Hi guys, reading these forums helped me narrow down my choice of graphic cards    now I dunno which one to choose either 9600PRO or Fx5700? both have 256 Mb ram and I don't really have any other choices for I'm on a budget hehe, still gotta buy FS 2004 to use with my new GFX card. 

thanks in advanced

hmmm.. I was considering  the 9600 pro until i saw how many people had problems with this card, see in the link (whole 78 pages of unsatifactoriness )

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/8596/

lols, so I'm probably goin for the Fx5700 unless someone comes up with a good argument hehe..

Also would having 256MB of graphics RAM be good in FS2004 becos it has lotsa textures and stuff?

hehe, really?? i am reconsidering now, Hopefully you're correct, thanks for ur help Hyvry1_Delta, cheers

If you want something faster than the 5700U get the 9600xt.

You must remember the 9600xt uses P.S2.0 aswell. the Ti does not.  

If you compare the 9600xt in DX9 modes, like modern games, to the 5700U the 9600xt wins by far.

Pixel shader 2.0.  It gives the unbelievably realistic shine on aircraft and water etc.  Not the strange looking shine.

No not the 9600xt and the 5700U, i have with the 9600xt and teh 5200.  The 9600xt wins by far, obviously.  I am going from what i read and see as benchmarks, also from what i know from guru3d.

I can't right now or for a few days, but i will by the end of next week.  My pc is in pieces (partially), i am revamping it a bit, also replacing a DVD drive that broke this morning for unknown reasons, it was a Sony one aswell.  I am getting a combo drive to replace it.

1.5yrs for me.  I am switching to Lite-on, i have been told they are very reliable and perform very well.  Hopefully it will last atleast 5 yrs, that is what expect a drive to last atleast, 10 years would be a good amount though, considering i am a moderate user. 

I am just waiting for parts for my pc to arrive so that it can be up and running again and i will post my shots with this card, which actually will be the first shots i have posted with my card on SimV.  The other shots in the freeware forum are with my old card, Radeon 7000.

I cant tell the difference, this is with my DirectX 8 compatible GeForce4 TI4200. My aircraft reflections are good too, as you can see from this black EF2000

This is everything maxed out on the TI4200, remember, it's a DX8 card, so why are there reflections and wave textures (non standard textures), or do they render differently on DX9 cards?

yes the setting will stay on high, but the detail slider above it, (which shows up the little speckles), goes back to terrain only, which isn't really an issue at all unless it's a very close up shot of the water.

Believe me, I was very surprised to see the supposed DX9 effects on my card.

You mean a DX9  soundcard?