video cards

What FPS do you want? I'm getting 30FPS @ 1000' AGL with these game settings on this computer.

GRAPHICS
Target frame rate: 30
Full screen res: 1680x1050x16
Filtering: Anisotropic
Anti-aliasing: on
Global texture resolution: Very high
Lens flare: off
Light bloom: off
Advanced animations: off
Informational text: Continuous
AIRCRAFT
Default cockpit view: 3-D virtual cockpit
Show cockpit ToolTips: on
High-resolution 3-D virtual cockpit: on
2-D panel transparency: 0%
Aircraft cast shadows: on
Aircraft casts shadows on itself: off
Aircraft landing-lights illuminate ground: off
SCENERY
Level of detail radius: Medium critical PFS effector
Mesh complexity: 100
Mesh resolution: 1m
Texture resolution: 7 cm
Water effects: None
Land detail textures: on
Scenery complexity: Extremely dense
Autogen density: Extremely dense
Ground scenery shadows: off
Special effects detail: Low
WEATHER
Cloud draw distanse: 60mi / 96km
Thermal visualization: None
Simple clouds: on
Download winds aloft data with real-world weather: off
Disable turbulence and thermal effects on aircraft: off
Rate at which weather changes over time: Medium
TRAFFIC
Airline traffic density: 0%
General aviation traffic density: 50% GA Traffic adds 2-4 yellow cubs at every Muni.
Airport vehicle density: 0%
Road vehicles: 51%%
Ships and ferries: 0%
Leasure boats: 43%
Show aircraft labels: off

With this computer:

Intel DP965LT ATX mainboard (P965express chipset)
Intel onboard Azalia sound & 82566c LAN
intel Core2Duo E6600@2.4ghz
Generic intel approved thermally advantaged ATX case
Thermaltake 775D copperbase heatpipe cpu cooling fan
Corsair 4x1gb duel channel DDR2@667mhz
Gigabyte nVida 8800GTX w/768mb DDR3
Memorex DVD-CD R+RW drive
Western Digital 1600YS SATA hardrive
Antec NeoHe 500watt power supply
Samsung 215TW 21" widescreen (1680x1050) DVI LCD
Samsung CX213TW 13" DVI LCD
CH Flightstick Pro usb & Ch control manager V4.2
winXp SP3
FSX SP1&2

couger wrote:

I would like to get some opinions on video cards. I am wanting to get a better video card so i can get better fps. I have a 512m nvidia 8600gt, with a q6600 and 4m ram, the cpu is overclocked to 3.0g but I still dont get the best fps. I was looking at the 1g 9800gx2 or should i go to a ATI asus 3870 x2 dual gpu. With the ATI at $575au, 100 less than the nvidia, I like that but which one will perform better for faster fps? Would appriciate any input!

have you read:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2008/01/29/gpu-variants-performance-envelopes-and-being-an-informed-consumer.aspx
?

it is definitely worthwhile to find the tables for the generation you are considering buying and doing similar math to what I performed in that blog post.