FUIII & Radeon 8500???

[Guest]

It looks like the days of my V5500 are numbered...it just isn't working well in the latest games.I've managed to source a cheap Radeon 8500 to try as a replacement. How does this work in FUIII? Any hints or tips to pass on?Thanks for all information!Ian

[Guest jonpoint]

Ian,I would also be interested to know about the Radeon. From the info I've seen on the 'net, it eats the lower-spec'd GE4 cards which is good 'coz GE4s are overpriced IMHO. I picked up a bargain GE2 MX200 a short while ago and whilst I'm happy with the framerates in FU3, I can't totally get rid of the sky banding. If this isn't enough, I have to reduce 2x2 antialiasing down to 1.4x1.4 and (some other setting I can't remember - oh! Anisotropy...) just to play MM2. I have also noticed that some applications behave in a jittery way on the GE2 card and I get 'artifacts' on some windows menus which just looks crap. Apparently, the Radeon is more stable and is rapidly becoming 'the other card' with gamers now that the novelty of GE4s has started to wane. Check out the PCWorld site for reviews.I'm building another PC for my daughter and I was going to put the GE2 card in that and put something nicer in my XP1700. All this said, until I got the GE2, I had never been able to really appreciate FU3 and, despite the niggles, at US$45, it does represent great value.Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest]

No takers???Oh well....in faith the Radeon has now gone in the machine. I haven't yet had a chance to test FUIII properly, as I started testing the new card and got sucked into am unexpectedly long session of Grand Prix Legends (GPL). I love that sim ;-)I'll give FUIII a proper testing over the weekend and post back with my experiences later.First impressions of the radeon are very good though. Texture & colour quality seem leagues above what the ol V5500 could produce, with far less blurriness.The Smoothvision FSAA is perhaps not quite as effective, but when coupled with large amounts of anistropic filtering, it just looks different, as opposed to worse. I guess FUIII will be the real test, however...Performance is strong though. In GPL (did I mention that I love it :) ?) with the Voodoo 5500 my best option was 800x600 with 4x FSAA. The radeon pumps out higher frame rates at 1024x768 with 4x FSAA on the quality setting, with 16x anistropic filtering. This is on an Athlon XP1700+, under Win98SE - albeit on a memory-bandwidth-restricted Via KT133a mobo.Comments on FUIII will follow, when I've had the chance to fiddle around with it more.

[JimmiG 244]

Before I got a Geforce3, I had the original Radeon. It was good for FU3 as long as I kept FSAA turned off.I think the 8500 should work just fine.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Ian,I'm not convinced that anisotropic filtering works in FU3 (at least with Nvidia graphics cards). I have activated "aniso" using Riva Tuner, and I know that it works because I can see the effect that it has in Jedi Knight 2 ! However, I don't see any difference in FU3.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest]

>Ian, >>I'm not convinced that anisotropic filtering works in FU3 >(at least with Nvidia graphics cards). I have activated >"aniso" using Riva Tuner, and I know that it works because I >can see the effect that it has in Jedi Knight 2 ! However, I >don't see any difference in FU3. >>Chris Low, >ENGLAND. Chris,I think that the anisotropic filtering is working on the Radeon....but the FSAA seems to have a limited effect, certainly when compared to what I used to see with the V5. That said, the FSAA is definately doing something, because when I enable it I get that nice line through the cockpit in some circumstances. :(I didn;t get much chance to test at the weekend because we had one of those rare sunny ones, and being outside enjoying it was preferable to being sat next to a hot computer. That probably makes me a heretic in some computing circles ;-)I'll post some screenshots sometime soonish looking at the FSAA / anistropic effects with the Radoeon, for my own curiosity if no-one elses!Ian

[Guest jonpoint]

Ian,There is a fix for the cockpit line problem. I was of the impression it only affected Nvidia cards. Or does the Radeon use an Nvidia GPU core?Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest]

>There is a fix for the cockpit line problem.Is there? I would be interested to hear what it is (and if it is Nvidia-core specific).> I was of the impression it only affected Nvidia cards. Apparently not - I am seeing it on the Radeon.> Or does the Radeon use an Nvidia GPU core? No...it uses an ATI core.Ian

[Guest jonpoint]

Ian,The fix is aircraft-specific AND you need to be OK with Cockpit Designer. If you have just a few aircraft you want to fix, it's definitely worth it. I've slowly, one-by-one fixed all mine. My DC3 upgrade (due for release very soon!?!) has it included.It involves adjusting the 'rectangles' in CPD to alter the overlap between the 3D region and others. I have originally suggested one pixel difference however I've noticed if you use 640x480, it's still there so two pixels is better.I think Ansgar spoke about this recently but my brain's gone away again. I think it's soaring in the mountains with John's (Glidernut's) brain (brane) so, if you see one...BTW, Chris, my anisotropy (Athlon/GE2MX/VIA KT133) appears to work although I only really noticed it when I turned my FSAA off by mistake (told you I've lost my brain). I thought 'why does my horizon look a bit choppy? The rest of the landscape looks fine'. Then I few at night and got the non-FSAA city lights (a dancin' and a flickerin'), went back and realised I'd set FSAA off. It doesn't have a great effect but it does appear to smooth things a bit without too much blurring. I am using 'forced level 5' whatever that is!Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest]

>The fix is aircraft-specific AND you need to be OK with >Cockpit Designer. I've found the details and got cockpit designer. The trouble is though, it won't open some of my favourite planes, particularly ones made my Steve Hess, it seems.I get "Error reading Nightcockpit.def" and it will go no further.Frustrating....Ian

[Lars Peter 0]

Ian!About using "cockpitdesigner", make sure you explore the res. filesbefore opening them. Some of them are " write protected". Use win. explorer and change this to "archive".Another thing is that the res.files cannot have spaces in their names.for example a file named "Cessna sh.res" change this to "cessnash.res"and the cocpitdesigner will open it nicely. Another thing is that the program should be installed a short way from the res.files you are working with. For example directly to drive C:,-or "program files".Om my computer it use a lot of resources and the shorter way to go to the target the better it is to avoid errors.Good luck.Lars Peter.

[Guest]

That did it! Thank you! It was the space in the file name that was defeating it, I think.A few (very quick) screenshots are shown below. Plane is S. Hess's Cessna 182, location Wolf's Canyon. ATI Radeon 8500LE, 4xFSAA on "Quality" Setting, 16x anistropic filtering.Ian

[Lars Peter 0]

Wow!! great shot'sNothing wrong with the video card here as I can see!!Lars Peter.;)