Vid card / CPU query

[markadeane 272]

Gents,I'm about to overhaul my PC to bring it into Flightsim fluid FPS country.As fellow Flightsim 'power users' has anyone had experience with the X800GT 256MB PCI-e card?The CPU I have in mind is the Athlon 64 3200, anyone want to comment on the performance of that CPU in FS?Appreciate any feedback. Chrs.

[Guest sb55mv]

Hi Mark,at the risk of sounding like I'm throwing water on you're fire, I haven't even thought of up-grading yet.the problem is, we do not have any real programs out there yet that make full use of the new generation graphics cards. CPU power is the main thing that FS9 requires, but, even then we are running a program that was designed for DX8.1 and systems that are now more than likely super ceded many times over.RAM is another good investment, but, even then systems don't even utilise RAM speeds above 3200, so the guy's who paid out all that extra money for the 4400's will have very little noticeable fps increases.a lot of the performance decreases can also be improved by "Leaning" the operational capacity of you're PC, such as turning off any non-essential programs and applications that start up each time you switch on you're PC, turning off the fancy animations etc in XP, also consider turning off the desktop wallpapers, they take up a considerable amount of resources too, these things can be done through the My Computer section and checked through the MSCONFIG utility as well.to be honest, I could go for ages about all of this. it's such a complex mine-field of a topic to get the true-fs-happy machine.we are literally at this moment in time, pushing the boundaries of the FS9 program itself, and with all the add-ons getting more and more complex, we have to ask ourselves, at what point are we ever happy. we want more complex aircraft/sceneries etc, but we want performance/fluidity etc, we are in effect, our own worst enemies.sorry if this doesn't really answer you're question directly, but, I do hope it goes some way toward giving you some food for thought.all the best,

[markadeane 272]

Thanks for your comments Steve. You've sort of answered one question I had which was 'Is this card more than I need?'.Taking my situation back to the goals of the upgrade, what I want to have in an *ideal* world is uniformly fluid (17FPS+) mostly stutter-free performance under default weather and scenery with 100% AI and the complex 3rd party addons running.I read posts from guys on various boards that imply they're getting this sort of performance, so it's possible. Being realistic, what I want to do is get as close to that as possible within my upgrade budget, ($800-$1000NZD) that's got to cover a new CPU and mobo, power supply, case and video card so it's stretching a wee bit thin.As far as concessions go, I could downgrade the card a wee bit, given that the CPU will do most of the work. My current P4 2.8GhZ / GeForce 6600GT AGP combo makes FS about as 'pretty' as it will get but the FPS are only between 11-17 in the complex addons. If I could find a decent PCI-e card that is about the same in performance as the 6600GT I'd get that and focus the cash into the CPU.What about RAM? I have 1GB now, has anyone noticed an increase in 3rd party addon performance moving from 1 to 1.5 or 2GB?

[Guest quiet1]

If you could hold on for another year I promise you there is technology coming out that is gonna blow the socks off of anything we have now , they are coming out with CPUs that are about 6 to 10 times faster then what we are using right now and these will be out in a year or 2. These CPUs actually are like the equivelant of 5 or 6 2.8 ghz running at the same time. I would hold off or atleast not break the bank upgrading.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi quiet1,What technology exactly are you talking about? Dual-core? Yes, that's the future but 6-10 times faster than current? Hardly.... I check numerous hardware sites (Anandtech, Tom's Hardware Guide, Hardocp, Sharky Extreme, Extremetech etc.) at least twice daily and I have never read about anything like what you're claiming. What is the basis of your claim?Edwin

[Guest Edwin]

Hi,Your frame rates will depend a lot on resolution and whether/how much anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering (AF) you use. I post very regularly on the PC Hardware section of the AVSIM forums and this thread may be helpful to you: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...11507&mode=full(Please note well the discussion on socket 754 vs. 939.)It's a bit ironic that you wouldn't have changed GPU with the setup recommended by Sharky Extreme (see link in thread) except moved from AGP to PCI Express, which yields negligible performance difference. However, your CPU would be quite a bit more powerful than your P4 2.8GHz.Depending on the speed of the RAM you have now, you may want to keep the RAM from your existing system. If you keep your current hard drive, that will save you some more money, which you can then focus on a socket 939 nForce4 SLI motherboard and an even faster Athlon64 (say, 3800+ or even 4000+).Hope this helps.Edwin

[markadeane 272]

Thanks guys, all good advice! Waiting a year isn't an option as I will be overseas for a year and my PC won't be coming with me. So it's now or never. :)I'll take this into account and let you know how I get on.