Hardware woes and the GTX200s

[Guest D17S]

As you might have seen, FlyTampa released their Kai Tek scenery. Here's a thread going on next door and here's a quote from one of their devs. Those of us that are Not programmers might be interested to observer that those that are have ThiS to say about ThaT: "FS always could handle an insane amount of Polygons without much of a hit. The performance problems stem out of the inefficient graphics engine, primary the terrain system & texture loading.Please push ACES for a complete engine re-write & more sceneries like this will be developed in the future. Currently FSX scenery development is plagued with a below average SDK & documentation; near zero overhead because the cpu spends large amounts of time processing the 100,000 lines of obsolete terrain code. FS processing the entire world is not an excuse for single digit FPS. Its about whats 'on-screen'. Nothing visually cutting edge is happing (sic) anywhere worldwide within FSX. Slowdown is caused only by the 10 year old code.A new SDK with easier exporting would be helpful. Currently simple hacks require C++ coding or reverting to the far more powerful & Taboo FS2002 SDK.horse flogging stick away...Cheers,GeorgeFlytampa"I recently dropped in a GTX260. It made No difference to FS's performance. With quad at 3.6, it appears the 8800GT is Plenty of Vcard to handle this data output. As CPU speeds (and core utilization) increase, there may (someday) be a need for additional Vcard processing power, but not yet. Of course another avenue for improvement might be the move to a more efficient software coding engine (whatever that means). "However (a response is presented), for some cLeaRly irrelevant reason Crysis and COD RoCK with this card." Of course on the other hand, George may have a point.

[Guest Nick_N]

The 8800GTX and Ultra or the 640 GTS which all have the 384bit memory buss are the cards for FSX because of the insane calls the sim makes especially around weather. The GT is a good card but it is not the best one for FSX. Unfortunately Nvidia has been downplaying those cards to push new stock so if one is interested in FSX as their primary game then the tried and true 768/640 GTX/s/Ultra is still the best card for the title/buck.Thats not to say it will not all change at the end of the year. The newer cards + the new intel system will be the next true jump in FSX performance, Intel changes being the primary reason.If one needs a card for the more modern games other than FSX then the 4780 or the 280 are probably a better choice.

[jackcnd 0]

Been flying with a GTX 280 for a few days now.Its just smooth as silk in FSX, with high setting of AA and AF.Been using FlyTampa's Hong Kong today.In DX10 mode with water at 2.x high, it locks 30fps and looks and runs great.I would recommend people to disregard Toms Hardware's comments about the 200 series and FSX.I came from a 8800 GTX 640MB SSC, thats sitting in its box now,which is a great FSX card too if anyone is looking for one.

[Guest Nick_N]

Never said it was a bad card. What I was suggesting is if one already has a GTX/Ultra and has it clocked right then spending for the 280 is not going to be a leaps and bounds change in FSX however if one wishes to upgrade for other reasons or does not mind spending now then the upgrade will have valueBy the way, the 8800GTX is a 768 video card, not 640Mb so if you had the 640 version it was the GTS and does not have the same potential as the GTX/Ultra especially in a clock.and the SSC version had other problemsCons:- Performance at lower resolutions is tied or below the 8800GTSo in your case it was an upgrade

[BimmerCop 332]

>Been flying with a GTX 280 for a few days now.>>Its just smooth as silk in FSX, >with high setting of AA and AF.>>Been using FlyTampa's Hong Kong today.>In DX10 mode with water at 2.x high, >it locks 30fps and looks and runs great.>>I would recommend people to >disregard Toms Hardware's comments about the 200 series and>FSX.>>I came from a 8800 GTX 640MB SSC, thats sitting in its box>now,>which is a great FSX card too if anyone is looking for one.>Same here! I've been flying with 8xS AA, 16x AF @ 1920 x 1200 and I've never had a better sim experience. Absolutely no stutters and complete smoothness at 30 FPS locked.______________Efrain RuizLiveDISPATCHhttp://www.livedispatch.orgCooler Master cosmos SDFI LP UT P35 T2R (3-17-2008 BIOS) | E8400 @ 4GHz (500MHz x 8) | 2 x 2GB OCZ Flex II PC9200EVGA Nvidia GTX280Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Operating System RAID-0) | Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Flight Simulator RAID-0)Corsair CM PSU-750TX | Asus 20X DVD

[jackcnd 0]

I'd love to put a Ultra setup beside the GTX 280 to see (any) differences with a decently setup FSX environment.I'm at 1900x1200 I can't say enough about the 280 smoothness.It just works locked at 30 fps, VC or locked spot, panning slow or fast. I don't find a need for any more framerate in FSX, what I want is smoothness locked at 30. It runs DX10 water at high 2x with no problem.Nick - nice catch, typing error on my part last card was a 8800GTS SSC 640MB with 112 SP. No problems with that GTS SSC card for FSX, its one of the best. 8800GTX ... 768MB, 575MHz, 120SP, 378 bit bus8800GTS SSC 640MB, 576Mhz, 112SP, 320 bit bus8800GT ... 512MB, 600Mhz, 112SP, 256 bit busI don't run at low resolutions so how the GT performs there didn't matter. :) The GT is a nice low cost value card but once you up the AA/FF and resolution it falls back with its smaller memory and 256 bit bus. Also a noisier fan.The 320 bit bus with 640MB of memory on the SSC 640 gave a great FSX experience at 1900 x 1200. In Crysis the resolution needed to lowered to use AA on the SSC, the 280 solved that but the bonus I've noticed is the smooth performance of FSX too:)

[BoeingGuy 0]

I run at a low resolution, 1280x1024. Benchmarks show an 8800 GT to outperform the 8800 GTS 640, unless it's a particle heavy game like Crysis and so forth.I have my card at 704 Core, 1004 Memory for an effective 2008 DDR, and a 1754 MHz shader clock. Raising the AF/AA has not had even one negative effect for me, and for the price it works pretty well.But yes, at higher resolutions, 8800 GTSs and above don't do so bad.GTX 280...it's the king.BUT: All that matters for Flight Simulator X is a fast CPU, like the new Core 2 Quads and Extremes. Hopefully, Flight Simulator 11 will fix that and allow it to run BETTER on this era's hardware than FSX.