I've seen a couple of post where folk have had individual problems, but my question is in general;

if I switch from my current FX5600 to the 9800XT or Pro, should there be SIGNIFICANT FSP and quality improvements?

Specs below.
Phil

Philsymonds,

I recently upgraded from an ATI 9600 pro 128M agp card to a 9800XT 256M agp card.  I looked at all the benchmark test data before doing so, and felt that this change would surely give me greatly improved framerates and less stuttering.  The 9800 card more than doubled the benchmark score of the 9600 in the published tests.....and the 9600 was no "slouch" to start with.

To my complete shock, I got only about 2-3 FPS improvement from going from a good video card to the top-of-the-line one.   Pretty bizarre.  The LOOK of the images was nicely improved.  But framerate and stuttering was changed very little.

So I have been totally perplexed about this.

In disucssing it with many others I have found a number of people who have made similar video card changes and found only tiny framerate improvements also.  I KNOW that I am not alone in this phenomona.  There is some OTHER factor or factors that influences ACOF performance at least equally with the video card.

What exactly will it do on YOUR system?  I think unfortunately the only way to tell is to actually try it.  It appears from reading the various forum threads here and elsewhere that how ACOF performs on any given machine setup is pretty darn variable and seems to make no sense whatsoever.  On some setups that you expect to perform well...... it doesn't....and on some that should be "dogs" it seems to "fly" (pun intended   ).

Buying a 9800XT is no trivial matter.... as they aren't exactly cheap.

So that's my $0.02 worth.

best,

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

PS:  As to framerates, if I get "away from it all" ....... high in the air, not near big cities, away from lots of AI traffic, not taking off/landing at international airports, and so on....... I can get pretty GREAT framerates if I let it run "unlimited" just looking at the ground far away and a few nice realistic clouds floating around ....... 60-70 FPS is not uncommon....and very smooth.

But the place it MATTERS for flying an aircraft is on short final at an international airport with lots of AI around and eye candy turned up high.  In those settings.... the framerates are still pretty terrible for me ....... in the 10-15 FPS rang...... which I find pretty unflyable.