ATI 5870 or Nvidia 285

[Guest djt01]

Perhaps the resolution of 4050x1050 had something to do with it.....Using a GTX285 2gb card would be even better.Btw I tried with both cards and kept the benchmarktests, so no salt involved here... :Nerd:

Again the GTX 275 and the GTX 285 handle AA and AF the same so as far as image quality goes there isn

[Guest silentsage]

I bought the 5850 card. It is a bit if a disappointment. It's no faster than the 275GTX that it replaced. Also, there are driver issues that result in unplayable corruptions of the images (missing textures, and one odd failure where the image will shift left and right about 1/8th of the display width about 5 times a second).My guess is that the driver problems will be fixed. This should remove the image artifacts and boost the speed of the card. I doubt, though, that it will ever be substantially faster than the 275 GTX. It's probably a great card for other games, but nVidia seems to be better optimized for FSX. I purchased the ATI card because I need a Displayport output and there are no recent nVidia products that have them. By the way, I'm running an i7 920 processor overclocked to 3.8 GHz, on an Asus P6T V2 deluxe motherboard, with 6 GB of memory and a 7200 RPM disk.

[Guest djt01]

I bought the 5850 card. It is a bit if a disappointment. It's no faster than the 275GTX that it replaced. Also, there are driver issues that result in unplayable corruptions of the images (missing textures, and one odd failure where the image will shift left and right about 1/8th of the display width about 5 times a second).My guess is that the driver problems will be fixed.

What needs to be fixed? I haven't seen anything like you mention with FSX and any of the Catalyst drivers revisions since the 5870 was released.How did you install the 5850 after removing the GTX 275? Reformatting is the only way to go if your switching from Nvidia to ATI or vis-versa. ASUS Rampage II Extreme (1639 BIOS) Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RTMushkin Redline Ascent 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-6-5-18-1N)Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 9.12)Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1tyWD VelociRaptor 150GB

[FlyinMisfit 0]

Image quality is only better with the GTX 285 in FSX when nHancer is used. Without nHancer the GTX 285 displays just as much (if not more)

[Guest djt01]

hi djt01,in FSX, is the FPS hit with the 5870 & SS AA enabled with heavy clouds as bad as it was with the 4870?happy flyin, fm

The AMD/ATI 5000 series has improved filtering quality compared to what the 4000 series GPU's had to offer. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643&p=13http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643&p=14The Super Sample AA option wasn't even available the last time I had the 4870x2 installed and I don't know how the 4000 series performs with the latest Catalyst drivers.

[FlyinMisfit 0]

you are correct about SS AA not being an option in the drivers for the 4000 series cards. i was just curious as to whether or not the "clouds" performance hit was as bad for the 5870 (with SS AA enabled) as it is with the 4870.happy flyin, fm

[Guest djt01]

you are correct about SS AA not being an option in the drivers for the 4000 series cards. i was just curious as to whether or not the "clouds" performance hit was as bad for the 5870 (with SS AA enabled) as it is with the 4870.happy flyin, fm

Yes once in the clouds the frame rate becomes very sporadic with Super Sample AA enabled.It

[FlyinMisfit 0]

thanks djt01. i kinda figured that was going to be your response.ATI's AA method imho, is rather crappy (for FS anyway) and has been for quite some time. i really believe that that rinky-dink, outdated, 256-bit Mem. Bus (that they can't seem to get away from) is really hurting the 5870 from a performance standpoint.happy flyin, fm

[Guest djt01]

thanks djt01. i kinda figured that was going to be your response.ATI's AA method imho, is rather crappy (for FS anyway) and has been for quite some time. i really believe that that rinky-dink, outdated, 256-bit Mem. Bus (that they can't seem to get away from) is really hurting the 5870 from a performance standpoint.happy flyin, fm

Actually it is just the opposite, we're just not going to see AMD/ATI or Nvidia catering to

[TechguyMaxC 516]

thanks djt01. i kinda figured that was going to be your response.ATI's AA method imho, is rather crappy (for FS anyway) and has been for quite some time.

ATi has *the best* AA in the business. Nothing beats the quality of Super-Sampled AA, by definition. The entire scene is anti-aliased. That means polygonal aliasing, alpha textures, and specular (shader) aliasing are all addressed.

i really believe that that rinky-dink, outdated, 256-bit Mem. Bus (that they can't seem to get away from) is really hurting the 5870 from a performance standpoint.

