ATI 4890 v GTX 260

[plodgeface 0]

evening all, am currently having a bit of a dilemma over which card to order with my new system. the new system will consist of an i7 920 oc'd @ 3.4ghz and 6gb 1600mhz ram. i am currently using a 19" monitor at 1280 x 1024 but plan to upgrade to a 24" at 1920 x 1200 in the near future. i have looked around at some similar threads but they all get a bit too technical. what i am looking for in a card is stability, smoothness, good fps, and something that can handle good AA and AF (either through FSX settings or Nhancer/ATI equivalent). BTW FSX :D. thanks for any help.

[Guest CryogenicPilot]

evening all, am currently having a bit of a dilemma over which card to order with my new system. the new system will consist of an i7 920 oc'd @ 3.4ghz and 6gb 1600mhz ram. i am currently using a 19" monitor at 1280 x 1024 but plan to upgrade to a 24" at 1920 x 1200 in the near future. i have looked around at some similar threads but they all get a bit too technical. what i am looking for in a card is stability, smoothness, good fps, and something that can handle good AA and AF (either through FSX settings or Nhancer/ATI equivalent). BTW FSX :D. thanks for any help.

I just bought myself the GTX 260 (today in fact). It performs flawlessly in FSX.. Or, should I say, FSX performs much better than my previous ATI 4850.Here is the low-down on why FSX runs so badly as an application... And why ATI cards (barring the new 5800 series) are not recommended for MSFS:A majority of the core code was written almost a decade ago (1999) when FS2000 came out. This was the real big "leap" from previous versions (FS1 to FS98). The major element that makes MSFS such an outdated program is it is coded on the principle that everything has to be rendered in software vs. hardware. This is because this is how old 2D and 3D graphics used to be rendered before stand alone video cards like the Voodoo 3D, and similar cards came along. The problem is that MS never updated the code enough even though PC hardware became a lot more powerful in the last decade. It sounds shocking, but it is this simple. So, this is the main reason why MSFS runs so poorly on modern hardware. It is still doing a majority of the rendering in the CPU vs. on the graphics card. Hence, why it is infinitely slower than modern games written with modern code that put most of the rendering work load on the graphics card. This is also the very reason we all need something as fast as a i7 chip and why we need to overclock to close to 4 GHz to achieve playable (acceptable) frames per second in MSFS. Now, the main reason MSFS does so poorly with ATI cards is two fold: 1) ATI cards are designed around pixel and vertex shaders e.g. things in Crysis, Lost Planet, Allan Wake, etc. P and V shaders are what make up a majority of these games code that allow the high-end visuals effects like specular lighting, bump mapping, HDR, Bloom, etc. This is why ATI does very well in games like Crysis, Assassin's Creed and others that use a lot of shaders for their effects. This is also why there is a huge frame rate boost if you use DX10 mode in FSX, regardless of card maker. This is more modern code putting more work on the GPU. Not a whole lot, but better than nothing. 2) The ATI drivers are not very good. This is not baseless "a really excited user" talk, but backed up by the fact ATI/AMD does not devote enough manpower and resources (money) to maintain a proper driver team like Nvidia, does. The main technical reason ATI drivers are "bad" is because they are not multicore enabled like Nvidia drivers. Multicore allows the Nvidia drivers to use a multicore CPUs threaded architecture to send and translate the data (to and from the video card) in more efficient ways because of the multiple cores in use. ATI does not allow this, or is very poor at taking advantage of multicore architecture. If you put these two factors together, you can see how badly FSX is designed... And why if you pair it with a ATI card older than the 5800 series it becomes an up-hill battle. So, to answer your question... I would definitely go with the GTX 260 :(

[plodgeface 0]

thanky very much for that detailed reply :D. definately given me food for thought, but not quite ready to commit just yet :)

[scott967 62]

The problem is that MS never updated the code enough even though PC hardware became a lot more powerful in the last decade. It sounds shocking, but it is this simple.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but how do you know this?scott s..

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but how do you know this?scott s..

I won't speak as to the veracity of the "hasn't been updated since FS2000 claim", but it is entirely true that FSX was not designed with an eye to the future. It barely makes use of graphics cards, let alone multiple graphics cards or multi-core processors. Only with the SP1 patch was multi-thread support thrown in, and that as an after-thought with little impact on performance.Had FSX been designed with an eye to the future, it would be an entirely different sim. Rather than needing 4GHz+ systems to get the most out of the sim, a decent graphics card and a multi-core processor would get the job done, while allowing for more detailed visuals, denser scenery, and more realistic A.I. I hope someone out there develops a flight sim which can take advantage of all the compute power available in the modern gaming PC, but I doubt it will happen.

[Guest CryogenicPilot]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but how do you know this?scott s..

