another noob with 7970 here. asus card on [email protected] P55A 8Gb RAM. 3Gb GPU lightly overclocked to 985/1435 for 6048x1080 Eyefinity on ccc12.3 with 3 BenQ 24" This card replaced my old 2 GB Sapphire 6970.in one word - nothing. same drop from 45 to 10-15fps when AS2012 kick off heavy REX Overdrive x2048 res clouds Im using atm. DX- of HD- doesn't metter at all. NOJOY and NOGO. damn, I was so exited about this release and hoped for better with new card. ask your questions if any and maybe guide me for some optimization... will appreciate any advice. SH3.0 do not propose - helps a lil only with water...

So it looks like the ati 7970 isnt great for fsx??? i had ati 5970 was terrible drivers had issues and the card was unstable! i think the gtx 580 it is? or ill wait for the gtx 680 it should be out early march the computer guy said!

Hi,Even my GTX 570 struggles with dense layers of HD REX FS2004 clouds, where FPS may go down to 10-15. But the GTX 570 is generally much better than my previous ATI HD4890. The sim just stands clearer over all, clouds look generally much better, and it handles blurries and jaggies much better than the HD4890.. But other than that, I had no issues with unstable ATI dirvers; I my experience they were every bit as stable as Nvidia drivers. But for some reason, Nvidia just handles FSX/9 better that ATI/AMD.Best Regards,Anders

AMD can´t do clouds, period..Not even the new monster 7970, BECAUSE AMD DON'T DEVELOP FOR FSX!http://www.simforums...topic29041.html- and here:http://forum.avsim.n...hd-6970-cayman/

And NVedia don't develop for multimonitors (3/4 monitors). They want you to buy two expensive cards.Sigh!Manny

HelloWhen will folks accept that ATI + Clouds is a non starter, it is not going to change this late in the game.But still people buy the latest ATI card ?

I think the reason is that like FSX in general and how newer hardware is finally making it smooth, we keep hoping that the incremental performance improvements in each generation of the ATI cards will brute force overcome the ATI perf problems with clouds.I know I was hoping the 7970 would be a card that could handle FSX well, especially since it supports 3 monitors with one card, but at this point I moved to a 560Ti/448 for now and will likely move to a 680 later this year as it seems like the 7970 didn't overcome the cloud perf problem after all.Too bad as it would be great to have both Nvidia and ATI competing with good cards for FSX.

Edited February 28, 201214 yr by kludger

HelloWhen will folks accept that ATI + Clouds is a non starter, it is not going to change this late in the game.But still people buy the latest ATI card ?

I think it primarily has to do with people purchasing a high end card for other sims/games along with FSX. The latest gen from AMD runs all over the current NV in most programs except FSX. Another could be the frustration with NV over kepler due to lack of news (leaks) and delays. Even NV's CEO stated low yields will exist through 2012. The current 6XX road map now shows summer to fall for the higher end kepler. One big concern I have on Kepler the fact it didn't show up in public like it was suppose to. Missing PDXLAN was a big deal and was nvidia's chance to show up AMD in public with Gearbox's help but they failed. If Kepler misses CEBIT which is when AMD is suppose to launch the 78XX it will be of further concern. For now the 79xx is the king of the hill except for FSX and you will continue to see people buying AMD GPU's. I still use a 580 in my FSX rig but have switched to a 7950 on my gaming machine due to the performance increase. Hopefully NV can pull it out but it will be a while.

Yes - bought with trepidation after all the comments about ATI and clouds etc... Have to say I'm running it at high levels of detail across 3 HD screens and it rocks!Frame rates are goodI've not encountered any of the AA issues people mention of past cards or drivers once I'd set up my options. It also has many tuning settings for quality versus performance.I'd also expected it to sound like a jet engine form all I'd read by the knockers... it is fine. It isn't silent but none of these performance cards are. Maybe it may get noisy under but I've yet to get it to work up that kind of sweat!Oh yeah - don't forget when building that new machine and reinstalling FSX - add the service packs before you bother looking at frame rates! I'd fortgotten what a dog FSX was straight from the box!IF you've gone three screen you may wish to change the viewing angle too - or you'll be too close against the panel.In win 7:Go to username/Appdata/Roaming/Microsoft/FSX If you cannot see the folder, in Explorer be sure in folder optpions to tick "show hidden folders"Open fsx.cfg in notepad.Find WideviewAspect=FalseChange this to WideViewAspect = TrueSorted!Much better! Though I think this setting originally antipated 3x 4:3 ratio monitors not 3x 16:9 the r4esult is pretty much a very very wide angle of view with typical amera style exageration at the extremes.If you've not yet got the monitors seriously consider 4:3 monitors. 3x16:9s feel a little like you are looking out of Ned Kellys helmet. I reckon 4:3s musst be cheap as chips now too...hunt the clearance items!

