After installing the FSX demo on my aging  XP3200+ 2g pc-3200 and ATI X1600 (my X850 had just died on me!), I realized that I would have to upgrade much sooner than later in order to have fun for Xmas.
I bought FSX, popped it in my 32bit box and everything ran smooth at 20fps outside KSEA area with autogen set to sparse.
Keeping in mind that vista rtm and dx10 cards are not available to the average joe like me, I started my upgrading path none the less. I bought an HP pavilion Athlon 5000+ and installed the cheapest vid card that I could, a nvidia 7300le.
There’s no point to buy an expensive card until dx10 and vista are widely available.
Now for the first time ever (my first f$ was the 4 running on a zippy 80386) I am enjoying a level of content that my dreams where made of! (chasing cars and trucks with a very acceptable frame rate) I don’t fly in a static Langolier’s world anymore!!!

From the M$ reademefiles:
Upgrade Your Computer(ms)
Computer games push the limits of your computer's processing capabilities. Flight Simulator is no different. A 3-D graphics card is required to run Flight Simulator. The other minimum requirements are listed below. Be sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements; you may want to upgrade your system for better performance.
Item      Minimum      Recommended      Best
CPU      1.0 GHz      2.8 GHz                 3.6 GHz
Memory      256 MB      1 GB                  2 GB
Video card 32 MB      64 MB                 512 MB
Internet      56.6 modem      Broadband      Broadband
Other      Sound card
Speakers or headphones
Joystick or Xbox 360 Controller for Windows
Microphone (required for RT voice)
Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Microsoft Windows Vista(ms)
Flight Simulator X was released prior to the completion of Windows Vista.
Flight Simulator X is designed to run on the Windows Vista operating system. Flight Simulator X was released prior to the completion of Windows Vista

And by the way, the only bug that I have seen so far is the very jerky instant replay. But then again it could be nvidia’s fault because it was smooth as silk with my X1600 from ATI.

Happy flying.

Thanks, i'll try.

LOL 

Good idea dizZa, but how do you make an AGP board fit into a PCI-E slot?
remember that my 32bit box is pre-PCI-E era

[quote author=rayhayes  link=1164547173/0#7 date=1164642685]I see you now get good frame rates. great.  But excuse my ignorance-how do you find out what frame rate you are getting when you fly fsx.   As it happens mine must be ok since my autogen is at max, but I have no idea how you find out your frame rate?
thanks---Ray Hayes[/quote]

Shift Z

7300LE... lmao... how much ram does that comp have? subtract 4-500 Megs of that and whalla.... You should put the X1600 in the new pc... trust me (look in my sig) My 3dmark05 is 1311.... LOL!

7300LE is a card that should be banned from existance.... I was stupid enough to buy one and it has no fan and I put a 161Mhz overclock on it... FUN!

Gunny, Cheerfully waiting for it to burn up

Yea okay..... Thats what I said, till I realized I had 500 megs of ram, installed another gig and now have 1.55.... it sucks

Gunny