64 Megs vs. 128 Megs -- for those that have made the pl

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I've always suspected some of the dynamic blurriness in FS is caused when FS2002 runs out of "room" in the card's onboard graphics memory. For anyone who went from a 64meg card to a 128meg card, was there any difference in texture loading? Dynamic blurriness has never been a real bother to me, but I am beginning to spec out my next major system upgrade, as my four year old MB is getting way behind the times. I am curious, all things being equal, if the added graphics memory has made a difference for some?-John

[Guest SoarPics]

Hi John,Hmmm... can't say it had a major impact on my system. That being said, I'm still glad I went with a 128MB card rather than a 64. the price differnce isn't that great, and with this sim it's always better to have too much rather than too little.AMD XP2400 @2700ASUS A7N8X Dlx512 MB PC 2700Gainward GF Ti 4600 @ 330/730All the assorted stuff to make it work ;) Regards,

[1mikel151 71]

Hey John, I had the Radeon 7000 64MB card before I got my nVidia G4 4600 and while I was surprised at how little it affected my FPS, the performance increased and the quality of the graphics was unbelievable! It was a whole new sim for me. If you are going to take the plunge go with the Radeon 9700 Pro, I have seen some great results from this card, even though some have issues with it. If I hadn't spent so much on my G4 when it first came out, I would have it, but I can't justify it with what I already have. Regards, Michaelhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpg

[Guest]

John - I have a 64MB 4200 installed but I've also used FS2002 on this machine with a 128MB card. Frankly, I don't see any difference. But for an upgrade I'd definitely opt for as much video RAM as I could get (or afford :-)). The only sure thing is that future releases of everything will use everything on the things we now have.Trip

[Guest PaulL01]

Hi John,As far as the memory amount or even the card for that matter the Dynamic blurries have nothing to do with the card or the amount of video memory (tested), that you will need for resampling for AA etc.You are however right on Q with a new MB, take advantage of the latest and fastest chipsets for the P4s/XPs throw in some fast memory and back it up with a fast cpu and the dynamic blurries will almost be a thing of the past, I say almost as you can add enough super detailed add-ons for FS to bring them back easily.

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi Paul, 3 non working link at your signature they are gone.FS2k2.cfg tweaks for the best image quality-LongFS2k2.cfg tweaks for the best image quality-PicsUpdate on the Levels=1 line w/picsThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Guest]

If you are considering a Radeon I would really look into the 9500 Pro.I have the 9500 Pro $187and My roomate has the 9700 Pro $399On 3dmark his score is about 800 higher than Mine, and in Fs2002 he sports about 7 extra frames.I am running all sliders maxed at 35 average Fps.Visually I see no difference.I just haven't seen where the extra $200 fits in..Xp proAMD 1600XPRadeon 9500 Pro512 Pc2100Al

[Guest Tim13]

I just bought a 9500 Pro, and it's on it's way to the FedEx Memphis hub for sorting as I type this. I will say that it took me a few days to get up the nerve to order it. I was very tempted to get a GF4 4600/4800 since I know that they would work well on my system with little trouble. After reading the forums at rage3d.com, I have my fingers crossed for a smooth install. There are an uncomfortable number of "Help!" threads there for all of the Radeon cards. Anyhow, this is what my new system is: Asus P4PE/L mobo (LAN and audio)P4 2.53 GHz cpu512 mb Crucial PC2700 ramWD 80 gig 7200 rpm hddATI 9500 ProWinXP (home ed.)+ the usual other stuff.My two main games that I like to play are FS2K2, and NASCAR Racing 2003. I hope that things go well when it all arrives in a couple of days.Tim13

[Guest PaulL01]

Thanks Chris,Another unfortunate sign of cleaning house for the new server upgrades that will take place here soon I guess.

[Guest]

My install was without a problem.Make sure that you revert back to the standard VGA driver before you remove, and install the 9500.Al

[Guest]

Just built a machine for a friend that is almost identical to yours - 2.66 / 512M of 2700 / P4PE / WD80 / ATI 9500 ("powered by ATI - Sapphire). The card was a 9500 128M and not the "pro" but it had incredible quality and worked very well with FS. I can't believe the huge improvement between that rig and my current 1.9 machine. I'm sure you'll be pleased with your new 9500Pro.

[Guest Tim13]

That's encouraging to hear. I guess that part of the reason that I'm a little nervous about the whole ATI thing is that this is the first system that I'm building from scratch. I guess that we'll see just how much I know about computers in a couple of days... :-lol Tim13

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Tim, I just put together an almost identical system:P4PE-L, P4-2.4, 512 Meg PC2700 RAM and a GF4-4200-128.This setup worked great right out of the box and is IMHO just the right computer power to fly FS2002properly..The only issue I had some trouble with, was selecting the clock and memory speed in the BIOS..After some digging around on the Internet, I found that the CPU FSB of 533 is set by selecting 133 clock speedsince the motherboard multiplies it by a factor of 4.The memory gives you two choices: 266 which is synchronizedwith the bus, or 333 which is faster, but asynchronous..I tested both, found no difference in FS and selected the fastersetting, even though there are voices on the 'net that claimthat "faster is not better".. Hope this adds a little bit of context to the rather sparsemanual explanation..

[Guest JonP01]

For what it's worth, I notice far less blurries on my present Athlon XP 1533Mhz CPU coupled with a humble 16Mb TNT Vanta card than I did on a Pentium III 866 coupled with a 128Mb Geforce 4 Ti 4400.

[Guest Tim13]

Thanks for the tips Bert! I'm sure that you just saved me some frustration when I finally put this thing together. Thanks again.Tim13