Not Impressed with pci express 7800gtx

[Guest JIMJAM]

My best freind owns a computer store so Im able to experiment with the latest greatest hardware. Ive been considering converting over to pci express so I can run the 7800gtx card.So we converted my current computer, AMD 3500+,Asus A8V deluxe,2 gigs ram, 6800gt to pci express with the 7800gtx.I didnt use any fancy benchmark programs or spend days tweeking the setup. I just flew using graphics settings,aircraft and over areas where I am very familiar with the appearance,fps,slowdowns,stutters ect.IMHO I cannot say I would have been happy had I spent the est $750 and up retail.I really could only see modest gains in fps during high density areas and alot of that could have been a placebo effect. The same graphics problems that FS9 always had were there, some blurries,jaggies,barberpolling ect.Im sure had I spent alot more time tweeking I could have boosted the fps but that kind of $$$ would have been better spent.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi Jimjam,You are certainly entitled to your own opinion but I felt the need to make a post here to clarify your observations. Note that although I do have a 7800GTX, I am not here to defend the 7800GTX - I just hope others who will read your post (and who might be considering a purchase of the 7800GTX) will not take it out of context. A few points:1) FS9 scales more with CPU than with GPU so it should be somewhat expected that you wouldn't see a tremendous improvement. Most people who buy the 7800GTX doesn't use it for FS9 - they use it for games like F.E.A.R., Half Life 2, Far Cry, Quake 4 etc.2) Going from AGP to PCI Express on the same GPU would not result in any performance improvement. This was demonstrated in many reviews around the Web when PCI Express was first introduced.3) You already have a pretty high-end GPU (the 6800GT) so of course the difference is not going to be too marked.4) I'm not sure it's fair to upgrade your video card and then to make a comparison using the same settings. Part of the reason one upgrades is to up your settings. For example, there's less of a performance penalty from AA when using a 7800GTX as compared to previous generation GPUs.5) What are your settings? For example, if you're setting AA in FS9, then you'll find that setting AA in the Forceware control panel will result in a performance gain and an image quality improvement. Also, what resolution are you using? Any fps gain would be more noticeable in 1600x1200 (or higher) than in 640x480.In conclusion, whether an upgrade to 7800GTX is worth the money is all relative to your expectations. As I said, you are entitled to your opinion and you may be right in saying that an upgrade to 7800GTX doesn't justify its price but I think your expectations were unreasonable in the first place. If value for money is what you were looking for, then the 7800GTX wasn't made for you (ask NVIDIA and they'll tell you the same thing).Regards,Edwin

[Guest JIMJAM]

All I was trying to say is that "In my opinion" got to say that over and over and over, if you have a high end agp system and think going to a new pci express with a 7800 is going to be night and day, Its not.Like alot of us,we are always looking for faster and better. We want to run all sliders to the right and fly our PMDG 747 over New York running Ultimate terrain,BEV,ASV and get 60 fps with no slowdowns.I have the opportunity to play with some of the latest hardware and have YET to be able to do so.Not trying to pick a fight or mislead anyone. Just a guy with time on his hands and a pile of hardware looking for that holy grail setup.....

[Guest Edwin]

>All I was trying to say is that "In my opinion" got to say>that over and over and over, if you have a high end agp system>and think going to a new pci express with a 7800 is going to>be night and day, Its not.Yes and I agree with you! And if you had read my post (I presume you did), I was essentially saying the same thing.>Like alot of us,we are always looking for faster and better.>We want to run all sliders to the right and fly our PMDG 747>over New York running Ultimate terrain,BEV,ASV and get 60 fps>with no slowdowns.Well, I'm running an AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ (okay, so FS9 doesn't make use of the second core, so you can assume I'm using an AMD Athlon64 4000+) and an NVIDIA 7800GTX and I'm still not quite at that point. First of all, I lock my FPS (a good practice with FS9) at 40FPS and secondly, I use 1600x1200x32 because of my LCD. But I do get ~30FPS in the air (with ASV running, flying the PMDG747 at highest possible refresh rate) and the sim feels smooth enough to me. I do get the occasional slowdown but I'm satisfied with it.>I have the opportunity to play with some of the latest>hardware and have YET to be able to do so.>Not trying to pick a fight or mislead anyone. Just a guy with>time on his hands and a pile of hardware looking for that holy>grail setup.....Sure and I thank you for that. But if you really are out here to help, I think it would do the reader more to post more details about how exactly are you testing. As I asked in my previous post, what resolution are you using and what settings are you using? Are you locking your FPS? What video card and motherboard drivers are you using? What OS are you using? All of these can make a difference and like I said, I'm not sure your testing methodology brings the most out of the 7800GTX.I think there may be some misunderstanding between us two. Both of us are trying to help here and I don't think either of us are trying to pick a fight. My point is simply let's not take things out of context.Hope you understand.Edwin

