Jay,

I may have to find time to drop in this week and see the Kiwi. I'll be
in the Iowa City area visiting relatives for the holiday. Sadly the
Pilatus will have to stay home as we're driving from Ohio. Are there
times that are better or worse to drop by on Tuesday or Wednesday?

Eric Bartsch

1959 Pilatus P-3
http://www.hometown.aol.com/bartscher/P3A848.html


On Nov 19, 8:38 am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
Okay, this thread isn't totally off-topic, as my questions are related
to making the piloting experience more real in the sim. It's time to
upgrade the Kiwi!

(See it hehttp://alexisparkinn.com/the_kiwi_is_born.htm).

I want to add a second monitor (dedicated for the panel), and use the
104" projection screen for the "out-the-window-world-view" only. This
means that I need a video card with two video outputs. "Lesser" models
seem to have a single DVI output and a single VGA (AKA: D-Sub) output,
while "better" models have two DVI outputs.

Our flight sim PC is a Dell Optiplex GX260, Pentium 4, with a gig of
RAM -- but only an AGP slot for video card upgrade. The current card
is a Radeon 7000, with just 32 mb of on-board memory, and a single VGA
port. This Dell system "only" has a 250 watt power supply, which --
along with the AGP slot -- pretty much eliminates the "latest &
greatest" video cards, all of which need a bigger power supply and/or
require a PCI-Express expansion slot.

Compatibility with an older system like this is obviously a problem. I
tried installing an ATI X1600 today (from Worst Buy), with 512 MB
on-board, and the PC wouldn't even boot up with it installed! I
obviously had pushed my older computer past its limits.

So, I'm aiming a bit lower, and looking at the EVGA GEForce 6600LE. See
it he

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130262

It's reasonably priced, seems to have decent specs that are within the
limits of my PC, and is in-stock. Anyone have any experience with this
board? Anyone got a better idea?

I've spent five hours dinking around with this, between trips to Best
Buy and time researching on-line, and I'm starting to go cross-eyed!

Thanks,
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"