DirectX 9 with 737NG

[AndrewB 7]

Is there any benifit ungrading to a DirectX 9 video card to use with this aircraft or FS9?Andrew.

[John_Tavendale 453]

Depends on the rest of your system and which card you're thinking of. May help to be a little more specific ;)

[WebMaximus 372]

Guess his question was if 737NG uses any specific DX9 effects that you will miss if you don't have a DX9 hardware compatible graphics card, at least that is something I would like to know as well.Have a GeForce 4 ti4800 at the moment which don't have DX9 HW support and was thinking of upgrading either to a GeForce FX card or an ATI Radeon card.TIA for any info on this subject,

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Not for FS9 in general... as to the 737NG, I'll let others speak to this, but I would be most surprised..

[Guest DavidMartin]

Mmmm, I'm surprised by this. Not an expert, but I thought FS9 used DX9? I am considering upgrading my Notebook video card (an Nvidia 5650) to an ATI 9600, because my FS2004 performance is slow. If I could gain an extra 5-10 fps I would be happy. Are you saying a DX9 card will not really help at all?Dave

[Guest Ray CYYZ]

FS9 = DirectX 9 API.If your card does not support DirectX 9 API in hardware, it reverts to software emulation mode through the drivers. This simply adds some overhead.You have a similar situation with the Sound Blaster Live (and older cards). They do not have HARDWARE support for DirectX's API, but run just fine when one sets the DirectX API to not use hardware acceleration through DXDIAG.As to how dramatic a difference one would see, it is completely dependant on the system. As FS9 is not actually graphically intense (as in it does not use a great deal of the fancy directx 9 stuff to remain functional on older cards), I doubt it will be as big a bang for the buck as one would think if comparing to a newer game that uses pixel shaders like nuts.Bottom line, buy it from a place you can return it for full refund as you may end up with nothing for your investment. 5-10 FPS when you already have a card that has Texture & Lighting support in hardware is a rather large leap to expect without a CPU upgrade.Always keep this fact running through the back of your head when buying new stuff: FS9 can kill a P4 3.2GHz / 1GB Ram / ATI 9800 XT system (in other words the best money can buy right now) so do not expect the world from upgrading one part. FS = CPU pig, PMDG = Memory pig, sliders = Video pig (no offence aimed at anyone). These three all interact together to ensure that no one part will fix anything unless you are seriously out of whack with one of the 3.Ray