Nvidia 8800GTX to ?

[Guest Francesco]

Ciao to all,lately my frame rates dropped from 25 to 10/6...more or less....without changing any setting...This is My sistem:INTEL Q6600 CORE 2 QUAD 3.00Ghz 8Mb DI CACHE - FSB 1066Mhz 630W supersilentM.BOARD ASUS S775 P5K + gigalan Intel P35Front side bus 1333 Mhz 8800 GTX 760MbRAM 2Gb DDR2 833Mhz in dual channelHARD DISK MAXTOR DIAMOND 10 160Gb SATA2 3.00Gb/sec2 Monitors Samsung 214T 21,3"XP Pro 32 BitSP3FS2004nHancer 2.3.1TrackIR V 4.1.028 ProNVidia Drivers 163.75 737 and 747 PMDG777 and 757 PSSLevel-D 767ASVItaly packShould I up-grade to something more as:-9800 gx2 or similar???Please suggestions....Thanx

[darem 84]

Just a guess: Defrag?

[Guest Francesco]

Just a guess: Defrag?

I did defrag using the XP one and the "JKDefragGUI.exe".....Still it hasn't change...

[bobbyjack 61]

FrancescoThere are so many things that can cause poor performance all of a sudden that without having access to your rig, it is hard to tell. A system update, an FS addon, background programs. I swear sometimes even barometric pressure seems to cause problems. Example: When I upgraded to the rig in my signature this past January, I could not use the new card at all. I had to use my old 8800 gt, and then with old 169.25 drivers. The 260 worked in a different computer, but not my FSX rig. Turns out I have an MSI MB in my FSX computer that I OC'd with onboard jumpers. Once I OC'd in the BIOS, the 260 worked great. Go figure. All that to say there must be some reason you can not use newer drivers.If you must do an upgrade, I would think a CPU upgrade would be better than a GPU. Since you run FS9, you only need a fast Core Duo.Still, you need to find out why your FPS dropped.Bob

[Guest Francesco]

Ciao Bob,thanks for your help....I found the following offer:I add 120 Euro and my 8800GTX for:-Sparkle 9800 GX2or-GTX 260 OC EDITIONor-Sapphire 4870 1GBWich would you suggest me?Thanks

[tfm 169]

Ciao Bob,thanks for your help....I found the following offer:I add 120 Euro and my 8800GTX for:-Sparkle 9800 GX2or-GTX 260 OC EDITIONor-Sapphire 4870 1GBWich would you suggest me?Thanks

Two tips for you: First: the ATI cards (the 4870 in your list) work best with modern shader-based games. There's nothing wrong with that - but FSX is NOT a modern shader-based game. It uses an older method of triangle-based rendering. The Nvidia cards support this better. So as a general rule, a modern high-end card from Nvidia will out-perform a modern high-end card from ATI in FSX, even if the ATI card performs better in other games.Secondly: faster GPU speeds help, but the SINGLE most important factor when choosing a new graphics card seems to be the width of the memory bus. The 8800GTX and Ultra cards were the pack leaders of their time, because of their wide bus. The current pack leaders are the GTX285 cards. From my own recent experience, I can confirm that (rather to my surprise) going from an 8800 Ultra to a GTX285 makes a significant difference to FSX. I would imagine that a GTX260 would offer a much less noticeable improvement, because the memory bus is narrower than the GTX285.Nick_N has posted frequently about these things over the months: my own experience, having upgraded from an 8800 Ultra to a GTX 285, is consistent with his views.Possible conclusion: skip all three of your suggestions and get a GTX285.Tim

[Guest Francesco]

Thanx a lot Tim for tjhe suggestion i?ll think about it....!!!By the way do you know wich could be the reason why the cpu cooling fan has , latelty, the same constant speed while days ago the speed shanged unpon the cpu work????In the BIOS the setting is allways on "SILENT"..I tried another coolng fan..but still the speed remains contant....Could the problem be the moteherboard?Maybe the lower frame rate that I get randomly could be caused by the cpu warming up because the cooling fan does'nt speed up enough?Thanx

[tfm 169]

Thanx a lot Tim for tjhe suggestion i?ll think about it....!!!By the way do you know wich could be the reason why the cpu cooling fan has , latelty, the same constant speed while days ago the speed shanged unpon the cpu work????In the BIOS the setting is allways on "SILENT"..I tried another coolng fan..but still the speed remains contant....Could the problem be the moteherboard?Maybe the lower frame rate that I get randomly could be caused by the cpu warming up because the cooling fan does'nt speed up enough?Thanx

You could well be right but it sounds like a case for trial and error I'm afraid.Tim

[Guest Francesco]

"trial and error".............what do you mean????

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Check your thermal paste. Sounds to me like its dried up and your fan has to run at 100% speed to try to keep up.

[tfm 169]

"trial and error".............what do you mean????

By "trial and error" I mean that once you've got a hardware problem (and assuming you, like me, are an amateur) you can only find out what it is by trying different things until you discover the problem. Some symptoms can be caused by more than one thing. For example, in your case, there are at least six reasons why the fan might be running at a constant speed: (i) the thermal paste needs replacing (ii) something's wrong with the sensor (iii) something else is wrong with the motherboard (iv) something's wrong with the BIOS (iv) something's wrong with your overclock (if you have one) (vi) something's wrong with the CPU.Tim