Well I have a 1Gb GTX285 coming tomorrow to replace my 4870 512Mb so we shall see, the reason I went for the GTX is because performance in clouds is ###### poor with the 4870 in my opinion, the clouds do have to be relatively heavy though but when they are it chops the frame rate in half for me.Oh and by the way I've been an ATI only guy for as long as ATI have been about so its not a fanboi thing.

with the Nvidia the planes always looked jaggied

I don

Surfstud. My AA is the S____!!!Hey Buckster. What kind if CPU & motherboard you got. Maybe I'll try overclocking. Ya no..........there're overclocked when you buy them eh!Tim,Canada

actually thought on balance the GTX285 would have been about the same speed - if not slightly slower in FSXI actually bought a 285 - but sent it back and saved myself

Try a proper weather engine like ASA, the included FSX weather engine wont push it as much, especially if you are using the default clouds, I also have higher resolution clouds installed from FEX. I'll have 7 days to test things out, if I don't see the performance difference I am hoping for then I will probably send it back too.

I've got the previous version of Active Sky so will give that a whirl tomorrowaccidently clocked the memory to 1150 (4600 effective) and still stable :)after take off from Newark - 3d clouds set to one distance above normal (70 miles), 50% AI aircraft - auto-gen on normala good steady 35-40fps - no clouds problems for me :)image resized from 1900 with 4xEdge Detect FSAA - see lower link for full res versionFull res

Try a proper weather engine like ASA, the included FSX weather engine wont push it as much, especially if you are using the default clouds, I also have higher resolution clouds installed from FEX. I'll have 7 days to test things out, if I don't see the performance difference I am hoping for then I will probably send it back too.

What is ASA?Tim

What is ASA?Tim

http://www2.hifisim.com/node/3

Hey Buckster. How did you know how far to go In overclocking your card? Did you use the ATI Tool? What a great picture!!! I have REX. I wonder if asa would work with it or if REX would block it. I'm gunna try your settings shortly here on AA that you mentioned to see if it will work for mePlease reply!Tim,CanadaWld you be kind enuf to give me all you settings?Tim

Edited July 15, 200916 yr by tmond

used Rivatuner (as it disables powerplay)and ATI Tool to test for stabilityhighest I've managed so far is 960 on the core (at 1.38V) and 1150 on the memory :)plenty fast enough but I'll experiment to see if I can get it higher :)Mark.

Hey Buckster. How did you know how far to go In overclocking your card? Did you use the ATI Tool? What a great picture!!! I have REX. I wonder if asa would work with it or if REX would block it. I'm gunna try your settings shortly here on AA that you mentioned to see if it will work for mePlease reply!Tim,CanadaWld you be kind enuf to give me all you settings?Tim

Well the GTX 285 came this morning and I've spent a couple of hours on FSX, all I can say is Wow!! it really is better than my 4870 512Mb card when it comes to clouds in FSX, there is hardly any frame rate hit at all. Textures also load quicker when returning to the cockpit after being in an outside view for more than 15 seconds or so, no more blank/black textures for a couple of seconds while the textures reload. As far as image quality concerns, well there aren't any, if you know how to use the Nvidia control panel, there isn't any difference quality wise at all. Frame rates overall are much steadier and a little higher too. No problems with AA or AF either. The card is quieter too at idle and under load compared to the ATI 4870 and you dont get the fan spinning up to 100% and sounding like a jet every now and again like the 4870 does so I definately wont miss that aspect of the ATI card. Temperatures are lower on the GTX both under load and at idle, the 4870 idles at 82C and if you have young kids I can guarantee they would scream if they touched the grill over the air outlet at the back of the card, the GTX remains cool to the touch compared. Arma 2 runs better on the GTX than it did on my 4870 too so I'm a happy bunny so far, I'm now off to download the free game that came with it, it'll probably be crap but its free so I wont mind too much.

still don't get the frame rate hit problem ? can anyone give me a scenario to try ?the 4890 is very similar to the 70 - just at higher clocks - but I'mnot getting any problems with clouds at all82C at idle?? wow your 4870 was hot50C for the 4890

Well the GTX 285 came this morning and I've spent a couple of hours on FSX, all I can say is Wow!! it really is better than my 4870 512Mb card when it comes to clouds in FSX, there is hardly any frame rate hit at all. Textures also load quicker when returning to the cockpit after being in an outside view for more than 15 seconds or so, no more blank/black textures for a couple of seconds while the textures reload. As far as image quality concerns, well there aren't any, if you know how to use the Nvidia control panel, there isn't any difference quality wise at all. Frame rates overall are much steadier and a little higher too. No problems with AA or AF either. The card is quieter too at idle and under load compared to the ATI 4870 and you dont get the fan spinning up to 100% and sounding like a jet every now and again like the 4870 does so I definately wont miss that aspect of the ATI card. Temperatures are lower on the GTX both under load and at idle, the 4870 idles at 82C and if you have young kids I can guarantee they would scream if they touched the grill over the air outlet at the back of the card, the GTX remains cool to the touch compared. Arma 2 runs better on the GTX than it did on my 4870 too so I'm a happy bunny so far, I'm now off to download the free game that came with it, it'll probably be crap but its free so I wont mind too much.

That's the only other difference between the 4870 and 4890, the die was shrunk so power consumption and hence temperatures went down. The temps never went over 90 though even under 100% GPU load.

how much of a drop through clouds were you getting ? and on which catalyst driverI may be go from 40 to 35 - but nothing dramaticare we talking going to low 10s ?

That's the only other difference between the 4870 and 4890, the die was shrunk so power consumption and hence temperatures went down. The temps never went over 90 though even under 100% GPU load.

I'm talking frame rate dropping by as much as 50% sometimes as low as 14-18 FPS in the worst areas. Latest drivers, doesn't matter which to be honest.