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Cheap upgrade advise needed.


Nikos Stournaras 892258
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Nikos Stournaras 892258
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Hello everybody. Obviously I am asking some advise for a very very cheap upgrade I could do to my PC. Indeed, it is an ancient one. Here are the specifications:

 

- Intel P4 3.00Ghz (yes, a single core!)

- GeForce 9800

- 1Gb RAM DDR2/233MHz

- Win XP 32-bit

 

I run only FS2004 and I plan to stay with that for the time being as I cannot afford a new PC now. However during my flights, usually run simultaneously, Active Sky, Navigraph client and an ACARS program. In clear skies and default scenery with a POSKY or Project Airbus aircraft things are ok. When I get into clouds or near a heavy airport scenery... chaos. FPS fall from 22-25 to less than 10.

Now, my question: If I replace my 1GB/233MHz RAM with, say 4 GB of faster chip, would it worth? Would I be always near 25 FPS with the same programs running?

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Ernesto Alvarez 818262
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my specs are similar to yours and i had the same issue with FS9 for a long time until i upgraded my ram and video, so i would recommend the same. im not familiar with the GFORCE 9800 but ram is the cheapest upgrade you can do, at 1gb, you definitely need more, try 4gb if your PC supports 4gb. find out before you go shopping, use this tool http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/systemscanner

 

my specs

Motherboard: ASRock A780FullDisplayPort (yea shes pretty old, might upgrade to a newer mobo over the holidays)

AMD Athlon x64 dual core 6000+ 3.12ghz (i went from a single core like you to dual core, that may have helped as well)

RAM: 4gb DDR3 SDRAM

Hard drive: Western Digital SATA2 1TB

Windows 7 x64 Pro

Video: GeForce GTX 650 2GB

 

after i upgraded my video i managed to be able to run FSX as well, not high frames by any means, i refuse to run it on low settings though lol but ive no real complaints, havent even had OOM's with it.... yet, let me not jinx it

 

another cheap upgrade these days is hard drive. not sure what you have now, but 1TB and 2TB hard drives are pretty cheap now. mine was about $80 on newegg.com

 

ive not jumped on the SSD bandwagon yet. im sure those are good too but im not convince yet to go with that. plus i have a 1TB internal HD and a 1TB external hard drive, itll be awhile before i need more memory

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