How long is a piece of string???

I'd say for CFS3, your system has probably passed its sell by date already....

Then again, as long as that GF4 is not an MX but the TI variant, along with another 256MB of RAM, your machine should be pretty good for a little while yet. 

Ultimately, the  64bit AMD CPU is now here, the 64bit p4 (p5?) surely not too far away..... By this standard, it and most of the other millions of pc's are destined for the 32bit museum.

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I live in hope CFS4 will be as well written..... 

Actually, if you can run fs9 with what you have and are satisfied, keep it until it breaks and can't be fixed. In a couple of years we are going to see technology leaps that will make the xt to 286 jump seem like child's play. There was a recommendation to add RAM and I second that with the proviso you add two sticks of 256 to what you have now. Other than that you are just fine - AS LONG AS you are happy with how fs9 does currently. If not, a partial upgrade might help - more capable video card and as before - more RAM.

The computer is back from the shop......

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What would a better graphics card do to my FS experience?

Where do I get the full system stats?

Its been given an extra 256MB RAM, But if FSsafe mode is anything to go by im getting under ten FPS.....

Its feeling much better thankyou agamer

But still way under 15FPS
With settings on 'low'

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Yup, but it'll be crap with Direct X9 games.....

My Asus9560 5600 betters the ti4600 my friend has in his machine in most DX-9 games, and if you like using anti-alaising and anisotropic filtering, then frankly forget the GF4, you need an FX5600 or Ati 9600 or better.

Why "upgrade" to a 3D card thats already obsolete???

I've just had a quick read through this thread and to be honest, I haven't read everything completely.

However, I've just gone through the process of starting from 'scratch' in terms of what I should get (within my price range) to make up a PC specifically for my Simming purposes (which will make it pretty much capable of everything else).

I've found that the differing opinions, provided they come with valid reasoning, are very useful. I learnt a great deal in the couple of days that my thread was active here.

The thing you have to be most aware of (my Mrs made this BIG mistake 3 years ago, which is what has me building my own now), is not to buy a so called "package". They are useless and greatly overpriced, regardless of the brand or the specs of the machine. Most also come with heaps of software that you are paying for and will never use.

Whatever you get, make sure every single part of it is "updatable".
PC's (and their components) have a bad habit of becoming redundant in as much as weeks).

Correctly matching the components is important too. It can result in superior performance over what would normally be better components which are being 'dragged' down by another inefficient part of the system.

Of course this doesn't help Bird Man. he has his PC and it's a good one at that. You say you're Dad says get a Card that won't be dated so quickly. Can he guarantee that the 253 pound one (sh*t, that's $800 Aust), won't be useless in 12 months?
If he can't you are probably better off going for the far cheaper 128mb card. At least it won't be a great outlay if it's outdated in 12 months.

Of course, the best (and probably most expensive) of everything would probably be the best way to go, but we all have our 'pecuniary limitations'.

I can say one thing for sure though. You've come to the right place to find out what you need to know. These blokes know what's going on, especially when it comes to aspects regarding graphics, speed and Simming capabilities.  

P.S. There are many people in this Forum who bought CFS3 when it came out. Alot of them are sitting on their shelves waiting for a better PC, Graphics card, more DDR ram and so on.
Even those who had the so called 'high end' PC's back then (less than 12 months ago), are still unable to run CFS3 as they would like (on reasonably high settings), even with all the wonderful effort and sharing that has occurred in the 'Tweaking ' area.  

(I found it to be a very useful exercise to go back 12 months in this and the 'CFS3' Forums, to see what was considered to be 'REALLY GREAT' or 'NOT BAD' in terms of Graphics cards, Ram and PC's generally, then and what it is considered now!   )

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Birdman,

Not sure if you are saying that your existing video is PCI or if it is a "built in"....... but ........ if it is PCI........... woah!  Most ANY new video card using agp will likely give you quite a performance boost.  They don;t call it ACCELERATED graphics port for nothing  .

best,

.....................john

Acually I think it probably on the AGP, there is a smaller one which I think is, according to the manual could be a 'CNR' slot - dont even know wht it is....
I was looking through the manual and it said 'AGP 4X mode slote'. Does that mean that these new graphics cards that say 8x wont even work?

