latest debate FS2K2 vs FS9.. need help

[Aurora85]

alright here is the deal. Over a year ago I had fs2k2 installed on my computer. I bought the GE4 Ti 4200 64MB when it came out. All was well...except for the fact that my system only had 128MB of rambus Ram (i know...no money to upgrade :( ) . Well my GE4 suprisingly crapped out and with a month long saga of problems i finally got pissed had to reformat my computer and put in my old MMX card that came with the dell...so ended my flight sim days sadly enough. Well seeing all these FS9 shots the last few months have really had me looking to upgrade my computer to play it. I saved up some money and ate ramen noodles the last month at college to buy some goodies haha. Here is my system as it stands right now.

dell dimension 8100
1.3 GHZ P4
120 Gig hardrive
128 PC800 RDRAM
GPU the measly on that came with the system..nothing special.


here is what i propose to do:

upgrade to 384 PC800 RDRAM (much as i can get with my money)

and get the ATI Radeon 9600. Here in lies the question. I'm looking at either the 9600 pro or the 9600 se or Non pro. Would I see a big difference with the pro?? i can tet the 9600 SE for just 85 bucks. Also what is the recommendation as far as 128MB card vs the 256???


Finally my goal with these upgrades is to finally be running FS2K2 decently well. meaning around 30 FPS. However i would like to be able to run FS9 and if the mentioned setup can get me 30 fps in this i will buy it. Is this possible?? I just dont want to buy fs9 and waste my money b/c my system is still not awesome. I feel i might have a better chance to run fs2k2 better. Anyhow all opinions are greatly appreciated!!

[wsieffert]

First, did you try to get the GF4 card replaced under warranty. If not, I would try. Secondly, how do you know it is broken? Was the fan on the card still operating; was it full of lint?

When you reformatted, did you install updated drivers for the MOBO's controller chips, Intel, VIA, SiS, AMD, ALi, etc.

I would progress slowly, first with more RAM, 512MB max if using Win98/ME. I would ensure the GF4 card is really dead before buying a new card.

W. Sieffert