There is no question now of which sim to purchase between AFPD, G3, or XTR... I am ordering AFPD. What I need to know now is which video card should I purchase? Yes, I understand the difference between PCI, PCI express, and AGP... yes I was one of the poor souls that got a Dell with only PCI slots... yes I know I will have to upgrade my system (buy another system that is) in the future, so I know what's down the road. What I would like to know is if there is anyone out there "currently" running AFPD on a system with only PCI slots, and if so, what card are you using? I realize I will not be able to crank all the bells and whistles up, and that I will need to make sacrifices until I can get another puter, but surely there's someone out there on this big ole green earth that has run into this. Am I the only one? Please say it ain't so!

Get an ATI 9800 if you want to spend around 200.

If you want to spend more just let me know ... there's many more to choose from.

He has only PCI slots in his PC no AGP, I don't think 9800's come in a PCI version. I dont know of any non AGP cards that are any good.

Are you sure all your slots are PCI? Most Dells come with both or at least 1 AGP.

I wish it did. It's a Dimension 2400, P4, 2 Gig, 256 RAM, with integrated video that I got about a year ago. I popped the case the night before last eagerly hoping to find and AGP slot but the only thing I found were PCI slots. I'll look again when I get home tonight but I doubt very seriously if it does. The ironic thing is I have a Gateway too that I bought years ago that was a relatively high powered unit "at the time" and it does have a AGP slot with an 8-Meg grapfics card. I bought and configured it to run games at the time, so why don't I use it? Well, it's a P3, with 128 RAM, but only a 750M processor. I could upgrade the RAM and video card, but isn't 750 Mhz too slow to run AFPD. When I bought the Dell, I had no intentions of using it to run games or anything graphics intensive. I have been running G2 on the Gateway for about a couple of years now, but the puter started having all kinds of problems and got to the point where it would crash after about an hour of use (many times, sooner than that) regardless of what I was using it for. So I loaded G2 onto the Dell because, well, you know I have to get my fix of flying (sim flying that is) as often as I can. Then I saw screen captures and videos of AFPD and, I don't have to tell fans how it effects you. All I know is that G2 is going to find it's way onto ebay as soon as I get the "real" sim and of course, something to run it on.

I saw these on Ebay. Are they any good?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...156849510&rd=1

never mind the above link.

it didn't work

I've got the guts of the Dell exposed... the motherboard has three PCI sockets and one blank spot where another socket could be soldered in... I would imagine that this is where the AGP sockets go when this type of board is used in their higher-end units.

Another victim of the Dell Machine... can't believe anyone buys that junk...they truly are disposable computers..

If you are looking to upgrade PM me, I can point you in the right direction... just don't waste your money on another dell!

DP

Desert, I have been trying to send you a PM but keep getting error messages. I am interested in upgrading, can you PM me with what options I have? Thanks.

I have found the best way to upgrade is to build your own computer. I upgrade every year or so and build me another one. Right now i have a:

AMD 2800+ aprox 2.5 Ghz ( can upgrade up to the AMD 3400+ CPU )
Mach Speed MOBO w/nvidia chipsets
5 PCI slots
1 AGP 8X slot
1 ANR slot
80 GIG ATA 133 HD (can upgrade to the ATA 150 HD) Windows XP installed on this one
60 GIG ATA 133 HD With windows 98 installed on this one for some older games that won't run on XP
DVD burner
24X12X24 CD burner
1 GIG PC 2700 DDR corsair RAM (can upgrade to PC 3200 DDR RAM)
ASYLUM 3D AGP 8X 128Mb DDR video card
Creative sound blaster live 5.1 surround sound card
Has 8 USB slots for high speed 2.0 USB

As you can see this one still has some upgrading left that i can do to it. Most of the ones you buy don't, except for adding some more RAM. So when you buy your mother board make sure you can upgrade some down the road. Have any questions let me know. TEXSCOWBOY

Hit it on the nose. DELL's are complete waste of money. I was a victim of COMPAQ before I built my own. Never looked back.

I disagree. Dells have their place - just not for people like us.
I buy Dells for my wifes office as "disposable" type machines. They are cheap, and have served the office very well.

Jim H.

TEX....How do you like your vidio card? Can you list a few good places to get good prices on these goodies? Thanks Capt,n

So far i am pleased with the video card. Have been a few times i think i could stand one that was faster but the real good ones arent cheap. A good place to buy goodies for building that i found, hard to beat there prices, and they take payments via paypal also! You can get a good price on some cases with the power source already installed. Mine has a 450Watt PS. Main thing when looking at the MOBO's is make sure it is compatable with the video card you are looking at 1X,2X,4X8XAGP. Just 2X or 4XAGP or just 8X AGP ect.
running the wrong card in a slot not compatable with, will burn up the card and or MOBO. Check out the site.( tigerdirect.com ) Best site i have found as far as prices and there shipping is very fast also. Support has been good as i have sent a couple of things back before. Hope this was some help. texscowboy

I run a Dell and although I am aware that it is not a computer guy's dream, it does that job for me and pretty darn well. I of course take no offense to the Dell comments as you guys know what you want and build it exactly that way.

My only reason for posting is to help guys who might wanna get a Dell...

Mine is a 4600 (so it doesnt have the integrated graphics card). It is a P4 2.8 Gig 512 Ram. It has a Geforce fx5200 128 card which I am told is not so great but it runs AFPD great except when I run smoke. Good enough for me! I get about 70 FPS on the photo real scenes while the 3D scenes are about 40-50 FPS.

Also, I looked at my setting screen and it says I have my card in a 8X AGP slot so it sounds like I could easily upgrade to the recommended Radeon 9800 down the road.

I thought is was a pretty good deal at $800....including 17 inch monitor and speakers, dvd and cdrw drives too...plus free shipping.

That's pretty much the same pc I have too. I don't understand the slams against Dell. This is my 2nd one. Maybe you guys are talking about the low end ones because on this one and my last one I had 0 problems. They run just like my Honda Accord. Perfect.

Now that FX5200 that I bought from Dell is not as good as I thought it would be. I get about 100 FPS with smoke off and clouds off. But the FPS varies with what you have in the background so it's hard for people to just say "I get this many FPS and I get that many FPS". Park your plane with the same exact background and same features turned on and maybe that's a better gauge between PC's.

I am running it on an ATi 9800pro all graphics maxxed and FPS hovers around 300[X(]

AFPD simply smokes G3 IMHO.

I don't quite understand the comments on the Dell's either. But then again, I'm running a top-end workstation and not a PC built for home or game use. The video card itself was over $800 (nVIDIA Quadro FX) when we bought the machine. I have no doubts that it will run AFPD, but I'm hoping that my GeForce FX 5200 at home will as well. Hope to find out soon!

Maybe I could find out who's using my old ATI FireGL and "borrow" it for my home machine one night after everybody leaves.

Keith

The Dell workstations are nice.. they use Intel and ASUS motherboards like us builders do but they cost 35% more and still are not as high perf as something we can build. My comments were not aimed at the higher end stations as most of them ARE upgradeable. The reason Dell can sell cheap computers is that they untize everything, and that is what we don't like. Most PCs you buy at best buy, fry's etc.. are like this. They put decent processors in them so they can advertise "3 GHZ" and people snap them up 'cuz they're cheap... but then they cripple them with cheap memory, motherboard components and i/o and video. They are OK for many people, but they truly are disposable as you cannot upgrade components.

DP