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So what's the point in getting an 8x card? You may as well stick to the one you have if an 8x isn't really going to run much better than a 4x.

(Is the card Bird man has now - 'the GeForce 4 something' an 8x or 4x?)

If it's 4x in a 4x slot then will an 8x 'anything' really make much difference in a 4 x slot?  

P.S. I just made the 'upgrade of the century' to my old piece of crap. My old (2 years!!) 'Compaq' scroll wheel mouse was really driving me to distraction. The ball got 'gummed' up or something and no amount of cleaning, rubbing, shaking or belting would make it turn well anymore. It was causing me to become capable of very serious and meaningful foul language.
Well, I bit the bullet and bought a 'laser' mouse for $25.

I'm in a different world now.......................heaven!! 

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Simple, despite a sincerely crap Jetway (VIA chipset,AGP 4X or 2X if you don't like blue screens!!!) motherboard equally crap PC2700 RAM (unbranded) when I swapped my old Geforce MX440 64mb (overclocked by about 30% with a silly and damn noisy fan!) the performance increase, at every resolution my monitor can support , with my Asus 9560 FX5600 128 (Non Ultra) 8xAGP with every game / sim I've tried is simply staggering!
The notable exception to this was CFS3  stutterish as ever! what a surprise that was! I bought the FX simply for CFS3 !    

CFS3 is as smooth as a baby's rear with "everything off" hardly the experience I'm after though!!!

I'm not too bothered though, when I bought my FX a few months ago I started to scrimp a few beans together, once I've clubbed santa I'm sure I'll have enough for one of those nice 2.8ghz p4's that have just dropped nicely in price..... Combined with a nice shiny Springdale or Canterwood chipset mobo, I think my FX5600 will be finally able to do CFS3 some justice.

If you only use FS, don't expect to want to buy future direct X 9 games  then buy a GF4ti or any other Direct X 8 card for that matter! - Most are cheap and offer levels of power un imaginable a short while back.

But, and its a big un!
No matter how great and mighty your GF4ti DX 8 card, a a humble GF FX5600 or even a 5200 if you want a laugh! ,  combined with decent i.e 2ghz XP or p4 will run the next generation of DX9 games with no problems. - As I say, as long as you've got a decent CPU, eye candy will still look very nice!

If your not quite sure what I'm getting at, try to run a Direct X 9 benchmark with a Direct X8 Graphics card, see how far you get.


Its your money, not mine.  

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I rarely understand myself either!   

What I mean by Direct X9 "Card" is a card such as my FX5600 that has hardware support for direct X9 (as in the software) features such as nice reflections or whatever. - Basically, running a game written for direct X9 with a direct X8 card at best will result in low graphics quality due to the said lack of hardware support , or, at its worst extreme, the said Dx9 game would'nt run at all with a Dx8 card. - this is quite unlikely though.

Confused even more mate?     

Well, I did it! I went for the ;
256MB GeF FX5600 DDR TV DVI 8x £99.00

But, when I was on the way home I rang dad up and he said "They didn't have it so I got the other one" . So I have this one: 
128MB GeF FX5600 DDR TV DVI 8x £102.00
The performance increase is huge! on high settings in FS the FPS are about 23 Compared to about 8fps before. If this is not running it to its full potential on the 4x slot - how fast does it go on an 8x slot
Im just wandering what the 256MB one would have done.....

Thanks guys for all your help, its been extremely useful.

With cards being linked to the DirectX as soon as DirectX10 is out all of them will be 'out of date' and they release a new one every five minutes....

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I tried doing 3Dmark with the old one, I was doing 5fps before the complicated bit - I gave up. 8)

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I like your thinking!