Nvidea GeForce 8500 GT

[Hans_Petter 1]

My new PC came with a GeForce 8500 GT video card. While things look pretty good and framerates are excellent I miss a configuration manager. I got the latest driver from Nvidea but I fail to find any software to complement Nvidea cards. I'd like to experiment with various levels of antialiasing and anisotrophic filtering.

[juvat 0]

Sounds like a nice card,I think Riva Tuner or NV Hardpage might be tools that will help:http://www.guru3d.com/category/rivatuner/http://www.guru3d.com/category/nvhardpage/JimB

[Hans_Petter 1]

I have installed a forceware driver (GeForce ForceWare 177.79 Vista 32-bit) and the Riva tuner. I just downloaded the nVHardPage (nVHardPage SE 3.5) but I haven't installed it yet. It may seem that I need on or the other but not both?I hereby request a little tutoring before I mess things up :-shy Overclocking isn't something I want to implement, at least not if I get good performance without it. My primary goal is to ensure a good amount of antialiasing and anisotrophic filtering for FU3. I may have to make a "global" choice for Open Glide or I may be able to limit the settings to FU3.My old Voodoo 5 card came with an interface to set the level of filtering for DirectX applications and Open Glide. FU3 really relied on these settings to look good. This implies that the rendering tweaks should be done outside the sim itself since the graphics settings in the FU3 config manager don't address the more advanced choices. I was a bit surprised that my new Nvidea card didn't come with similar software.So, is it Riva tuner or nVHardPage or is it both at the same time? Further, which settings make the most sense for FU3? My issues are jagged horizons and distant scenery flicker. Anything close-up seems fine as it is.

[juvat 0]

Hans,I don't have my gforce 6200oc installed anymore and have WinXp Pro 32bit; but there should be a way to put your nvidia card to advanced view mode. I appologize that I can't remember exactly how that is done with WinXp. Here is a link that may be helpful. The rivatuner or nvhardpage tools shouldn't be needed to do this.http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t48286.htmlhttp://www.nvnews.net/reviews/geforce_7900_gtx/page_7.shtmlJimB

[Hans_Petter 1]

The Nvidea configuration was hidden in the control panel of the OS. I've now set a custom level of filtering for flight3.exe and now FU3 looks better than it ever did. For some reason "application controlled" doesn't quite work for FU3. In other words, the sim doesn't instruct the video card to provide the best filtering when you enable "primary di". With forced filtering I see a lot of flickering as the sim starts up but as soon as the terrain loads it's crisp and stable. Previously I had flickering terrain, "moving ants" along the horizon and other anomalies despite the "primary di" being on.A follow-up might be to discuss which kinds of filtering make the most sense for this sim. There are several flavors of anisotropic, antialiasing and mipmaps plus a few more. I believe vertical sync doesn't apply to FU3 so I skipped that one.

[juvat 0]

Congrats getting your card set up.'Course, probably all different, as you have a superior video card and the latest OS; but here's how mine is set. I have a Dx9c ATI based video card and use Ati Tray Tool(ATT). Wait for Verticle Sync = "always off" Refresh Rate Override= "same as desktop" 6x antialiasing 16x anisotropic Texture Preference= "high quality"Mip Map Detail Level= "high quality"Support DXT Textures and Bump Mapping= both checkedEnable Anisotropic Filtering optimization= checkedEnable Trilinear Filtering optimization= checkedI imagine Flt3 doesn't support alot of what I have switched on; but some other games I run do and the display looks good when the games run.For gamma control I run PStrip in the back ground (I like it better than the ATT gamma control).There's the DDfix tool, but we loose map controls so I've elected to not use it till there's a way to get it to fully support Flt3.As you go along, don't forget to swing by tweakguides.com/, a very-very informative web site for setting up video cards.JimB