Ah yes - additional factor! Remember FSX is an old engine and still makes many demands on the CPU that rightfully should be handled on the GPU in any modern 3D product.I am sure many will buy the card without equal upgrade to their CPU/RAM/HD and be shocked that some aspects may not improve as much as hoped. Not the card's fault or anything to do with it... be sure to bring ones whole machine up to a balanced spec.Only real gripes - four ports on the back for 4 monitors, two requiring active minidp adapters and yet Asus at least only include an adapter for one. ( not sure if second can be passive but doubt it)Want six screens like the sales promotion? Well that's iffy... requires daisychainable DP monitors and they are expensive and rare - so not a sane route for many - or the MST hub. a Product which at this date still does not exist. ( alledgedly mid 2012). That said I am unsure what will happend to frame rates at that point. My own intention is to put instrument panels of the latter- possibly with touch panels but I may just end up networking a second PC for that.

Good feedback brabazon,Now that you have had it installed for a few days tell me, are you finding the "view" a bit too close to the VC panel to work satisfactory? That was my issue with Eyefinity and FSX. Could not position the pilot's view far enough back to get a comfortable viewing position. The panel would take up nearly the entire three screens - I could not zoom back far enough and moving the eyepoint would put me behind the captain's chair. Going back to 4x3 CRT's I think is a step in the wrong direction, for me though.Looking at other FSX/Eyefinity setups on YouTube most if not all setups only showed the views without a panel which may be the only way to use this way satisfactoy. But then you need hardware to control most of the systems that way (which I am actually getting there, ha). Anywho, just thought I would add my comments, would luv to see some screenies of your setup. Oh and other's considering issues with AMD boards and FSX, I never had the cloud issues, and running water at high levels I have never had any of those issues either. Even got AA to a point of looking good. But I did end up back with my 580 (now I can't remember really why, ha!)Clutch

You will need to tweak fsx even on i5 or i7 , so you should check out bojotes tweaks and you will have a smile on your face. ATI cards have issues in FSX due to the older shader model and hence the clouds cause a problem, use Bojotes shader mod to fix that.I run fsx on two machine one is my sig rig (HD 5450 updated to HD 6750 2 GB DDR3) and i can manage around 20-30 fps with full sets except a few settings. (Using bojotes shader on this machine).But on my toshiba i5 2430m / 1 GB 525m and using bojotes tweak I can jump to 35-40 fps high-max settings.You shall notice a little better performance using the 580 but not too much due FSX being more cpu hungry, but in my IMO always have a system which is balanced in every way.

For what it's worth, I'll drop my penny's thought in here. I have compared a GTX470 1.2gb default with a GTX580 1.5gb default with absolutely, completely zero difference on framerate performance in FSX. However, the 580 does have better quality texture handling and this was apparent. I have also compared the GTX580 running at default to the 580 running OC as far as I could take it, and once again, absolutely no difference in framerates whatsoever. This may not be the case with other guys, but from my standpoint, splashing out on the latest, most expensive GPU you can lay your hands on is simply a waste of hard earned cash, well at least for the little or no return you get in performance. Of course I am talking about FSX only and not other sims or games that will of course take advantage of the faster GPUs.

I'm using 7970 with catalyst control center seetings : aa: 4x af:4x cataylst ai:quality vertical sync: off aa mode : super sample aa. Mostly in 3d cocpit (pmdg ngx gettin 25 fps solid) in spot view : 55-90 fps :)

M.Evren, can you elaborate on how smooth your flight is through/with a heavy cloud deck or in-between layers???

 

Thanks.

I've got a 7970 as stated in my signature. Heavy cloud hammers frame rates unfortunately - this is a guess, but maybe approaching 50%. I don't fly in heavy cloud so it doesn't bother me too much. It's early days though, with drivers and the architecture, so you never know, things may change.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

I had both the 570GTX and HD6970. After several weeks of testing/benchmarking (switching cards and making numerous flights in every possible weather situations) I eventually sold my 570GTX.

Bare in mind though, I am speaking solely about the performance gotten out of the HD6970 vs that of the 570GTX not ATI vs Nvidia in general...

But in my very own experience (something not every AMD or nvidia hater can say really) without any hear-say influences, for me the HD6970 came out on top.