You don't know what your talking about Candle, please spare us.
Well taking into account the date the game was realased and the main design dates for FS9 you have to take into account MS wanted it to run on full on the cards at the time. Power users would insist on this. So in 2003 an FX51 with a 9800XT and 512mb of ram would run this game at 16x12. Now take into account, most systems in 2003 where P4 1.8-2.8 or XP1600-3200 with a handful of 64bit or 3ghz+ P4 systems. Also most users still had Ti4200's or FX5700, or 9600pro or 9500Pro. And 256-512mb of ram. Given that when this game was realesed these were the most common system type of gamers, I would then throeize that MS optimized the engine for this area of operation. Now fast forward an X700 scores ever so slightly higher than a 9800Pro and just under a 9800XT. And this fellows specs are right on the money with systems of late 03 except ram which is actully above the spec of most users of late 03. Now that taken into account would then mean an x700 would preforms comparable to say a 5950 Ultra. Now an x700 card looks alot better for this doesn't it. No offense to anyone here but FS9 is not the most intense game out there, I played COD2 on a 6600 256mb vanila XP2600 1gb of ram at mid-high setting at an average of 33FPS on windows XP Pro SP2. Now if that system can run COD2 at that spec it would of had no issues with FS9 at all. And his system with an x700 would be about 3-4fps slower than mine was on COD2. Now if FS9 doesnt tax a system even close to that much, It would seem that an x700 is fine unless you want to run at 16x12 or multi moniter. Nither of which he requested to do. Advieing someone to spend money they do not have to, to acquire intened goals is pointless. If he wanted to play COD2 id say an upgrade but not for the FS9 game engine. Maybe for the FSX engine.
p.s.
check my information with any benchmarking site and you will see I am right.
