Once again, PMDG 737NG with Radeon 9800XT

[Arnaud 0]

Hi Dears,Once again, a topic on this graphic card,the Radeon 9800XT.I bought the card the day after I bought the PMDG 737NG.I'm simming since 1988, with FS3, and I do say loudly never hadI seen such an excellent, outstanding product!For this purpose, I decided to buy the Asus Radeon 9800 XT.The CPU is P4 2.4b, 1Go DDR333, mobo chipset Intel 865P.FS2004 sliders all maxed out, except Mipmaping to 4, and CloudsSight distance to the medium.My fear is: the FPS often drop under 10, on very busy fields -with maxAI 100% -, with some other with Radeon 9800pro get more.I know how complex is the settings in FS9.I ran some bench and got very disappointing results (12000 with 3dmark 2001) for these card.I launched the DxDiag Direct3D test, and the Dirext Cube turns so fastyou cant even see its a cube! I thing something is wrong out there.I used the ATI Catalyst 4.1, then set the Asus build In last drivers.Just saw the Catalyst 4.2 had been released, as well as the Last Omega.In the ATI control panels, I customized everything, I have no errormessage anywhere, the AGP is correctly set to 8x and so on.And yet, I feel very strongly it doesnt go as it should.In the clouds, in fs9, (and clouds ask only from the graphic CPU)I sometime go lower than 10! (over dense autogen areas).So, is there something I missed?I didnt tweak my fs9, since I cant find anymore the long post i readhere once about tweaking fs9.Please any help, awaiting the 737-800/900 and the Queen of the Sky!...Would a P4 3.06 FSB 533 allow me not to ge below 20 in the worst situation?Regards to all.

[Guest Ray CYYZ]

Your CPU & Ram combo is holding back the card.Ease off on the settings and you'll be fine. You are suffering from "got a new video - gotta max the slider"itiss ... a well documented problem ;)You should also update to the new 3D test suite that actually measures your system accurately and doesn't allow bogus test results to be filed so you get a real feeling for how your system is doing. People exploit the numbers in 3Dmark to such a level that the results are meaningless. I have seen people posting better results with an 1G system then my 3.2G :-lolRay

[Guest ToMy Li]

Arnaud, Im under 1000 Mhz AMD with 512 RAM + G-Force 4 4400 Ti 128 Mb DDR and I so happy because I can set all FS2004 settings to the maximum quality and to 1280x1024 x32Bits flying our awesome 737NG I know under a Pentium 4 and ATI Radeon 9800 XT you must get triple of frame rates, check list link please: http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/200310...n9600xt-24.html Good luck mate,

[Vulcan 14]

Tomas,Can I swap rigs please ?I have a XP2500, 1GB RAM and GF4 Ti 4800SE and I certainly can't set all FS9 sliders to max and get anything but a slideshow, unless I am at altitude with only sky showing.

[Arnaud 0]

Vulcan,...well, after reading Tomas I was about to ring my lawyer!pfew, I was just thinking my Radeon was a kind of a mexican sausage......I myself used to run a Leadtek geForce 4 ti4800SE, and also hadvery bad frame rates, especially in the clouds...Tomas, I'm scared when I read you...Have you also a lot of AI traffic, and autogen set to max?This demand a LOT from the CPU I think.I have a 1280/1024/32 resolution, but with the 256mo on theRadeon it doesnt make a big improvement to lower at 1024/768/32...Now, the question is: I ran few bench, including the last 3DMark03,and got quite poor result, compared to similar PC.I checked and saw that the Radeon is sharing the same IRQ than theUSB Hub controller.Could that also slower my whole specs?

[Guest ToMy Li]

Well my friend... The way It's very simple... All I have installed for getting the maximum frame rates for enjoying while flying WITH ALL SETTINGS ON (Please don't use AI Traffic leave it... fly under IVAO or VATSIM) A) Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 FULL WINDOWS UPDATED :( Last DirectX 9.0b version on it C) Last Video driver from nvidia.com D) Defrag each week your hard disk (save loading time always) E) Set AA to x4 maximum (looks wonderful you don't need se to x8) and remove it after FROM THE FS2004 Video Settings (Anti Alising option) F) Do not use above resolution 1280x1024 to 32 Bits G) I recommend you use too ActiveSky 2004 (Important Settings Section to get the maximum performances and quality with the clouds, because the clouds kill about 60% of your frame rates believe me! H) And finally patch your FS2004 clouds with the little patch from FSW right there: http://fsw.simflight.com/files/fs2k4fix/HiFPSv2.zip I recommend you install 32 Bits patch textures from the zip file. If you don't believe me, I can send to you some wonderful own screenshots. Fly 737 PMDG 1.3 <--- ALSO VERY IMPORTANT THIS SP AMD 1.000 Mhz 512 SDRAM + G-Force 4 4400 Ti 128 Mb DDR Under Windows XP Pro. That's all!!! :-bigangel

[Arnaud 0]

Thanks a lot for all these wise advise, Tomas.I expect to fly online soon, but I wait for SB3.As for the AI, I msut confess I'm a crazy AI man,and the AI I'm talking about is a kinf of home-made AI.If you just have on look over there http://ai-aardvark.comyou'll maybe understand.On antoher hand, AI is not what kills the more the frame rate.To me, it sthe autogen, and autogen set to max is a CPU promblem.Anyway, thanks very much.Arnaud.