I was just looking at a pretty good article at www.anandtech.com. Here is a link to the article. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1890I was pretty surprised to see how well ATI cards did with FS9.Ron

Ron, This article gets brought up on this forum several times a day. Nothing new here. :)I'm not sure how reliable these benchmarks are. Read the article. They didn't exactly follow best practices for benchmarking.Jim

I guess I did not look to see if this article had been talked about here or not. I am pretty simple minded. I would hope that no matter what method they used for benchmarking, they used the same one for all cards. I have always thought that Anandtech did a pretty fair job in their reporting. I still do. I guess I just really liked the fact that they even tried to use FS9 for benchmarking purposes.Ron

I saw the article, but then noted the test scenario was 1024x768 with NO AA/AF..... I think AA and AF both are a must for FS9, and a fair benchmark would have to include them. I'm not saying that the ATI's wouldn't outscore the Nvidia cards, but reading the article without knowing about FS9 would lead one to believe that FS9 must have an ATI to be stellar... As many have said, it's not about to see who can get the highest fps number. It's all about consistency in performance, display quality, and what's being displayed. Pity Anandtech didn't work with our community to come up with a better benchmark. They would have known that random weather can be turned off, as an example.... -John

They're coming out with Part II in a week or so which is suppose to include high resolutions and AA & AF. Maybe some folks thoroughly familar with FS2k4 can give em' a hand with the setup. After all, this sim ain't no First Person Shooter.

I've seen several recent articles using FS9 as a bench.http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTI5LDk=http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/2003...on_9800-30.htmlKurt M

Right, and they all conclude the same thing. With some noticeable frequency, NVidia users seem to be making interesting comments about the testing (on several forums). Three reviews by three separate hardware sites all showed a rather one-sided contest in FS9. I'm sure it's tough to admit that ATI is the card of choice after being second fiddle to NVIDIA forever, but I'm a bit irritated by folks berating the review procedures. I hope NVidia turns things around soon and releases a chip that stays astride of ATI. For the moment, there is only one choice, in my eyes. (I don't have a need to get involved in an ATI>NVIDIA discussion, so please don't try, thanks) ;)

"(I don't have a need to get involved in an ATI>NVIDIA discussion, so please don't try, thanks)"Uhhhh . . . isn't that exactly what you are doing by posting? :)I think this whole thing is kind of silly, and I've said so before. Why can't people just buy the video card THEY want and that performs well for them? If someone says that they like Nvidia better, ATI owners react as though it is an attack on their personal family! Same goes for the other way around. Your choice of video card does not define you as a human being. If you like ATI cards and they run what you want to run in a way that pleases you, get ATI. If Nvidia is your choice, get Nvidia. I truthfully just don't understand the hostility in this debate, not that this thread has exhibited that.Jim

(I don't have a need to get involved in an ATI>NVIDIA discussion, so please don't try, thanks) ;) As Jim says, that's what you're doing. I was careful in my remarks to say that the Anandtech benchmark alone doesn't disprove ATI as being better, but it is a very unrealistic one just the same. I'm not interested in knowing which card can get 100fps in FS9, as 100fps would yield very little interesting detail to look at. Choice depends on many factors, budget, tier, etc.... I'd argue that the GeForce 4200 is, dollar for dollar, the best all around choice today for most FS9 simmers on a budget. In the high tier, probably an ATI based on what ppl have said here. But to those reading the Anandtech reviews, regardless of the winner in the results, it's important for the benchmark to reflect experience with FS9. I'd argue that the reviewer had little to none, since they said clouds weren't factored in as dynamic weather would kick in--a feature that can be turned off.Your quote "....but I'm a bit irritated by folks berating the review procedures....." needs more qualification. I was speaking in regards to the Anandtech review, and those review procedures in the context of FS9 needed a bit of berating.... Only way we'll get reliable reviews in the future based on our areas of interest.

John,Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you, but this is a quote from the review..."...but we had to turn off weather completely."Seems to me they did know that the feature could be turned off and did turn it off.Jim

In my opinion, any benchmarks for FS have to be scripted. You can't just load up one card, fly a certain route, and then load up another card and fly the same route. There are too many discrepancies. If you aren't at EXACTLY the same GPS coordinates, you are going to get different performance, if only slightly.Jim

John,Are you saying they should have left some clouds in the test but just turned the dynamic scenery slider down to 'none'?Jim

1600x1200x32@85hz; 4xAA & 16xAF 9700 Provsync off (picking up some slight banding)http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/FS9F16-Vsync.jpg vsync on: (frames held back by vsync)http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/FS9F16-7.jpg

Jim....Sorry I didn't respond right away--eating lunch....They should have left some clouds, but turned dynamic weather to zero to keep the benchmark from changing midstream. Also, from the fps reported, it sounds like they were nowhere near a dense area of scenery or even a moderately dense one. Chris Willis has a pretty good system and I've seen his fps results over all ranges of scenery...I've never seen anything over 100 except over open water or a very generic landscape like steppes or tundra.I'd love to see a good FS9 benchmark for evaluating the video cards--would make a difference whether my next system has an ATI, Nvidia, or maybe some surprise contender. I just wouldn't draw any conclusions on the ATI based on how FS9 was tested.-John

You think you're a Bigshot, don't cha!!!(Not picking on you--but I think of the Billy Joel song every time I see you post from your handle--been meaning to quote that lyric for a long time :) ).....These shots of a great example of how not to benchmark a video card.... When I fly I'm interested in spot view sometimes, but more in the context of the ground vs. looking up at the sky. Some folks with Nvidia's would get the same results given these two shots. An aircraft and the sky don't get to the nuts and bolts of the sim....-John