Radeon 8500 or 9000?

[Guest]

Hi all,I'm thinking of getting a new graphics card. I've narrowed down my options to the radeon 8500, 8500LE and 9000. Which card will be better for FS2K2?Also, should I choose 64MB or 128MB for the video card memory? Thanks a lot guys!

[Guest]

Anyone?Please reply...

[Guest flightpro08]

Well, quite frankly, I wouldn't recommend any of those three cards. I'd recommend looking into getting yourself a GeForce 4 Tixxxx. Very fast cards, and they work great with FS2k2.Ryan-Flightpro08 :-cool VATSIM Pilot/ControllerZLA ARTCC Senior Controller (C-3)SAN TRACON Lead [link:www.taxiwaysigns.com|Taxiwaysigns.com] Scenery Designer-----------------------------My "Home Made" System Specs:Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz ProcessorTurbo Gamer ATX Mid-Tower with 420W Power SupplyEPoX 4G4A Motherboard with Intel 845G ChipsetVisiontek XTASY GeForce4 128MB Ti4600 (Det 30.30 Drivers)512MB PC2100 DDR RAM40GB Matrox 7200RPM Hard DriveWindows XP Home Edition SP1*No CPU or GPU Overclocking*3dMark2001SE Score: 11298-----------------------------Click [link:ftp.avsim.com/library/esearch.php?DLID=&Name=&FileName=&Author=Ryan+Fretwell&CatID=Root]Here to Download my New American Eagle POSKY CRJ-200!

[Guest]

Just for info , the 9500 Pro is coming and it should be a serious competitor of GF4 ti 4200 . Concerning memory , I'm really wondering if 128MB is necessary with FS2002 .Regards

[ABE 0]

If you will be doing any video capture and the like, the 8500DV all-in-wonder is excellent, you cannot beat it. My FS2002 runs very very nice, very good texture and very good frame rates.Abe

[Guest]

I have just gone through the same process. I decided against the 9000Pro, to me it is a cut down, cheaper manufactured version of the 8500. I went for the 8500 64Mb and I am very happy with it. I didn't go for the 8500LE either, that is just running at a slower clock speed than the 8500.The faster 8500 says on the box 'Manufactured by ATI' the LE/OEM version says 'Powered by ATI'I would have loved to have a 9500 Pro, but the prices are just silly !CheersGraham

[Guest]

Thanks guys for your replies... does anyone else have any other comments?

[Guest]

Hailed as the 'King of Graphics', ATI's RADEON 9700 PRO dominates all benchmarks with its breakneck speeds and cinematic-quality visuals. Powered by eight parallel rendering pipelines, Microsoft

[Guest]

this would be my choice..ive got the 8500,but am going to upgrade to the 9700...credit card permitting best wishes steve

[Guest]

Iam really impressed with the reviews I have read for the 9700 pro.I would advise doing a look up for some on google.com .While Iam very impressed with the reviews I have read I really wonder how well this card would work in FS2k2.The only reason I say this is because most of the newer cards developed with blistering speeds for games like Q3,Half Life, Unreal etc because these are what people seem to mostly benchmark test with next to MadOnion. These are also games played in opengl which is much faster than DirectX.This being said I would like to see more test done with DirectX games.I believe this is the Geforces strong point.It's a well developed card for both Direct X and OpenGL.I have had my GF3 ti 200 card since about this time last year and have seen driver version go from 21.85 to 41.03.I would say that is atleast 10-20 driver releases in 1 year.Most of those where beta drivers but worked will with little bugs.The Radeon 7500 I had ... I saw maybe 3 to 4 beta drivers and 2 offical releases in 1 years time.It will be interesting to see if ATI can bring itself back to glory or not.I just Iam not sure Iam willing to believe all the hype just yet.I would go with 128MB GF4 ti 4600 and if in time ATI proves to live up to the hype and gives good support and constant driver releases like Geforce then you can always sell the GF4 and go get a ATI of course this is just my opinon :) Capt.Richard Dillon (KATL)www.jetstarairlines.com"Bill Grabowski's"ERJ-145 panel Beta TeamMD-11 panel Beta Team-----------------------PAI beta team -----------------------"Lets Roll" 9/11 -----------------------Specs AMD 1600 XP MSI KT 266t pro2 512MB DDR 2100GF3 ti 200 64MB SBliveCh Products Yoke and Pedals(usb)Windows 2000 Serivce Pack 3

[Guest Sabadin]

This was taken on an XP1700+ with a Radeon 8500LE,not a bad card for $249 CDN. Runs about 20-25 fps unless there's a good deal of AI.

[wvernonc 0]

I have a 8500 128 meg card. Very satisfied with it.At this time, I find that I use about 48 megs with FS2002. The 64 meg card has faster ram I think.

[Guest Sabadin]

I find the extra 64MB helps keep the blurries down compared to the GF3Ti200 I used to run.