Hi,I have to wait awhile before I have the funds to upgrade any part of my system.I have posted elsewhere that FSX does work well for me.HOWEVER I would like to overclock the graphics card I have using Ati tray tools.I am happy to do this but...Does the core speed and memory speed have to changed TOGETHER in equal increments? ORcan they be done individually?If individually which is the better to do?How can I test that I am not over stressing the card?How can I find out what the optimum overclock would be.I have read the articles at Teakguides.Any help advice would be welcome.I have an Ati RX800 TD256E card coupled to an ASUS A8N-E motherboard with an AMD 64 4200 dual core CPU.The cpu is overclocked 10% as allowed by the bios.P.S is it GRAPHICS card or VIDEO card?RegardsRichard

Whilst you can go ahead and do this, in my experience with a variety of ATI and geforce cards all the way up to the latest and greatest, overclocking your video card doesn't make a cracker of difference with FS anything.Anyway, if you must, the core and the memory can be overclocked individually. Re which one is better to play with - neither, as it doesn't make a worthwhile difference in FSX. A more constructive answer is that either will benefit you the same ;-) You can test the stability of your results using ATI tool artifact scanner. In fact you can use ATI tool to find your max core and memory overclock.Re graphics or video card, either title is used by the general populace.Gary

Thanks Gary,I have seen the artifact scanner, but am not sure how to find the max overclock with the ati tool, would you be kind enough to explain.I have already overclocked the card and yes I have to agree I have found no difference, but think I must try.How do I interpret the artifact scanner result??RegardsRichard.

Richard,There are two buttons on the left of the ATItool main window marked "Find Max Core" and "Find Max Mem". Just click on either and let the utility do its job. It will incrementally increase the core or memory frequency and then load it and artifact test it. Once it gets to a failure point, it will decrement the clock and again load and test for artifacts. Once it says no errors for say 30 mins then that it a pretty stable setting. Do the same for the other clock type. It will suggest that you return the first clock to stock to find the true max clock of that item - do this. When you have acheived both max clocks individually, set them both at the same time and run the "scan for artifacts" function. It will likely fail, as the combination of the two max clocks generates too much heat, so back them off a 5 or so MHz if this happens then run the artifact scan until it will go for 30 mins with out errors.You will know when the artifact test fails because it will beep, you may see a flash of texture corruption on the rotating cube and the error timer will reset.BTW, for anyone else out there running an nVidia card, ATItool works to overclock the competition's card just as well!Gary

Thanks Gary, I will give it a go.Regards

don't bother with OC the card. I have wssted in excess of 100 hours with ATI and nVidia cards, overclocking doesn't gain a single verifiable frame in FSX or FS9. On many cards and busses, OC makes the card perform worse due to clock issues on the bus. For FSX, concentrate on OC your CPU, not the GPU.

Good morning both.Well you were both right.I overclocked both core and memory to the max and there was no noticable improvement.Still I had to try. I am always looking for that little bit extra.Yesterday I increased my texture_bandwidth_mult to 1250 from 400 NOW that made a substantial improvement.Please don't ask me why.1500 was no better and nor was 900 but 1250 seemes to have a made a bit improvement especially on frame rates which are now in the 60's. I run with the frames unlimited, this works much better for me than restricting to a lower number.I am expecting Acceleration to drop through my letter box any day now and am looking forward to the challenge.!!!!!!RegardsRichard.