Humble,
The card I was using before was a GF4-4200 128 meg.
I got around 10-20% FPS increase with the same settings, but I was able to turn FSAA up with almost no loss in framerate. My system still chugs badly when I turn the AH2 sliders up and the trees start getting more visible, but if I turn them down a bit I can average 40+ fps at 1280x1024 with 2x or 4x FSAA turned on, and the image quality is better than it was with the 4200. I'm definately cpu limited in AH2. It's not as bad in other games (like doom3 for example) and my benchmark scores aren't too horrible, so it might depend on what games you plan on playing. AH doesn't have any killer features that require better video card capabilities and it looks nearly the same across the entire spectrum of video cards. For many people, framerate and resolution are all that matter in a flightsim and with AH you can get that with a pretty low end vid card if you turn the detail level down a bit and have a good cpu. I decided I wanted to squeeze every last image quality drop out of the game and my cpu is still fast enough to get me reasonable framerates, so I figured I'd get the biggest CHANGE out of a new vid card. The ideal solution of course is to upgrade both the gpu and cpu, and that's the plan eventually.
I figure I can go for the cpu/mobo upgrade later on without having to get a new vid card too. The next generation of video cards may not be widely released for AGP, and I plan on sticking with an AGP mobo for one more upgrade in order to take advantage of the price drop AGP systems will see when pci-x really takes hold. I figure another 6 months to a year ought to do it, and then I'll be able to spring for at least an athlon 64 3500 on a socket 939 board with AGP, and it should cost 1/3 less than it does now. The hard part will be timing the memory market since the new DDR standard isn't mature enough yet to get wide acceptance however the new pci-x chipsets should force everyone to transfer to the new memory at the same time we're all forced to go with pci-x. If I do it right, I should be able to pick up a gig or two of PC2700 or faster DDR as demand drops off but while inventory levels are still up there.
Or I could be overthinking it
Either way, I'll have a reasonably well matched system when I get around to upgrading the cpu/mobo and I've spread the financial pain out. If I'd upgraded the cpu/mobo/ram first, that would have cost me $700ish for what I wanted and then I'd be badly graphics card limited. As it is, I spent only $400 on the vid card and I'm cpu limited, but in a few months the parts that would have cost me $700 will be down to $500 or less, while the fast AGP vid cards will probably still be seeing high enough demand to keep prices high.
In the long run it's probably cheaper to buy the entire system at once even if it costs a ton up front instead of alternating the upgrades one part at a time, but this way I can afford slightly better parts than I'd otherwise be able to get and that keeps me reasonably happy with my overall system performance all the time instead of being really happy for a few months, then having to wait until I'm totally pissed off at a sucky slow system before I buy a whole new one.
It's also easier to hide a part at a time from the wife
