Vid Card Ati9700 or G4ti4600 ?

[Guest]

Hi GuysGoing to buy a new vid cardI was curious to know for the people who have these cards, how you would rate these cards performance in fs2002

[Guest Skedflyer]

Had the G4 4600, and I must say I was less than impressed with the performance. I got the 9700 pro, and I am more than happy with it, was crashing when I would ATL-TAB to desktop with the CAT 3 drivers but I dl the new beta drivers and it works great, Right now the 9700 pro is the top performing card..Just my experience with the cards.

[kerosene31 349]

We just had this same thread yesterday. Check this thread out:http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/16218.html

[Guest]

Hey laserit,Well, my Gainward 4600 is my fourth Nvidia based board. I've always been impressed with Nvidia's commitment to drivers and the large user-base and support groups. My video cards have been the least of my worries since investing in Nvidia.I've had a couple of ATI cards in the past, and I've never really been happy with their performance or stability. ATI was a major problem child just a few years ago in terms of supporting other cards in the same system, which was a big headache for me, being in support.True, as of 1/10/03, 11:15AM PST, the ATI 9700 Pro is the fastest board out there, costing about $75 more than 4600 based boards. The Nvidia FX boards are about to start hitting the streets, retaking the crown they've had for many years. But in 6 months? Who knows. If you want to spend the $$$, you too can have the fastest for a few months, but by the time the next card comes out, your board with be half the price of what you spent when it was new.As for FS2002 performance, you will see none. Remember that the Flight Simulator series has always been a processor hog, only gaining a FPS increase with a processor/RAM upgrade. The nice thing about the newer cards is that you can enable AntiAliasing, and other features, and not see a drop in performance.The choice is really up to you. Look around, read some reviews, check out the user group forums, you'll be glad you took the time to make an informed decision.

[Guest]

WEll I have a GF4 Ti 4400 and I LOVE it...no problems at all!

[Guest]

hmmm. any idea on a release date for that nvdia card? im getting a new cpu sometime next month. might just wait till it comes out and see the reviews on it.im also going for an ATI 9700 pro, but if that NVIDIA card stands up then ill probably get that one.

[Guest]

I hear what you are saying about FS being a cpu hog, and I wouldn't be surprised at a lack of difference between the Nvidia and ATI cards under discussion. But what about replacing a Voodoo 5500 with either of these? Might there be any performance improvements? The mobo is an Athlon 1.4 Ghz overclocked slightly to 1.53 Ghz. The Voodoo 5500 was dropped into at the time the system was built (over a year ago now) simply because it was lying around (having been replaced by a GeoForce 2 Pro in another machine). I don't see a major system upgrade in the near future, but might invest in a better video card.-Basil

[Guest The Ancient Brit]

S'mae Edukator (Hi),I am also in the ranks of happy GF 4 Ti 4400 users, no problems whatsoever. I acquired the Ti 4400 by accident.I had ordered a brand new computer, Intel P4 2.58GHtz on a P4P4 APG8X motherboard with 1.5G of ram and an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card. My system was Windows XP Pro as my previous computer and it installed on the new computer and ran without problems. Just for good measure a raid system ran four 120 Gig hard drives as a matched set. I was aware the 9700 needs lots of power and cooling so I had a 550 watt power supply and 10 cooling fans (my case almost needs tethering to my desk.)The 9700 card was late on delivery so while waiting I ran my old GF 3 card, no problems. I fitted the 9700 when it did arrive and found my flight time was limited to five minutes maximum, if I was lucky, sometimes it was five seconds. Provided I did not fire up FS2K2 everything ran beautifully. I do quite an amount of work with .jpgs, having recently acquired a digital camera and the 9700 card gave me a burst of speed handling those, which I would do for several hours at a time. During the time I did run FS2K2 the frame rates with everything at maximum were so high I dare not quote them here, just let

[Guest]

>>But what about replacing a Voodoo 5500 with either of these? Might there be any performance improvements?Hi Basil,I just replaced my Voodoo 5 5500 AGP with a ATI AIW 9700 Pro, and my jaw dropped when I fired up FS2002. Everything is crystal clear and smooth as glass. I was NOT expecting this much of a performance increase, since FS2002 is CPU dependent.With all sliders to the right...all "enhancements" ON (water reflections..reflective aircraft) there is nothing I can throw at this card that it cant handle. The most noticeable improvement was flying through heavy clouds, as the Voodoo 5 would fall to its knees in thunderstorms.This card slices through them like butter.My specs:Athlon XP2000+Epox 8kha+512 Mushkin Enhanced DDR 2100Lite-On 52x24x52 CD BurnerSB Live X-GamerLinksys NICATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro(Cat 3, DX9)XP SP1/Win98se Dual bootTake CareCJ PuttKPTA

[Guest]

My 9700 has FS2002 for lunch. I just installed the ERJ Grabowski panel. It has that one for lunch. Switching views is right now. No delay. It has IL2 for lunch. It has my racing sims for lunch. And it's still hungry. Running the CD6166 drivers and they've never made em' so stable. BTW; the IQ is like looking at a high gloss picture. Only it's moving.I'm running a good quality 340 watt power supply. But I don't have 10 cooling fans and four harddrives and three lamps plugged into my computer, and for sure I don't have an 8xAGP motherboard. Those newer motherboards are still a nightmare. The problem with em' is they don't deliver enough power to feed the hungry 9700. There's discussion about em' at 3drage. If you got an 8xAGP mobo working with the 9700, you should be playing the lotto.Running FS2k2 at 16x12x32; 4xAA & 16xAF. And yes, there's some new cards just around the corner. The 9700 price should come down a bit in a couple months.

[Guest]

Thats what got me really looking at the ati, some of the screen shots I have seen have blown me away. I have a gf3 now and i am happy with my frame rates but I could sure live with that kind of improvement with the image quality.Specs:xp2400+Asus A7n8x mobo (love this board)512meg ddr 2100 (upgrading to 1024 ddr400)gf3 (###### me off the amount of money I spent when it went obsolete so quick)(anybody interested in a xp1.4, Asus A7a266 mobo. 512meg ddr 2100, gf3 , and soundblaster live mp3+ ) :-saeFloydCyvr

[Guest]

I guess I can link these pics here: http://www.fsgateway.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_I...le=Screen+Shots

[Guest dpc]

I run a 9700 on an Athlon XP 2000+. VERY happy with it.

[Guest]

Thanks for the information! I haven't spent much time flying through clouds, but there are other circumstances where it has seemed that the Voodoo just wasn't cutting it as far as texture resolution and display was concerned. So sharper, crisper texture display, with no loss of performance, would be welcome.-Basil

[Guest]

>>As for FS2002 performance, you will see none. Remember that >the Flight Simulator series has always been a processor hog, >only gaining a FPS increase with a processor/RAM upgrade. I used to subscribe to this theory also...until I upgraded my geforce 2mx card to a geforce 3ti500. If you have a fast cpu you can benefit a lot in terms of fps with a fast graphics card.Athlon XP 1600+GeForce3 ti500Tony in Miami