GF4Ti 4200>>>>ATI 9800Pro...WOW!

[Hornit 3]

HOLY COW! I am finding it hard to believe that a video card can make such a huge difference! I am still cautiously taking my first steps with tweaking and flying as I installed this card last night. I took great care in making sure my system was clean before putting the card in and firing it up. MY STUTTERS ARE GONE! For the most part there is still very slight frame rate issues with the normal things like clouds/wx/etc, but my sim is running rock steady up around 25fps now with 1280x1024x32bit and 2X FSAA and 8X Aniso. Its really rather remarkable. While the GF4 is a good card, mine being a lowly 4200 just could not push the pixels to do any meaningful AA. It ran great without it, but I just have to have it. I got my 9800 at Best buy for 260$ and a 20$ rebate. Not a bad deal as they were like 400$ just a few months back! The visual qualities are similiar really, a slight advantage IMHO to the ATI card though in most things. Its just now I can run in high res with all the goodies too! FS 2002 is amazing now, I can turn it all on, even with the GF4 I could not do that. I have two minor issues and hope to see them fixed with driver releases. The flashing menu thing (can be overcome with window) and a minor stutter if I pan in spot view. The panning stutter appears to go away once you have panned around a bit also. I highly recommend one of these cards to take advantage of any simulation. I daresay we have finally got a card that can do Antialiasing as good as a Voodoo 5 5500 can! Anyone remember that one? :) Again, all I can say is WOW!! I did not think this was the cure for my stutters either, Im sure there are still some issues but this has made such a huge improvement here its hard to fathom. Hornit

[Chris Willis 8]

Hornit, ""MY STUTTERS ARE GONE! FS 2002 is amazing now""or Fs2004 you are talking ?Hardware change alot of things!ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Hornit 3]

BOTH, but mainly 2004, I will be keeping 2002 for a bit longer i think, too many great add-ons to admire in there. I will get rid of it, just not right away. I have almost 9Gigs worth of stuff in there!Hornit

[Guest Max Cowgill]

Congratulations! Now that you don't need that GF4 anymore, care to send me your old one so I can replace mine that got fried and stop using this P.O.S. Geforce FX 5200 (non-ultra)? ;)-Max Cowgill

[Guest wathomas777]

I am a bit amused, I must say. I don't want to start a flame war or anything, but here I am with a GeForce 4 MX420, and I am getting similar quality and the card cost me less than $100.00I've read review after review and have been told that the MX420's are a piece of garbage, But, I am finding that the only thing I am missing are water reflections (which I have heard are a bit flaky when compared to FS2002).I am using a mid-range XP home 2400+ Athlon Compaq that I purchased for 500 bucks, added 512 Meg to the 128 on the system, and then transplanted my MX420 PCI!!! GeForce Card and am very happy with the performance.And judging by others with much bigger cards. AGP 256 Meg behemoths that cost over half of the total cost of my rig, with 3.0 Gig machines, the difference in Frames averages about 5. Wow!!!

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>I am a bit amused, I must say. I don't want to start a flame>war or anything, but here I am with a GeForce 4 MX420, and I>am getting similar quality and the card cost me less than>$100.00>>I've read review after review and have been told that the>MX420's are a piece of garbage, But, I am finding that the>only thing I am missing are water reflections (which I have>heard are a bit flaky when compared to FS2002).>>I am using a mid-range XP home 2400+ Athlon Compaq that I>purchased for 500 bucks, added 512 Meg to the 128 on the>system, and then transplanted my MX420 PCI!!! GeForce Card and>am very happy with the performance.>>And judging by others with much bigger cards. AGP 256 Meg>behemoths that cost over half of the total cost of my rig,>with 3.0 Gig machines, the difference in Frames averages about>5. Wow!!!No offense or anything but I daresay the difference in visual quality between your rig and those which utilize say a Radeon 9800 Pro, would be quite distinct. Unless, of course, you're running 6x AA & 16x AF @ 1600x1200 as these cards are capable of doing. Also, these high-end cards allow for the use of higher settings within the sim itself (larger texture sizes, use of more effects, more detailed textures, etc. etc.).Not trying to rain on your parade, I just happen to disagree with your analysis of the situation.-Max Cowgill

[Tabs 2,790]

wathomas777,Turn on AA and AF and watch the GF4MX choke... I was running 4XAA and 8XAF on my brother's 9700 Pro with almost every slider maxed except clouds and AI and it was pinned at 20 FPS in 1280X1024X32... It's a physical impossibility for a GF4MX to do that.Ryan

[Guest SoarPics]

wathomas777...Don't think so. Just this past weekend I saw FS9 on a system w/ 1800XP and GF4 MX 440. Wasn't even close to what I see on my 9700 Pro machine. But he was happy, and if you are too, then that's all that matters.Cheers,

[Hornit 3]

Thats the truth, if your happy its what counts. Truthfully I really doubt that MX is going to even get close to what I am seeing here. I had a GF4MX on the kids computer for a while, its gone now and they have a GF4 Ti4600 which runs great, but it in and of itself was a big improvement over the MX. Now I know for a fact you just cant do what im doing with this card in THIS sim and get the kind of frame rates I am seeing. I was willing to pay the money to get what I want, I dont beleive I could get the same any other way :)We're all happy now! :)Hornit

[Guest Bigshot]

Every once in a while I'll read an oldtimer say the 9700/9800 series is as good as the V5500 card was in its day. I prefer to think of them as a V5500 on steroids. Good to hear it's working OK for you. And Great Price!! You can crank that AF up to 16x anytime.

[Guest SoarPics]

"good as the V5500 card was in its day. I prefer to think of them as a V5500 on steroids."LOL... Just yesterday I installed Win XP on my daughter's machine (which I built) at her Mom's house. The entire family there uses that computer. I've told my former wife (we are on good terms) that when that computer has seen it's day all I want is to have the 5500 back. Don't know what I'll do with it, but I want it back.Too bad nVidia never made the effort to incororate the hardware AA technology into their cards the past couple of years. Big mistake as far as I'm concerned.

[W2DR 1,859]

Tell me if you're still amused after you max all the sliders and set the AA to 6X and the AF to 16X :-) . Oops. What's that you say? You don't have settings that go that high on the MX card? OK, no problem. Just set the AA and AF as high as they will go - the impact on your amusement level will be about the same. Similar quality? Hardly.

[Guest]

Amused? And a little bit quiet all of a sudden too. Hey?:)

[Steve Cannell 4]

I followed a link on a previous post to an article called "How To Adjust Your ATI 9800 Pro Video Card For Best Results With FS2004"By Cap MasonI figurd what the heck, even though I have a 9700 pro, but some of those suggested settings I thought crazy. Everything is nearly maxed in both display settings and FS9.I still find this hard to believe myself !! ??I can't believe it but it looks even better and it's smoother.Changing from fullscreen and the alt flickering is a little less severe. I believe this is due to changing the desktop settings the same as flightsims.Please, to everyone with these cards, atleast give it a try, follow the step by step instructions. What do you have to lose.Steve

[Guest]

Hi HornitWhat CPU do you have and how much RAM have you got installed?