Anyone still using integrated graphics like me?!

[Ps762 0]

Hi!

 

I am slowly getting more and more into FsX these days which is cool but am still amazingly using Intel integrated graphics on my Dell Vostro Core II Duo PC. Amazingly FsX runs ok but this is mainly becuase I don't use AI traffic or vehicles really and keep autogen off for airline flying. The only complaint I have is that ground textures can be blurry in the distance which no tweak seems to fix. I used to have a PCI Express budget card for a while and whilst I had more stutters I did have slightly higher fps and sharper scenery further out.

 

Unfortunately there is no tweak tool at all for Intel onboard graphics and cfg tweaks like MipBias also don't seem to work with it. I'm sticking with it for the moment though. It makes me happy!

 

So just wondering if anyone else has run FsX or any other flightsim with onboard graphics and actually been happy for longer than 2 seconds!

 

Many thanks,

 

Pierre

[SAAB340 28]

The only complaint I have is that ground textures can be blurry in the distance which no tweak seems to fix. I used to have a PCI Express budget card for a while and whilst I had more stutters I did have slightly higher fps and sharper scenery further out.

I'm not surprised to hear that. FSX looses texture loading as soon as something that isn't the CPU is restricting your FPS from achieving the locked value you have set within FSX. Example of FPS restrictions that would cause this is a GPU that is too slow, not enough bandwith on the PCIe bus, using an external FPS limiter, having vSync to restrict the FPS to maximum 30 or 60 FPS without setting the internal limiter to the same value.

 

I can't believe you can stand using Intel graphics. Not to mention old onboard Intel graphics in FSX. It would have driven me nuts. So I would have gone and bought separate GPU a loooong time ago. I take it you are talking about a desktop Vostro as you mention that you did have a budget GPU previosly.

 

What I also ment to say was that as long as you have the FPS within FSX set to either unlimited or a higher value than your Intel graphics can maintain you will loose texture loading. So in order to get away from the blurries you need to lock the FPS to a value your Intel graphics can maintain. (I can't imagine that will be a high value. Single figures?)

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

I remember running FSX on my old desktop with an Athlon XP 2400+, 256MB RAM and an ATi Radeon 9000 Pro at Minimal settings. It wasn't an integrated GPU, but integrated GPUs nowadays get much better performance than it. While FS2004 ran much better, I preferred FSX, so I've logged in lots of hours on that system.

 

I also remember adding an extra 1GB of RAM and a 7600 GT and being amazed when the default settings jumped to Medium Low. If your system is a desktop, then I recommend adding a dedicated GPU if you can't afford a new system. You won't regret it.

[Ps762 0]

Hi!

 

Many thanks for the replies. Some very true words spoken and good info thanks.

 

Yes my system is a Dell Vostro desktop. Their Vostro systems really are good value I find if you're looking for something cheap. I was looking at one today online which was selling new for £249 I think. Integrated graphics of course!

 

Yes I did have a PCI-E dedicated graphics card for a while and the image quality especially further out was a lot sharper (with tweaks). Even a £25 card these days has 1GB memory I think and would improve my graphics a lot I think!

 

But I'm still hanging on (maybe because I don't have £25 at the moment!). If anyone's interested here are a few screenies of a recent flight using the Intel Graphics. They're really not that bad! (or maybe they are!).

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/384631-a-few-pics-from-a-mission/

 

Many thanks!

 

P.