Hello everybody.It's very likely that you will think me a complete idiot (and to some degree I probably am).I have invested my money in a major hardware update. In fact I have turned my complete pc upside down and have thrown everything out.One of the upgrades was my graphic card. I changed my older ATI 9800pro for a brandnew MSI NX6800 Ultra (256Mb).But I'm not quite happy with that change and I'm wondering if a new X800 (or X850) by ATI wouldn't have been a better choice. Is there anybody who has had the opportunity to compare both cards in Flightsimulator?I know I'm a bit late with this question because I have spent already those 530 eur but I seriously want to consider the change back to ATI...Any comment...?Luc Brusselmans

I wouldn't do it myself, ATI dosent gives lower performance at the low res's and low AA,AF. But if you crank up the AA,AF, and Res then ATI kicks A**, I have the X800 XT PCIE and am very pleased. I am not sure how good MSI is.

If I had my time again, I would have purchased the X800 also instead of the 6800. Whilst there is no doubt that the 6800 is a real performer in most games, the penalty associated with AAing clouds in FS2004 is, IMO, too great. Sure, I could turn down my AA setting, but after spending A$600 on a video card, I want it the full AA show. The 9800 Pro that I replaced with it suffered much less under full cloud / max AA settings, so the X800 should be a real screamer.I am seriously considering selling my 6800 and buying an X800 to replace it.Gary

Hello Gary,The things you wrote in your reply confirm my worst nightmare. I had hoped that Nvidia solved that Alphachannel problem in the latest generation cards but it seems that I was wrong.Even worse... I have some serious suspicions about other objects in Fs9 (besides clouds) that suffer from the same 'bug'.I have noticed that 2D panels (and the gauges in particular)from some respectable developers are slowing down up to 60 % when AA kicks in. From next week on, I can get my hands on a X850 and I will almost certainly change back to ATI. Thanks for the 'support' because I know that I'm not the only one that has been fooled... (a very costly mistake)Luc 'Glaudrung' Brusselmans

*sigh* You can add me to the "dissappointed 9800Pro to 6800GT OC club". After spending 400USD and reading all the reviews,forums,websites that touted this card to be great,I just don't see it. I averaged around 25FPS with the 9800Pro and with the 6800 overclocked version by BFG,I think I average the same FPS no matter what the settings are.Tried everything,drivers,changing game display settings,etc., you know all about it.For me,to get the game to look as good as the 9800,I had to bump AA and AF, res to 1600 x 1200..Looks real good now,but for the money,I think I also should have gone to the X850 or even X800.I have been ATI for 5 years now,decided to give Nvidia a chance.I guess in time I will get all the bugs of this card worked out,but I think I will try the new ATI cards anyway.In fairness to the 6800GT,it does run a couple other games nicely,way better than the 9800.I guess it comes down to what video card the game is optimized for.ATI for some,Nvidia for others.It's really dissappointing when a P4 3 gig/ 1024MB Ram machine can't cut it!! I guess a whole new machine is on tap for me,,,,again.....happy flying!

Unfortunately Nvidia went downhill after Visiontek went to ATI to help them with their drivers.

If it can be any consolation to you guys,my rig consists of an AMD Athlon 64 4000+, 2 Gb RAM and as topping a MSI NX6800 Ultra. And guess what, I get as much frames out of this rig as I got out of my P4 3.2 and that had only 1 Gb ram and fueled 'only' a 9800pro.I have been testing for the last few days and I came up with the frustrating result that I really am dying to get my hands on any ATI card. In fact, If I could I would plug in my 9800pro again. As things stand right now, I'm going to ask to trade this 6800 in for a X850. I hope they won't charge me an arm and a leg for it.Luc 'Glaudrung' Brusselmans

I have the 9800 pro as wellTuesday I bought the ATI X800XL and brought it back the next day.Had it been available when I bought the 9800 pro, of course I would have bough it.But not now as it did not seem to warrant the extra money when i already have the pro. It did do the AA/AS things better but the fps were minimally better if at all. allen

Allen,Am I reading this correct?You had a 9800pro, you changed it for a X800XL and that last one didn't perform better (significantly) than your old 9800?If this can be confirmed by some other users, I very well can spare me both money and effort and stick to the Gforce I have now. I was planning to get me one of those X800's in the near future because I'm not very well pleased with the Gforce NX6800 in Flightsimulator.Anyway, I hope to get this confirmed (or denied) because I would really hate to spend that kind of money (again) and with not some kind of result at the other end.Luc 'Glaudrung' Brusselmans

Hi Luc....I don't think the 800 XL is going to be any better than your Ultra.The money is already wasted, (me too!)sinking more into another card is gambling. It MAY be a little better,or MAYBE not!You have a nice system,how bad is the performance with the Ultra? You didn't say if you are running AGP or PCI-X....I have to say,after meddling with my 6800GT for a few days,I got FS to look good and perform pretty good.Definitely not the screamer I thought ,but after reading many posts about FPS issues,with super systems,I guess I will just accept it for what it is. For me, it's really only bad at take off and taxi,but I also run 1600x1200,with most settings maxed,except clouds of course.I don't think NASA even has a computer to run this game with full clouds.If you are running AGP card,try setting the AGP arperture size to 256MB,it helped me alot.Also get Riva Tuner,I have been overclocking this card to 400mhz with no problems...yet.....Stan

>Allen,>>Am I reading this correct?>>You had a 9800pro, you changed it for a X800XL and that last>one didn't perform better (significantly) than your old 9800?Yes that is how I felt but now I am wondering if I should not have kept it a bit longer to check out things I dont usually do, like 6XAA etc... but using my usual methods and scenery I was not sold. It may be a better card when encountering fps drops than with the 9800 pro but not enough to change, for me...I may try the X850 as it is on sale and can be returned, but I think it only works on PCIe, am I correct?allen

Hello Stan,Well, my system has the new PCI_e bus and that was the reason to change my card in the first place. I wanted a faster processr than the P4 3.2 I had and the only logical option was to turn to AMD and the Athlon64 4000+. But that meant changing my motherboard too and rather than sticking to the old AGP (but by no means bad) I went for the newer generation. And by doing so, I had to change my card.My problem with the 6800 are ...CLOUDS...Whenever there are clouds, frames are going down fast. In the default Cessna I get a very decent 50-60 frames/sec but when you add clouds (no overcast but really separately drawn clouds) framerates come down to a very moderate 25-30. If you add some more spice to the picture by selecting a more complex panel (ATR 72-500 of Flight1) framerates will fall to an (almost unacceptable) level of 13-19.I know from the past that drawing 3D clouds(with AA on 4x or higher) gives a severe hit on framerates because the (invisible) alpha channel is also drawn with AA by the drivers of Nvidia. Ati drivers ignore alpha channels and by doing so, clouds have less impact on framerates. (or this is what I have been told when I changed my old Gforce for the 9800pro).When the days pass by, I'm getting used to living with this card and to be honest, if I make the exception for those nasty clouds, everything else is drawn rock solid and clear. So the card can't be too bad. But, for me, it certainly is no winner with capital W.Luc ' Glaudrung' Brusselmans

Luc..Same scenario for me,exactly. The clouds are a killer,but flying in fair weather is pretty good.Don't worry,the next $600 card will fix it all!! Happy Flying,,Stan

here's my cloud screenie.....15fps,but still pretty smooth

There are just too many card models and versions and too many issues...Its really really hard to understand.Hmmmm...