shorthaul16

:Thinking: ahhh yes... decisions, decisions...Maybe DMI vs. Quickpath is the key... too bad Toms Hardware have removed FSX from their bechmark runs...

They do overclock both to 4.2 Ghz, don't they?FSX appears to scale well with clockspeed but overclocking is not what I want to do. So I extrapolate from the article that the 870 is slightly faster in both minimum and average framerate than the 920 (and probably the 930) at stock speed - and that they draw even at 4.2 Ghz.Staying with the older 1156 socket may not be all that smart upgrade wise, but the important thing for me is the -expected- increase in performance over my current C2D 8500 /GTS 260 system - sans overclocking on my part.

Hence my astonishment... Quickpath vs. DMI appears to be the big difference on die and may be responsible for the differences in performance. There is however an Anandtech Article that copares the 920 and the 870 in FSX which kind of places them into the same category...

I never thought that dual vs. triple channel RAM and the different socket made that much of a difference. Other than that it appears they are pretty much the same architecture albeit different steppings?Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for the input genlemen! I am in no need to rush so I may just hold off a little longer for the new CPU generation.Nevertheless: I may be able to get my hands on the above setup with the 930 factory oc'd (so presumably stable) to 3,2Ghz for a "mere" 150 Euros more...the 950 will come at 3,02Ghz stock speed. Like I said above I don't want to oc myself but once the rig comes factory overclocked...EDIT: This in turn makes me think of switching over to an i7 870 (2,93Ghz)...and up the RAM on the box to 8GB with an actual drop in the overall price to bootYou think this may be a smart thing to do? @Luckyman, you are running a 930 + a Geforce 470. How does FSX fare on your system?

So I have some money to spend and I swore to myself that this time I am not going to go down the "upgrade" route but instead I'll buy a whole new system.It'll pretty much be a "for FSX only" system, OS will be Windows 7 Professional.Once I had my financial "pain threshold" factored in, I have arrived at a possible setup:MOBO: Asus P6T SE CPU: Intel® Core i7-930 Socket 1366 @ 2800MHz RAM: 6GB DDR3-RAM, DDR3-1600 (3x 2GB Kit) HD: 2TB S-ATA II (I am tempted to add a 60GB Corsair SSD for OS/Swap here...) Video: 1.28GB nVidia® GeForce GTX470 PCIe 2.0 Sound: Realtek ALC888 7.1 Channel HD onboardI really don't want to mess around with oc'ing or Raid setups.I do expect decent but not stellar performance running FSX on one 1680x1050x32 FP Display.Software side will be:# FSX + Acceleration Pack# MyTraffic X# Flying Club X# Vancouver Plus by Jon Patch and Holger Sandmann# Active Sky X # X Graphics # FS Global 2008# Scenery Tech Landclasses North America and Europe# UT Europe,USA and CanadaLots of VFR / GA Flying as you can derive from the addons...and I like my AI traffic on "high".Would you see any weak points or have some suggestions where the system might be improved?Thanks in advance for your time and suggestions

Happy FSGlobal user here.I would assume you will be happy with either choice and they should both play friendly with UTX. Both products deal with mesh and elevation more than with landclasses and textures. They'd go "beneath" the UTX layer(s) AFAIK.

Hi,I'm using the ASX / XG combo, and I have not seen these "flat" layers since...there was however a workaround by replacing some files to get rid of these 2 dimensional hazes..(I dimly remember "cumulus.bmp" was involved?)I do see a minimal performance hit (somewhere between 1-3 frames) with some texture sets from XG, but a corresponding improvement with others.Also the download sometimes make the flight stutter.But, all in all, I like the combo. It's convenient and with XG added it gives me a lot more variety in weather depiction.

Fellow simmers, I am thinking about a hardware upgrade.While the step from 2GB to 4GB RAM is certain, I also want to upgrade my video card.I am currently running FSX in 1680x1050x32 on a E8500 (stock speed), GeForce 8800 GTS 640 and a Windows XP Pro System patched to SP3.My first attempt for the video upgrade was a Radeon 4870 512MB OC which was at least counterproductive. Apart from actually lower framerates compared to the 8800, I ran into serious issues with other applications.I am now thinking about a GTX 260 to retain my framerates in FSX and boost then in other apps. The GTX is not an option since I refuse to shell out the $$$ for that card.What are your experiences? Any input is appreciated.Thanks in advance...:)

Hi,I've seen this happen as well.While I cannot name the culprit, I would go with the above explanation. I do know that once the AI plane is on hold for too long, it will magically disappear . Obviously not the solution for a DC9 on short final, though....:)

I had a rather unpleasant experience with the 4870 512MB (Oerclocked ed. from MSI). Although it is a great card for some shooters I occasionally play, I did not see the desired performance boost in FSX. This was true for driver revisions 8.6 (with hotfix) through to 8.10.The bottom line was to swap the Radeon out again and return to my "old" 8800 GTS 640MB.One additional reason for the swap was more than sub-par performance in Armed Assault (including bluescreens) where the 8800 runs circles around the Radeon for some reason.So it seems to be dependent of the system, because I see others not having the problem.It didn't work for me so the card goes out on Ebay.my 2c.

I have no direct comparison, but I have used the 2004 version and am now running the X incarnation.It satisfies my needs for realistic traffic and runs well. I had only minor impact on framerates and the support is good.

Sorry for the late answer, but I bought the 4870 OC from MSI in the hopes of gaining another frame or two.After 3 driver revisions (8.7/8.8/8.9) I've returned to my initial 8800 GTS 640 which gives me better performance in FSX (and Armed Assault)I was initially thinking that the CPU would hold me back (was c2d E6600, is now c2d E8500, both at stock speeds), but it wasn't.8800 outperformed the 4870 by about 10 Frames in my setup.

Looks like Vista is to blame then.AFAIK, Vista does not suport VSYNC on the Driver level, so unless the application has the ability to do VSYNC, it won't work out of the box.ATI Tray tools may help, but its still beta for the 48.. Series:See ATT FAQ over at Guru3DThere are some success stories so maybe you might want to give it a shot.

I've always left VSYNC off in the ATI Drivers and did not notice tearing as of yet. I have not locked the framerate though in FSX.What are your system specs and what is the resolution of your monitor for FSX?