Ok, I was made speechless last night, maybe I should have known but I didn't. Since I purchased the 737NG I have been running a GeForce TI4600 video card and I thought it was a pretty good card, a little old but good and then yesterday I received my new FX5900XT card and my God those panels look good! I did not even change any of my display settings from the way I had them with the old card, the difference is that great. I am planning to put a new PC together in a few months with a top of the line video card so I just bought the FX5900XT as a "cheap" way to improve things until my upgrade. I had no idea that these panels could look so good! The outside visuals are much improved too but the difference in the looks of the 2D panel and the VC are incredible. Don't get me wrong, they looked good before but now it almost feels like I am really in the cockpit, incredible. I highly reccomend that anyone that has an older video card and has a little extra cash, go buy a newer card, the visual improvements will amaze you. I only paid $174.00 for this card and it was worth every penny now that I can see the PMDG 737NG in all it's glory. My thanks to PMDG for creating a panel that looks so good!Take care,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Thank you Philip, did you get better performance after the upgrade?Thank you in advanceJohn

heh talking about visual quality here i noticed recently this: -I have what i thought was a pretty reasonable 19" SONY HMD monitor with trinitron flat tube.. all looks great etc. But i also have a flatscreen monitor which i picked up for hardly anything AOC make it is? never heard of it. But i run fs9 with the pmdg 737 on it and the definition is even better than my main monitor..I found this odd due to the lack of res u can really use on it 1024*768 but its so much sharper.. I may have to invest in a 19" flatscreen i think :)

Yes, my performance increased as well. On average I think I gained about 5-8 FPS when using the 737NG, my gains with default aircraft run about 8-10 FPS for the better. I was impressed with that as well since many people have said not to expect much of a boost from a new video card. Note that these gains were noted using exactly the same settings and resolutions as I had with the old card so the improvement with performance and visually is no illusion. I'll run through my settings just so you all will have an idea. 1280 x 960 x 32 resolution, 8X AA and AS settings in NVIDIA settings, AA turned off if FS, all sliders full right except terrain detail is set to land only, no sun glare or lens flare, sight distance set to 70 miles, cloud draw distance 40 miles, 100% 3D clouds, 100% AI with all of PAI's packages, cloud coverage maximum. Yes I ran the sim like this with a TI4600, heavy weather would bring it to it's knees especially with the 737NG but with light weather I could usually get around 20FPS in most cases dropping to about 10-15 in dense airports. I must insert a note here, in a previous post in the hardware forum I mistated that I had my autogen set to dense, I posted that without actually looking and I had forgotten that I turned it back up a few weeks ago. I have some screen shots that I took with my old TI4600 and can post some exact comparison shots if anyone is interested. I do not have the frame rates showing on the shots but you can see the visual improvements, and sadly all of the shots are from the outside of the plane not panel shots but I'' look through to see if I have a shot archived somewhere of the panel. EDIT: Mind you, I am running an old ASUS A7V333 mobo so I can only run at AGP 4X, I don't know what kind of improvement there would be at AGP 8X.Best Regards, Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Hey Philip, Happy to hear about your improvements, just wanted to say that it would be great if you could share your "Before-After" shots... I'm very interested to see how a better Graphics card can improve the visuals. Regards, Vala

Ok, I have to leave for a customers house right now but late tonight I will make sure that I have identical shots and post them. In the mean time is it ok to post them in this forum or should I post them in the screen shots forum? Vin, Robert, anyone who knows, please let me know. Take care,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Thanks Philip, Also, I don

Hi there...Yes i need to sort mine out...any chance of some screenshots?CheersRoss

Sorry everyone, I got stuck working until 6:00 this morning, came home and got 1 hour sleep and went to take care of some more clients. I'll try to resize the pics and get them posted before my next appointment. If I can't do it before I have to leave I'll try to get them in this evening. I think that I need to hire some help, my customers are killing me! :-)Thank you all for your patience! Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Sorry it took so long, my appointment lasted a lot longer than I thought. Any way I will post two shots here now and more later. The first one was with my old TI4600 and the second one is with my new card. All of the settings are the same so these are truly comparable shots. I have not enhanced or changed them in any way other than reducing the file size and converting them to JPG files. It is very easy to see the difference between the two cards.Best Regards,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89850.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89851.jpg

Just think when PCIE gets going really good...from what I hear, PCI Express will be the equivalent to 16X AGP.Hopefully AMD will start working on their version of this soon....

Wow, Now I see how better graphics cards can make difference in the picture you see. The graphics in the second picture are MUCH smoother, the lighting is much nicer and everything overall looks much more realistic, specially the trees in the background, even though they are not visible in the first one! Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy your new improvements. Vala

Thanks, I posted three new shots in the screen shot forum. http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=159912&page= They are not comparison shots but I thought they looked fairly good. I am leaving for Germany in a couple of days so I am not sure if I will be able to post anymore comparison shots but some of them are rather astounding as to the difference between them. If I get a chance I will try though. I am really impressed with how good PMDG's products look with this card, I sure am happy that I spent the money on the card, it makes the 737NG feel brand new again. Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Hi, Philip:I read this thread with interest and saw the pix too although I cannot discern a great deal from these particular screenshots. I too run a Ti4600 in a DELL 8200 and just found out today that I can instal a FX5900XT card like your new one; and the price is right as well.I feel as you did, that the Ti4600 card does a pretty decent job but clouds kill it off; dense cumulus brings frames down to 6 to 9 or so, which is hideous. Otherwise I'm in the range of 18 to 25 most of the time with any a/c of any complexity which is more than passable.Has the FX card increased the smooooothness of the sim for you? I think the Ti4600 card already renders rather well--and I am now back to 1600x1200x32 with no FSAA--so I am primarily in the market for much better fluidity. I've looked at a range of other recent hi-end video cards for my DELL, but prices are shockingly high ($400+), so this FX card may be the one for me. I would greatly appreciate any additional comments and if poss, an additional screenshot or two, maybe of the NG panel or some complex panel if you see a significant difference.Thanks a lot!JS

Well as luck would have it I just finished flying in some super cell thunderstorms so I have some data for you. I suffered, as you do, with low frame rates in the clouds, with this last flight I got between 14 and 18 FPS with an occasional jump to 22 with the super cells. So yes frame rates are much better with clouds. There was still a little bit of jerkiness with heavy clouds but much better than with the TI4600. In clear weather or with the default cloud settings things are much smoother, I am rather impressed. I would say to go ahead and get the card as it is affordable and it does bring a lot of improvement. I am sure that a more expensive card would be even better but they are expensive. Take care, Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg