New PC Time

[Dan]

My PC is getting old and starting to become unstable so it might be time for an upgrade.

I'm running XP Pro SP2 on a PC that's about four years old. About a year ago I upgraded to an 7000 series NVIDIA AGP card and a new 17" flat panel monitor and while that improved what FS9 could do, it didn't particularly improve frame rates and I started getting strange graphics anomalies, especially when the PC was cold.

If I get a new PC, is it worth trying to run FS9 on Vista? I know that Vista uses a gig of RAM just to operate and I like using XP with all the extra little programmes that hang off FS9 like FSUIPC, FSSC and AFCAD. I have no intention of upgrading to FSX, one day when I get sick of playing FS9, the PC will be used as a study machine where Word and Excel will become the most taxing programmes.

Apart from the OS, what other things should I look for?

What do the experts think?

[Anthony]

Considering you have XP and it could save you from paying a couple of hundred for a Vista license, I would just stick with XP.
I personally am not a fan of Vista, although this is just personal opinion and is not backed up by anything in particular (i.e. I have no evidence or really even a reason to feel that way )

Plus you say you like XP, so you may as well stick with it.

I suppose you look at what you have now, and what you need or want to replace in the way of components and go from there.
Also, if you want to keep your 7000 series video card you'll obviously need a motherboard with AGP on it, which could limit your choices for other components.
Though I'm not sure.

Cheers
Anthony

[Dan]

Thanks for your help on this;

It's the motherboard and AGP card that is giving me the most grief. The motherboard supports an old P4 2.4 GHz CPU and only 2GB of 133MHz DDR RAM. While good in its time, I think I'm taxing the system a bit much. The AGP card, while reasonably grunty - I think isn't built that well. It's just a hunch, but I don't think NVIDIA put it's best effort into end of the line AGP cards while PCIe cards are generating all the income.

I've seen some Dell offers, and might be able to blag a discount through an employee scheme (if your employer uses Dell, then sometimes employees get a deal as well). They almost always of course, use Vista.

[ardypilot]

I've been a long time user of XP untill last week I bought a new computer with Vista on it, once you get used to it, you will never go back!

The graphics and layout are much more smoother and sleeker compared to XP, and everything feels modern and efficient... I definitely recommend it.

[Dan]

Are there any conflicts between Vista and FS9?