Pointerboat,

As you probably already know, Onboard Graphics chips, (onboard video cards, built into the mainboard), use a percentage of system RAM from the main memory of your PC. This amount of "shared" memory is usually set in the Computer's BIOS settings.

The more memory shared to the onboard video chip, the better the capacity the onboard GPU has for processing the graphic data;

However, the GPU, (or onboard graphics chip), is still limited by design in it's potential power. Typically, onboard GPU's are low in graphics processing power, no matter how much ram you throw at them.

Also, the memory you allocate from your main system RAM is not really "shared RAM", but more like "robbed RAM". Your system can no longer access the shared ram for the CPU to use at will.

In a low RAM system, the sharing of system ram to onboard video will bottleneck the CPU, negating the effects of increased GPU power.

A major benefit of addon video cards has been the very fast RAM built into the video card itself.

Modern mainboards using 400mhz system RAM shared to an onboard video system should be capable of high performance; alas, there is hardly a product on the market, with an onboard graphics unit, that would meet the required specs for a simmer or serious gamer.

Best advice to you Pointerboat, is to make sure you have excess ram, so you can throw plenty to the onboard graphics chip via BIOS settings, and still have plenty left for the CPU. Minimum 512mb's for your rig.

If your mainboard has an AGP slot, you could upgrade the graphics via a good addon video card.

It's possible to build a decent gaming rig on a budget. But this usually means custom building it yourself, which requires at least a little knowledge to put it all together, and a good deal more knowledge in selecting and buying the appropriate hardware.

Personally, I wouldn't do it any other way, but it's not for everyone of course. It's kind of a "catch 22" situation.

If you buy "off the shelf", by the time you get the thing up and running with all the extras you have to add to make it work, you have the knowledge required to build it all in the first place!

My advice to anyone who has onboard graphics and wants to upgrade their graphics via a PCI slot..........

DON'T !   (unless you get a PCI graphics card Cheap!)  You won't see much improvement from that upgrade.

The money is better saved for a new mainboard/system upgrade.

Systems built with onboard graphics on the mainboards are generally rock bottom, el cheapo hardware, (but usually sold at massive profit!), targeted to the mass market and are not suitable for modern  Flight Simulation.

Vonald, you need a PSU upgrade sorry.