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Guest BAW083

Please, need feedback regarding ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

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Guest

Hi, I just couldn't wait any longer for the GeForce FX. First rumours said that it will be released (mass production) in 3rd week of January, and now they are saying that it will be in April, the first proper commercial release. Also, i read a gazillion reviews and I draw the line and went on and ordered ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro. Well, can anybody tells me that I made the right choice please? :) I am a little afraid that I might have not made this right, due to the GF FX release soon. I have a Pentium 3 1.1HGz with 512Mb Ram, with a GF 2 GTS, and I couldn't bare not to use some addons due to the low fps (like VMAX 747 classic, and PSS Dash 8). Can I have some feedback regarding ATI in MSFS 2002 please?? Thanks in advance and thanks for reading.AlexLMML

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Guest

You may want to go over to www.rage3d.com and ask questions and get a little bit more acquainted with what to expect with a PIII processor and the latest video cards. I wouldn't expect a whole lot if I was you. Prettier picture, yes; if it even works. Either one of those cards are likely going to give you a big headache in an older machine too. They gonna require the latest bios and the latest drivers to work. First question is how big is your power supply?? Next question is if your pumping water at 2 gallons a minute, it really doesn't matter whether you have a 1" hose or a 2" hose. You're going to get the same amount of water out the other end in either case. You might want to invest a bit more money in a bigger processor and a new motherboard??

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Guest PaulL01

You really cant go wrong as the GFFX is not going to stomp all over the ATI9700pro, those two cards will be close and will be in a class all thier own, I think though that either card on your system is not going to live up to your expectations if they are set to high as either will only be able to pretty much maintain FPS that you already have now... For example say with AntiAliasing(AA) and Anisotropic filtering (AF) truned off @ XxX resolution you get 20FPS average, and with AA turned on it goes down to 12FPS average... well with either of the two new cards your average with AA/AF off may increase to 21FPS and with AA/AF turned on you still average 18FPs

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Guest

Thanks to you both guys, I really appreciated that. So well, I am gonna be very dissapointed then. I'm off to order a P4. Thanks a million guys.Regards,Alex

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Guest The Ancient Brit

Like you Alex, I could not wait for the GFFX and ordered a 9700 Pro for my new system. I ran into immediate problems, FS2K2 freezing or crashing to desktop within minutes. I then fitted a GF Ti 4400 which ran FS2K2 without problems. Recently new drivers for my motherboard (VIA P4PB) appeared and also new drivers for the 9700. More in hope than expectation I tried the 9700 again and met with complete success. The new motherboard and 9700 drivers made all the difference. I have since installed DirectX 9 that may or may not be helping the 9700.Paul is right, the 9700 does need power, I noticed on my card there is a supplementary supply feeding it.Denis. The Ancient Brit.Pentium 4 CPU 2.54 Ghz550 Watt twin fan power supply1.5 Gig RamFour 120 Gig HD

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Hi Alex,I don't think you'll be that disappointed (depends on what you expect, of course). I upgraded my rather low-end system to a 9700 (a good friend made me an offer I just couldn't pass on) and I saw a definite improvement in smoothness and image quality. Graphics settings don't matter anymore as far as performance is concerned - AA or not I get the same fps. The biggest improvement was in high density scenery, such as SimFlyers airports. On the ground I used to get frames in single digits, accompanied by stutters and pauses, closer to the runway it would go up to maybe 10-12fps. Now I get 15-18 all around with very fluid motion (I also use the VMAX 747, PSS Dash-8 and Airbus as well as 767 PIC).My system specs:AMD Athlon 1GHz,256MB RAM,ASUS A7S-LE Motherboard.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

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Guest

gosta: that's interesting. Where are you running the AA & AF and the graphics settings and at what resolution?? I wouldn't think a 1gig would be able to take enough advantage of all the 9700 has to offer. Also, was it a painful install experience or did it go smoothly??

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Guest dpc

I'm running a 9700 on a Athlon 2000+ with 512 meg of ram. OS is WinXP Pro. I run 1600X1200X32 with AA set at x4. I have my FPS locked at 25 and it ventures below that only in the most dense of sceneries and is silky smooth. Could not be happier with my choice on the 9700

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Hi there,installation was very smooth, but then I had a Radeon 7200 before with the Catalyst drivers installed. I just changed the card, reinstalled the same driver and that was it. As to the settings, I have everything set to the right in the ATI control panel (i.e 6x AA and 16x AF), except for vertical sync, which is at 'application preference'. My monitor would only allow a maximum resolution of 1280x1024x32, so that's what I'm running. I also disabled AA within the sim, as that seemed to give me a worse picture (maybe it only goes up to 4x).Obviously, the card isn't really put to the test on my system, but I was surprised by the improvement in performance I actually got. I think my next upgrade (in a couple of months or so) will be a new motherboard with faster RAM etc., and then the processor (I think I'll stick with AMD). Unfortunately, as things stand at the moment, it's a choice between either processor or mobo, but not both at the same time.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

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Guest BAW083

It's the dogs proverb's with DX9 and Cat 3.0 running.I was disappointed at first but that was due to the bought system having DirectX 8.1a and only Catylist 2.4 installed.

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