Visual Flight Forums
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chelseafan
28 Posts |
 Posted - 21 May 2006 : 10:32:20
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I am in the fortunate position of being able to spend about £900 - £1K on a new PC. However whilst I am reasonably clued up on most PC components I am unsure on graphics cards. I only need worry about graphics perfromance for flight simming as most of the rest of the time all I do is surf the net and use MS Office etc. However I do use VFR photographic scenery (UK and Switzerland) and currently experience a lot of problems with the scenery snapping into focus too late.
I am looking at the following systems:
1) Pentium D 820 (1x2MB cache), 1GB RAM, 250GB 7200rpm SATA disk, ATI Radeon X700SE PCIe
2) Pentium D 920 (2x2MB cache), 2GB RAM, 300GB 7200rpm SATA disk, nVidia GeForce 7300GS
Can anyone advise which system is likely to give better graphics performance with FS2004 (and the new FS when it is released) - given the same slider settings .
Many thanks in anticipation |
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VisualFlight
7202 Posts |
Posted - 21 May 2006 : 11:33:57
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Without giving any specific advice on the graphics cards you've suggested, in general I'd suggest the following for anyone contemplating purchasing a graphics card now:
1. Either buy a relatively cheap card now with an eye to buying a new card once FSX has been released (it should be easier then to ensure you get something known to be fully compatible and perform well with FSX)
or
Buy something now with an eye to future FSX, Vista and DirectX 10 compatibility, even though clearly this will currently be a bit of a compromise.
The alternative to this would be to simply postpone buying a new graphics card/system until FSX is released.
2. Stick to the ATI/nVidia duopoly. I hate to find myself saying this, but in terms of assuring the fewest compatibility issues, this is possibly the best practical advice. I'm happy to be reassured otherwise though if anyone has any positive experiences with other cards. (Maybe this will change anyway with DirectX 10 because to be labelled as compatible, cards have to implement all the DX10 features, not just handle some of the function calls with "Sorry, can't do that" which is (amazingly enough) allowed at present with DX8 and DX9.
John
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AVAILABLE NOW! Stunning new airport and airshow scenery for Farnborough. |
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Tim
373 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2006 : 13:24:14
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If you want to see a comparison between most of the current, PCIe, graphics cards from ATi & NVidia, get hold of the current issue of PC-Pro magazine (WH Smiths or similar retailers). Unfortunately FS9 + photo-scenery, etc isn't one of the test programmes they use - so you have to use your own judgement as well.
I don't think either of the graphics cards you have quoted come out all that well.
For good PCIe graphics performance now & in the future I suggest you look at the NVidia 7900GT. With an SLi capable m/board you could then double-up when you have some spare cash in the future.
Be aware that with higher performance graphics cards you need to have an uprated power supply - which you may not have received with the two systems you quote.
The other thing to think about with your new system is sound. I presume from you not mentioning it that you intend to use the m/board's built-in sound system. Be aware that add-in cards use less system resources & therefore have less impact on FS9 performance.
Tim
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chelseafan
28 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2006 : 18:59:25
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Tim
Many thanks for that - I had actually just bought that edition of PC Pro so now know what I should be aiming for.
Richard |
Edited by - chelseafan on 27 May 2006 19:00:06 |
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Tim
373 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2006 : 12:53:42
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You're welcome, Richard.
Tim |
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flightmech
1 Posts |
Posted - 27 Aug 2010 : 11:52:10
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Here is a discussion I'd like to share with anyone.It is between 2 guys: #1 is looking for the best system to run FSX on. #2 is his friend,who happens to be a bonafide expert,in my humble opinion, on the subject.In short:#2 gentleman,a retired software designer[who used to design software for NASA!] now privately,"only" builds systems designed exclusively for flight sims,[I'm only going on what I remember reading in Mr. Bromhall's post].I hope anyone looking to upgrade their systems to fly better flight sim will find helful information therein!! "Whomever" you may be:let me be one of the people to encourage and welcome you to the Wonderfully,Amazing-World Of Aviation!![whatever aviation field that at present draws your curiosity and intrest!!]I am a retired helicopter mechanic who stumbled onto Flight simulators and hope to soon get my private pilot license,all thanks to flight simulators!! Good luck to you, too, in all "your" flight interest endeavors.
The site address is: http://www.flightsimulatornetwork.com/forum/topics/the-best-computer-setup. It is an article posted by Fred Bromhall on 3/17/2010. If you type this address into your browser address window,it may not get you to the article[I'm not sure,so go ahead and try it..] If not; one "sure" way to get there would be to log on to the web site and then click on "forum",then click on the article "The Best Computer Set Up",started by Fred Bromhall,and I know that the post is still there as of 8/27/2010. Chow!! |
fmech |
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by admin — last
modified 2006-04-17 16:44
Advice on graphics cards
