Ok, I just inherited a computer with these specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad - 2.4ghz
ATI Radeon HD 3650 - 512 mb ram
6 GB RAM (not sure if DDR2 or DDR3)
Win 7 home premium
2 x 500 GB hard drives (mirrored)

Target frame rate is set to 23 fps, no shadows, no light bloom, aircraft and weather medium high, scenery roughly medium settings (except custom buildings set to extremely dense and autogen buildings set to dense). Monitor's native resolution is 1600x1050, so that is the resolution I am using.

I live in ATL, so I like to fly out of KATL a lot. I get around 13 fps with good weather, about 6 fps with poor weather.

I tried lowering resolution to 1200x800 and lowering the settings for buildings, but that only helped slightly. It seems that people with similar systems run FSX fine with these settings, except my video card is low-end. Is this the culprit? I know FSX is very CPU dependent. I'd rather make sure before I drop some cash on a new video card.

I would buy a new PC, but I don't really use FSX enough to justify this. I have too many other hobbies to spend my money on . I would, however, be OK spending under $100 on Amazon for a new video card.

Thanks!