[kjb]

Try dropping a second 7800GTX in and see what happens :)I just built an Athlon 4800 with two 7800GTX in SLI and I'd guess it runs about three times as fast as my old system (an FX53 with ATI 800XT). I haven't run the new system in serious weather yet, or reinstalled any add-ons. Over downtown Phoenix with all settings maxed, including 100% autogen, it was holding 85fps consistently. I think the old system would have been around 35 fps at best.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi kjb,But FS9 doesn't take advantage of SLI! Or at least so I'm told. Since you have two of the cards, could you maybe run some benchmarks for us?BTW, regardless of how high-end of a system you have, it's advised that you lock your frame rates.Edwin

[kjb]

I'll try turning off SLI and see how it does. My guess is that SLI is increasing framerates, since I don't think a single 7800GTX is this much faster than the ATI 800XT. I still have the 'old' system so maybe I'll try some similar situations and see how they compare.

[kjb]

You may be correct.Here's what I did. I put the default C172 at Meigs with fair weather, then slewed it up to 2500' and rotated left toward the downtown area. All sliders were maxed and the resolution was at 1280 x 720 (the native resolution of my projector).7800GTX SLI: 58 fps7800GTX: 56 fps800XT: 44 fpsI thought the difference between the 7800(s) and 800 was more, but apparently I was in areas that weren't really taxing the 7800 enough. The difference between SLI and single mode is insignificant. Minor changes in the view could account for that. It looks like the 7800 was about 30% faster, which isn't bad, but it's a lot less than I thought.The 56 fps number was about the minimum I could find looking around with the 7800. The 800 did drop more in some views, with some dips into the low 30's. Looking right, over the water, the 7800 went up over 100 fps and the 800 was in the 70 fps range.It's pretty much impossible to setup a perfect benchmark in FS, but the ratio should be pretty close.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi kjb,That's what I thought. FS9 is not able to take advantage of SLI right now so you shouldn't see any difference (your 2fps is statistically insignificant) between a single card and a dual-card SLI config. Let's hope FS10 does (as well as our dual-core processors!)How come you don't lock your frame rates? Or are you locking them at a very very high level? You'll likely find that you are missing out on some details (without setting a target frame rate, FS9 will drop some details in order to maintain your artificially high frame rates) and there's talk that a lack of a frame rate lock could lead to a memory leak (i.e. decreasing performance over long sim periods). I lock mine at 40FPS - without the SLI, I have the same CPU and GPU as you do but I run my FS at 1600x1200x32, 4xAA, 8xAF.Edwin

[kjb]

It's a new system and I'm still reinstalling add-ons and tweaking. I just built it a couple of days ago. I've got AA & AF maxed on the 7800, but the max resolution I can run is 1280 x 720 with the projector. That's one thing I forgot to check in my comparison. I didn't have AA and AF maxed on the ATI 800XT! I think they were at 4 AA and 4 AF. Oops...I completely forgot to match the video card properties for Direct X so the comparison with my old system isn't quite valid.

[Guest s.storm]

Hello all SLI users,After 2 weeks of tweaking my new system, I can suggest the following for users of Dual Nvidia Geforce 7800 gtx;1. Start with this official Nvidia SLI modification to enable the "coolbits" function. See also other info at this site. Link: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_sliAA_howto22. After no.1 above, set AF to 16. Yes 16! Both AA and AF should now be 16. Also set Image Settings to highest quality. Dont worry, Dual cards can handle all of the above.Additional notes;1. I use the official 81.87 beta drivers from Nvidia.2. My gain in FPS is around 30%, but the main difference is the quality.3. Unfortunately the image of the aircrafts in the aircraft selection menu are still black on my system, but every thing else is fine.4. Dont forget to tweak the FS9.cfg file to get rid of blurry textures.Best regards,Stefan