Memory bus width is not a way to measure performance. You have been told this before, please stop spreading mis-information. Bandwidth is what you are talking about, and that can only be derived by multiplying the bus width by the memory clock. In the case of the Radeon HD 5870, it has 153GB/s of memory bandwidth. This puts it on-par with the GTX 285, a chip which had more bandwidth than it was able to make use of.

[miguelpp 25]

ATi has *the best* AA in the business. Nothing beats the quality of Super-Sampled AA, by definition. The entire scene is anti-aliased. That means polygonal aliasing, alpha textures, and specular (shader) aliasing are all addressed. Memory bus width is not a way to measure performance. You have been told this before, please stop spreading mis-information. Bandwidth is what you are talking about, and that can only be derived by multiplying the bus width by the memory clock. In the case of the Radeon HD 5870, it has 153GB/s of memory bandwidth. This puts it on-par with the GTX 285, a chip which had more bandwidth than it was able to make use of.

Hi, I have both XFX GTX285 and XFX Radeon 5870.My experience in FSX is that the NVIDIA is much , much faster than the ATI and smoother. AA seems better to me with the ATI, but the NVIDIA looks very nice , too. Very difficult to say.And I don

[TechguyMaxC 516]

FSX is a very special case. The average case shows the 5870 is a much better card than the 285, in terms of both image quality and performance. As for Phil Taylor's remarks WRT bus width, he was probably over-simplifying the explanation to make things easier to understand for the audience. Most people round these parts aren't overly technical.

[Guest djt01]

Hi, I have both XFX GTX285 and XFX Radeon 5870.My experience in FSX is that the NVIDIA is much , much faster than the ATI and smoother.

Looks like your experience with the 5870 and FSX has been the total opposite from the rest of us. Without a doubt with my experience over the last three months, the 5870 has been able to maintain a consistent frame rate better than my GTX 285 when it comes to FSX. Switching from the GTX 285 to the 5870, how did you install the new video card?

but I remember that Phil Taylor ( member of the old ACES), explained in this forum that one of the most important feature to choose the right graphics card was the bus width, at least for FSX...

If I remember correctly that discussion was about PCI-E

[FlyinMisfit 0]

ATi has *the best* AA in the business. Nothing beats the quality of Super-Sampled AA, by definition. The entire scene is anti-aliased. That means polygonal aliasing, alpha textures, and specular (shader) aliasing are all addressed. Memory bus width is not a way to measure performance. You have been told this before, please stop spreading mis-information. Bandwidth is what you are talking about, and that can only be derived by multiplying the bus width by the memory clock. In the case of the Radeon HD 5870, it has 153GB/s of memory bandwidth. This puts it on-par with the GTX 285, a chip which had more bandwidth than it was able to make use of.

sorry Max, but i disagree about the Mem. Bus. don't know where you got ur info. about me being told about this before and spreading mis-leading info. if anything i was told by NickN that the Mem. Bus did play a big role. i Do Not try to mis-lead anyone. and that's not to say i'm never wrong either. far from it.it's been My experience with FS over the years that from a Graphics Card standpoint FS craves 2 things...Fill Rate, Mem. Bandwith and, if you throw in a PMDG A/C or the like, more Mem. can help too. again, i find it hard to believe that the Mem. Bus does not play a big role. to me that's kinda like saying that the ole FSB speed didn't play a big role on older AMD and Intel systems.i would like to also point out that i was Wrong about ATI's crappy AA method comment. i was a little frustrated when i typed up that post and had forgotten about FS's old, archaic, outdated rendering engine. you were indeed correct in pointing that out.happy flyin, fm

[miguelpp 25]

Looks like your experience with the 5870 and FSX has been the total opposite from the rest of us. Without a doubt with my experience over the last three months, the 5870 has been able to maintain a consistent frame rate better than my GTX 285 when it comes to FSX. Switching from the GTX 285 to the 5870, how did you install the new video card?Hi, Clean install, alwaysYes, the NVIDIA (any driver version, now 195.81 beta) , with PMDG MD-11 can fly smooth and fps at LAX for example in 2D mode with 50-60 fps (VC at 30-40) . The same situation with ATI, stuttering and 30-35 fps (CAt 9.11 , 9.12 and last hotfix pack).In the air,more 60-120 fps with NVIDIA, more or less (a bit less) the same with ATI. Sorry I am not a fan from NVIDIA or ATI. I choose what I think it