some air out, or leave the case off, but DO NOT Overclock a card with NO FAN. And no more than 20% over the core amount is a good bench, but if you start to see anomolies on the screen, lower it a bit until gone. Also, run a benchmark before you start tewaking, so you know what your defaults are. Then go have fun, but Remember, this is all just my opinion so if you fry something, or are afraid of frying something and can't afford a new card, DON't Do anything I suggest. :-)

Something isn't right with your system (original poster).My system completely kicks the crap out of my old 2100 and my old P4 2.66 in FPS, loading times, you name it. Heck, it's faster then my buddy's FX-53 with VERY similar hardware. LOL If you had my video card we'd have "similar" specs so you should getting similar performance. IMO, anything lower then 30 is crap.I currently run at 1280x960x32 8xFSAA and 16xAF ALL FS settings maxed including UT AI and my system still runs great. My older systems couldn't even pull half my current machines weight. Hmmm..something fishy is going on with your computer bud. When you updated did you reformat, etc..?FS is cpu dependent, but if the video card is bottle necking your cpu then your cpu doesn't mean jack. A 3.6 Ghz machine needs a lot better then a 5600 to be efficient. Start at a GF5900 (preferably better!!) and go from there. A 6800 GT, X800 Pro, and everything on up would be ideal.Hope this helps!:)

I went directly from the Ti4600 to the 6800GT and didn't see any change in FPS.......however, I'm now running 8x Ansio and 4x AA at 1280x960x32.....for the same FPS as the Ti4600 where I had to stick to 2x Ansio and 2xAA at 1152x864x16 to see that FPS. :)The rest of my "super Monster" :)AMD2200+, SoundBlaster Live!Value, 1.5GB PC2700RAM, 120Gig HD - Partitioned like Crazy with only default windows programs installed on the 15Gig C: partition and FS installed in another partition.My saving graces here are the huge amt. of RAM and the kick### videocard. Also, I do not use AI, and try not to install too much Addon scenery....I only have KBOS installed. I therefore run at full Autogen and scenery complexity. I also only use default weather because, although FSMeteo and Activesky are more beautiful, default weather gives me much more accurate winds aloft.To the original poster: With your video card, I'd turn AA and Ansio down to 2X. Also, you should answer the question about what you did in terms of software when you changed your mobo, etc. Did you do a re-install of windows, FS, etc? Also, alot of times poor performance can be traced to the chipset drivers.More info will help us help you.

This is the procedure i followed after installing the mother board was to reinstall WinXP (I chose the repair existing copy of XP option)and then I went into the bios and increased the APG apeture to 256. I then defragged all my drives. I will install updated drivers for the Video Card tonite. I didn't install drivers for the mobo, since it started working right away I didn't think I needed to. I guess I should be asking what other steps should I have done after installing a new mobo?

Don't know if you caught my above post or not, but you may want to Overclock before you go out and buy a new card.You'll need RivaTuner to do so, unless your card came with the tools to do so.In regular profile, I gained a 12.88% gain in Bencmark, and in my Gaming Profile, I gained a 17.2% Gain in benchmark using SD Mark2001, SE.And I have only a 128mb Vid card 5600.I run the following:Core Default = 270Memory Default = 400Core Now = 360 +25%Memory Now = 520 +23%Can't say for 100% certain how many FPS I've gained, but Guessing, I'd say 7-12 in IFR weather situations. I always use the slect flight chauffer flight #2 to test my tweaks and stuff. Always Conistant.Merry Christmas,Joe

Jim, Your setup sounds very interesting. I'm beginning to consider a new one. Would you please share the details of your program with me? Thanks.Bill :-roll

You definately want to get the most up to date drivers for your motherboard.So many people overlook this yet it does have a big impact on system performance.

Hi Bill,Home built from scratch like all my machines:AMD64 3400ATI 9800 XT 256MB512MB RAM at 3200Abit KV8-Max3 MotherboardSanta Cruz Sound Card60GB Maxtor HD that I had sitting aroundAll running on a Planar 20 inch LCD.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Thank you very much Jim. It'll be about three months before I make a move. I'm not familiar with the Santa Cruz Sound Card. How do you suppose that'd compare to the Audigy Card? although I presume you are happy with the one you've got.When flying FS9 "real weather" do you have any significant slow-up when flying in heavy or cloudy weather?You've been most helpful and now I've got something to chew on for awhile--with a system I know that works more than satisfactorily. :-roll

Hi Bill,On the sound card, not sure. I prefer Turtle Beach over Creative.Slowdowns? Yes, slightly but no show stopping FPS. I do use SkyWorld 2004 clouds which are the same size as FS default clouds. I have a bunch of other stuff running also and installed in FS so by no means do I have a clean FS04. Still can run in the upper 20's.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg