Is there any more hope for AMD and flight simulation in the future?RH

What's wrong with right now? My AMD 5000+ BE at 3.1 GHz is just fine with FS9, which I intend to stay with for the foreseeable future.Jim Harnes

I think your missing the point Jim, some people are still using a P4 1.8ghz and are still 'Happy' The rest of us like to keep up with Hardware and AMD just cant seem to keep up right now.. And competition is always a good thing.Rob

Should readIs there any more hope for flight simulation in the future?Amd,Intel,Nvidia or Ati are not going to bend over backwards or in Nvidia/ATI case,give a second look at ONE games's need.Especially one thats using old "in gaming world" school programming.Nvidia got fat,dumb and happy and now ATI has got em cutting prices and not releasing drivers and cards every 3 months but actually having to move forwards.Ati was in their same position and had Intels butt kicked and just stopped moving forwards.Then the core duo,s came out and gave then a wake up call.Comp is a good thing. MS could use some.My guess is that right at the next MS flight sims release, everyone will scramble to build what then is the latest and greatest in hardware.Performance will be dissapointing.Looking at the gaming consoles explosion in the least few years, FSX11 and maybe a few other PC games will be kept in a dusty box under the counter at Gamestop :-lol Thr Avsim forums will look the same as now just with different dates.Hope I am wrong but a look back at the sims history is pretty consistent.

It appears that AMD is currently occupied with CPUs for servers and with video cards (and combining the GPU with the CPU?). They are certainly not dead.ArtBiostar TF560-A2+, Athlon 64X2-6000+, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS-320MB, 500W PSU, 250GB HD, FSX(SP1-SP2), Audigy SE sound, Vista Home Premium 32 bit, CH Yoke & Pedals, 22" WS LCD monitor

Didn't miss point, Rob. I've decided not to follow the flight sim sofware/hardware twists and turns until something much better comes along :). Haven't seen it yet, but there is always hope.Jim Harnes

AMD will benefit from ATI (as Intel will benefiot from Larrabee) as real-time ray tracing becomes a reality, eventually.As for FS, the furute likely means a re-written fully-multithreaded engine to benefit from 8-Core Nehalem and 4 GPUs, while the GPUs themselves will continue to increase in sophistication, with multitasking for DX11 as well as continued increas in the number of stream processors per chip.So I'd say the future looks pretty good!Cheers,-jahman.

I really hope AMD can make a come back at the CPU top end. Look how good (at least for the consumer) the current ATI v. Nvidia battle is, with neck and neck performance and price cutting. It may not happen too soon, but didn't IBM announce the 22nm NAND fabrication ahead of Intel? I believe AMD is part of the IBM "consortium" that reached this goal.RegardsSimon

Don't get me wrong, I still use FS9 too with my AMD 64 6400+. I don't use FSX. But, at some point, we (me and probably you) are going to switch up. The only thing holding back FSX is CPU power. When the power finally gets here in a year or so, or affordably (in two years or so), I am going to switch to FSX because FSX will be the superior product it was meant to be. RH

>Don't get me wrong, I still use FS9 too with my AMD 64 6400+.> I don't use FSX. But, at some point, we (me and probably>you) are going to switch up. The only thing holding back FSX>is CPU power. When the power finally gets here in a year or>so, or affordably (in two years or so), I am going to switch>to FSX because FSX will be the superior product it was meant>to be. Affordable computer power for FSX is here now. I gave my old computer with FS9 to the kid across the street after I built this one to run FS9 with sliders maxed, and then found FSX to be so much better. In two years will I be giving him this computer with FSX after again moving on?ArtBiostar TF560-A2+, Athlon 64X2-6000+, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS-320MB, 500W PSU, 250GB HD, FSX(SP1-SP2), Audigy SE sound, Vista Home Premium 32 bit, CH Yoke & Pedals, 22" WS LCD monitor

You are using FSX with an Athlon 64 6000+. We have very similar hardware. I am using the 6400+ along with an 8800GTS 320Mb. I am using XP.You must not mind you sliders only being half way or less.RH

There's still hope. The first step wouldn't be for them to take over the high end and produce the fastest x86 CPU on the planet. They only need to produce some decent mid-range CPUs for the $150 - $300 segment. That's what most people buy and that's also where most of the money is made. High-end CPUs and GPUs are low-volume products.The Phenom isn't that CPU, at least not yet. It needs to be about 10% - 20% faster per clock and run at over 2.8 GHz with a TDP of less than 125W. Maybe the 45nm shrink will allow it to accomplish those things.

>You are using FSX with an Athlon 64 6000+. We have very>similar hardware. I am using the 6400+ along with an 8800GTS>320Mb. I am using XP.>>You must not mind you sliders only being half way or less.My settings follow:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/191750.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/191751.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/191752.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/191753.jpgThe traffic settings are as much for realism as for performance. I use WOAI airline traffic at about 50% in addition to 20% of the default traffic. Granted, flying an airliner into a very busy airport may not be best at these settings, but that's not what I do with FSX.ArtBiostar TF560-A2+, Athlon 64X2-6000+, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS-320MB, 500W PSU, 250GB HD, FSX(SP1-SP2), Audigy SE sound, Vista Home Premium 32 bit, CH Yoke & Pedals, 22" WS LCD monitor

That looks pretty cool. I am going to hold off on FSX for now. I have too much invested in FS9 to dump it now.RH