They updated each version of FS since 2000, but not by a large margin. Remember, the date of the flight sim always follows the year the code for it was written. This applies to each subsequent version of FS to the present.If you look at FS2000, FS2002 and FS2004 (FS9), they all pretty much look and perform the same. Of course, FS9 is now *the* sim to use for speed and performance, but this is also my point, ironically. Even though FS9 runs very well, it could run ever better had the core engine been evolving as hardware has been evolving, too, to use multicore threading, off load more of the work to the video card, etc.I also followed some of the developer blogs of ACES Studio through the years and some of the team members said, another reason they did not evolve the code further (from FS2000) is because they tried to predict the evolution of hardware itself in order to make MSFS future-proof. The road map from the major hardware manufacturers, Intel and AMD, up until around 2003, was for faster and faster chips. The problem is... They both took a turn and started to develop more multicore chips (dual and quad), but at much lower frequencies than ACES had anticipated. This is why they did not evolve the engine; They thought that by 2006 -- When FSX was released -- We would have four and five GHz chips. Hence, no need to evolve the code since the hardware would make up for any deficiencies.All you have to do is look at more modern games. Any game, arcade or simulator. The majority of the work is off loaded to the graphics card (for visuals) and the calculations for the other elements are natively multithreaded. Granted, most games are not trying to calculate as much as MSFS does at any one time, but the principle is still the same.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Just to add some further information to the comment:The major element that makes MSFS such an outdated program is it is coded on the principle that everything has to be rendered in software vs. hardware. This is because this is how old 2D and 3D graphics used to be rendered before stand alone video cards like the Voodoo 3D, and similar cards came along.The problem is that MS never updated the code enough even though PC hardware became a lot more powerful in the last decade.It sounds shocking, but it is this simple.In fact, this admission can be found on the official FS web site. It is common knowledge and not necessarily due to bad coding at all. Microsoft Game Studios had to take into consideration the hardware of their potential user market at the time of release, and they found that a large portion did not have advanced graphics cards. (I myself run FS X with an old GeForce 5200!) It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, that they decided to keep a lot of the rendering on CPU-run code instead of by the GPU.It is simply market considerations that led to that decision. The title had to sell large amounts in order to justify the development costs, and there was no way to sell a million copies if the title was limited to advanced graphics cards, only because the FS users did not have them at the time.Best regards.Luis

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Further illustrating my point that the design of FSX was very short-sighted.

[G-SWSM 1]

Hi.I have read all of the points in this thread, and as interesting as they are, it just goes to show how short sighted their vision was.They have been making flight sims for how long now ? and they couldn't predict this !It seems like a quick, couldn't be bothered fix for me rather than make something that actually would be future proof.Remember what happened to us all with FS2000, good grief it pulled even the most powerful PC's to their knees.They surely to god must have known that graphics cards were going to be making massive leaps and bounds in technologies. To still have everything tied to the CPU rather than the GPU is quite frankly a backward looking view, not a forward looking one.Imagine if you would, FSX on some of the top cards out there now that are getting very reasonable price wise, you could have a very very different Sim altogether.

[Noncon 19]

It seems like a quick, couldn't be bothered fix for me rather than make something that actually would be future proof.

That would have been great, but writing entirely new coding would have been very expensive and time consuming. KJ

[TechguyMaxC 516]

That would have been great, but writing entirely new coding would have been very expensive and time consuming. KJ

Very true. I believe most simmers here would rather have continued to use FS9 and seen FSX the next year, if it meant FSX would've been a properly-coded modern 3d application that actually took advantage of modern technology. Unfortunately, release schedules (read: arbitrary deadlines set by marketing/product managers) must be met even if it means the product will be sub-optimal.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Like most technology companies, and particularly software makers, Microsoft was founded and is run by developers, not marketing executives. The developers make all the decisions concerning the features, development cycle, and release date of their product. There are no "suits", marketing guys, or other non-developers dictating these decisions to the developers. All Product and Project Managers are developers, although Microsoft does put their high-level developers through multiple courses on administration and business organization.The release of FS X was, in fact, put off by its developers while they worked on the new features. Undoubtedly, the "suits" at Microsoft (who are developers) must have been pushing for earlier release, but the ACES team resisted until their product was in a more advanced stage.Best regards.Luis

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Like most technology companies, and particularly software makers, Microsoft was founded and is run by developers, not marketing executives. The developers make all the decisions concerning the features, development cycle, and release date of their product. There are no "suits", marketing guys, or other non-developers dictating these decisions to the developers. All Product and Project Managers are developers, although Microsoft does put their high-level developers through multiple courses on administration and business organization.The release of FS X was, in fact, put off by its developers while they worked on the new features. Undoubtedly, the "suits" at Microsoft (who are developers) must have been pushing for earlier release, but the ACES team resisted until their product was in a more advanced stage.Best regards.Luis

Steve Ballmer begs to differ, having been hired by Bill Gates as a Business Manager with no practical programming experience, which is precisely why he was hired. There are exceptions to virtually every rule. While true that most of MS' employees are developers, many of its managers and execs are not.

[BrunoRomano 0]

Steve Ballmer begs to differ, having been hired by Bill Gates as a Business Manager with no practical programming experience, which is precisely why he was hired. There are exceptions to virtually every rule. While true that most of MS' employees are developers, many of its managers and execs are not.

So, the point is... Should we invest in GPU and processing (having FSX in mind) or otherwise consider investing in a high-level videocard (having the possibility of a new FS software built up on modern game codes)??? I want to upgrade my system and not sure what to do actually...

[TechguyMaxC 516]

So, the point is... Should we invest in GPU and processing (having FSX in mind) or otherwise consider investing in a high-level videocard (having the possibility of a new FS software built up on modern game codes)??? I want to upgrade my system and not sure what to do actually...

The point is MS released a poorly-coded piece of software that will never take advantage of advances in GPU technology, and only barely take advantage of advances in CPU technology.