Simviation Forum - The Great Debate

Jan 14^th, 2004 at 2:06pm

Jaffa Offline
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What the...?
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Here's how it goes:

I am currently running:
P4@2.1 GHz
Radeon 9000pro
512mb PC2700 DDR

...basic specs.

Now, at Heathrow I normally get less than 10FPS(full sliders) no matter what plane, what weather in FS9. I really would like to get the FPS up to around 20 without sacrificing quality.

What I am thinking:

Either a 9700pro or 9800pro

Or

a 9600pro or 9600xt and another 512mb ram.

Now, could I get some advice, please? Grin

(money is a non-issue)

Thanks! 8)

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Reply #1 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 8:39pm

JBaymore Offline
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Jaffa,

I have both a 9600 pro AND the extra 512 meg of RAM.

Forget the 9600 pro.

Get BOTH the 9800XT AND the extra RAM.

FS2004 is a real dog when it comes to performance...... you need all the hardware firepower you can get. See the bar charts in this forum for comparisons of the 9600 to the 9800....about double the performance..... and about double the price.

best,

...................john

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #2 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 9:43pm

swanny338 Offline
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9800XT and extra ram... or a 9800 Pro and extra ram you will be very pleased with either, and if you get the 9800 Pro get a Sapphire 9800 Pro... the black one Wink

Still have a nice PC but I just switched to a hella nice mac

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Reply #3 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 9:59pm

Jaffa Offline
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Ok, but they will not come right together, I will probably get the 9800pro shortly and then get the RAM for my birthday, in March.

Thanks guys, I just wanted some re-affirmation Grin

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Reply #4 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 10:03pm

Jaffa Offline
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Do you think a 9700pro would be enough?

I am going to get a whole new computer in a couple years for college so I have too save a bit...

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Reply #5 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 10:14pm

swanny338 Offline
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9700 pros are really good cards, that would probably be the best way to go

Still have a nice PC but I just switched to a hella nice mac

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Reply #6 - Jan 15^th, 2004 at 5:50am

congo Offline
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I don't think more ram is gonna make a lotta difference, you may not even notice it. Get the best video card you can.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #7 - Jan 15^th, 2004 at 4:40pm

swanny338 Offline
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congo, that is an incorrect statement, back when I was on my G4 Ti4800SE i would get like 5 FPS with sliders maxed and lots of clouds and rain.... I then up graded from 512MB PC2100 to 1024MB of PC3200 and my fps jumped to 15 with the same settings and the same amount of weather.... It makes a pretty large difference

Still have a nice PC but I just switched to a hella nice mac

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Reply #8 - Jan 16^th, 2004 at 1:48am

congo Offline
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Quote:

congo, that is an incorrect statement, back when I was on my G4 Ti4800SE i would get like 5 FPS with sliders maxed and lots of clouds and rain.... I then up graded from 512MB PC2100 to 1024MB of PC3200 and my fps jumped to 15 with the same settings and the same amount of weather.... It makes a pretty large difference

Swanny, it may have worked in your case, I suspect because your system was overloaded with background programs.

Flight Sim only uses around 120 mb of ram, so I can't see the biggy about Ram. I can pull one of my 512mb sticks out and it doesnt seem to make any difference with only 512mb ram. I have very little running in the background though. Also, my new P4 rig only has 512mb of ram and it gets around the same FPS as my AMD PC with 1024mb, I've tried both PC's with different RAM combinations using 512mb of DDR PC3200, 512mb DDR PC2700, and 1024mb DDR PC2700.

Where the extra RAM helps, is if you are processing huge textures for example..... so if you enable the MASSIVE texture sizes in FS, Sure it will use available RAM, but your BIOS must be setup to enable huge textures in graphics as well.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #9 - Jan 17^th, 2004 at 8:54pm

Daz Offline
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ah i see so i have my agp aperature set at 512 mb lol and my massive textures thats ok ??? see spec below

AMD athlon XP2800+ @2.34ghz&&Epox 8RDA3G 400 fsb, 8x AGP&&1024MB DDR400 PC3200&&XFX 256MB FX5950 Ultra (oc 525/1.04)&&40 gig maxtor 7200rpm&&80 gig seagate baracuda 7200rpm&&

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Reply #10 - Jan 17^th, 2004 at 9:21pm

4_Series_Scania Offline
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Quote:

(money is a non-issue)

Ok, GeForce FX5950Ultra 256MB.

Topped off with however much RAM your board will support.

I'd be looking to upgrade the CPU also, Jaffa (You said money isn't an issue.... Wink

) The FX5950 combined with a nice shiny Prescott CPU (coming early Feb) with 1mb of L2cache...... I'd hazzard you'd be nearer to 30fps with full quality! - Ask Daz, he's got the 5950 and I think he likes it!

Paul.

P.S. Can I have any of this "non-issue" money you have? I've got too many issues with my money I care to think about!!! Grin

Happy shopping!

Congo, mines set to 32MB - slows considerably if I set it higher or lower, despite my card being 128MB !!!! ???

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #11 - Jan 17^th, 2004 at 10:32pm

Jaffa Offline
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What the...?
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Woah, slow down mate! Grin

Now, money is a non-issue to get the cards I mentioned. If money were a non-issue for anything else, I'd be running the best I could. Plus, I go to college and get a whole new computer in two years(maybe 4.0ghz by then???).

Right now its looking like a 9800non-pro or 9700pro.

Money to me is not an issue(I can afford a 9800xt), yet the old people that live with me( 8)aka parents! 8)) , seem to think that the 9000pro I have is plenty sufficent!???

Dunno, just don't know! Tongue

(the money is MINE, oh I got the moneyyyyyyyyy)

(taken from Vegas Vacation)

Grin

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Reply #12 - Jan 18^th, 2004 at 5:57pm

Jaffa Offline
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Well guys, i'm the pround new owner of an ATI 9700pro.

Got it on ebay for $182.51, it was used but in perfect condition!

Sweetness! Grin

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Reply #13 - Jan 23^rd, 2004 at 2:35am

congo Offline
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Make BIOS your Friend
Australia

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Posts: 3663

Excellent Jaffa!

Paul, That's weird with the 32mb aperature, and such a low setting as well........

The ram on the card isn't the issue in the BIOS Aperature settings, which I'm not precisely clear on. I'm pretty sure the aperature setting is an enabling setting, like a maximum buffer size, that's all. I figure if it's too low, in causes a bottleneck, if too high could suck ram off the other processes. Anyone know for sure?

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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