On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 19:02:06 +0000, Dudley Henriques wrote:


"Jim Chambers" wrote in message
...
HI pilots, Is it worth getting the expensive new boards like the
Radeon
9800 or gforce FX 5900 ie. is there sufficient detail in FS 2004 to
show
off these boards?.......Comments welcome......Jim. N. London

Flight simulators are extremely system intensive. That means the entire
system as a unit, not just the video card. A good card is definately an
asset, but a total waste if not installed in a fairly fast system with
adaquate ram to back it up.
Anyone contemplating a high end video card as an upgrade for flight
simulators is well advised to take a good look at their entire system
and make a decision based on the system as it will be after the card is
installed. In other words, I's say that a HUGE percentage of people who
spend big bucks on a high end video card should have spent the money
first to upgrade their general system. It's a shame to see these people
time and time again put out hard earned money and then want to know why
their high end video card only gives them 5 FPS increase in performance
along with driver conflicts caused by having to upgrade video drivers
that are way ahead of their system's basic performance level.
There comes a point when upgrading the system as a whole is the FAR
better choice than just upgrading the video card!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

Actually, since moderm video cards help offload common operations from the
CPU, it's often a big boost for performance. Just the same, you are right
that for ideal performance, you want a complimentary fast CPU and video
card. Having said that, new video cards can often give new life to older,
slower, graphically challenged systems. Just don't go expecting miracles.

If you have a system that is a year or two old and currently have a
commodity video card in it (e.g. old MX card), then a newer card can make
a night and day difference. Again, just don't go expecting miracles!