Simviation Forum - ATi 9800 pro settings

Sep 22^nd, 2005 at 8:50pm

Steve_Butka Offline
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Ok, now I have a bunch of PMs from great folks here who helped me solve my 9800xt problems when i first got it last year. however, i seem to be running into a problem with the new card (got it today Grin

)

I want to set my AGP Speed to 8x like I know I had it, however the card just will not let me do it. i set it to 8x, restart as prompted, and it defsaults to "OFF". I set it to 4x to test it out, restart, and same story.

I am pretty sure this worked for me with the 9800xt so I am a little confused by this issue.

I can fly in the sim but I am noticing some choppiness and I am running next to zero programs outside of FS9 while doing so.

What gives??

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Reply #1 - Sep 22^nd, 2005 at 9:39pm

JBaymore Offline
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Maybe check your BIOS settings?

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 - Sep 22^nd, 2005 at 10:03pm

Steve_Butka Offline
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Quote:

Maybe check your BIOS settings?

best,

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

that's chinese to me, mate

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Reply #3 - Sep 23^rd, 2005 at 10:35am

Steve_Butka Offline
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update-- this i what happens

my game lags like hell. then if I "alt + tab" it to the desktop, when I bring it back up it's fine (well, better) for a little bit, then it gets horriblly laggy again. then i just repeat that process but i really shouldn't have to do that with a machine like mine.

i have no idea what updating BIOS means. I have the most recent catalyst drivers, too. This is really confusing me.

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Reply #4 - Sep 23^rd, 2005 at 10:37am

congo Offline
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Make BIOS your Friend! (spoken in old wise chinese accent) Wink

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 #5 - Sep 23^rd, 2005 at 10:43am

congo Offline
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You don't update the bios unless you do stupid things like I do, or unless there is a good reason to do it.

When the PC boots up and you see the RAM counting up onscreen, a key is hit, usually DELETE, and then the BIOS setup screen will soon appear.

This is where all the PC's configuration settings are made and balanced, enabled and disabled.

If you get scared in there, just exit without saving. If you are fairly certain of a setting change, make it and save the changes and exit.

It may not help your graphics to go there, but there may be an incorrect setting causes the probs.

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 #6 - Oct 3^rd, 2005 at 7:22pm

cableguy Offline
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The reason why you cant switch to x8 is probably because u need to update your motherboard drivers
I had the same poblem too, till i found out

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Reply #7 - Oct 5^th, 2005 at 1:30am

Nick N Ex Member

Quote:

a problem with the new card (got it today Grin

)

I want to set my AGP Speed to 8x like I know I had it, however the card just will not let me do it. i set it to 8x, restart as prompted, and it defsaults to "OFF". I set it to 4x to test it out, restart, and same story.

I can fly in the sim but I am noticing some choppiness and I am running next to zero programs outside of FS9 while doing so.

What gives??

I can tell you right now because I own an ATI 9800pro AIW you must do the following:

.... UPDATING OR INSTALLING DRIVERS

As Always, shut down any ANTIVIRUS programs prior to making driver updates

When motherboard or video drivers are installed into todays systems there are dependancies that allot of people are not aware of. The best way to make sure you are getting a 100% registered driver installtion is to do the following when updating the motherboard OR the video drivers (either one):

1.
Uninstall all the motherboard drivers, reboot

2.
Uninstall ALL the video drivers, including any video support programs the drivers use such as with ATI the Cat Control Center. Make sure everything that has to do with that video driver is uninstalled and reboot again. FOR ATI DRIVERS, USE THE CATALYST DRIVER REMOVAL TOOL AVAILABLE FROM ATI.

There is a reason for that and I highly recommend both the motherboard drivers AND video drivers be removed when updating EITHER the motherboard OR the video adapter. Upon removal of drivers the OS may install one from its own internal database, which is fine... reboot if Windows instructs you to do so. Once all of the rebooting is completed, continue to the next step. Cancel any "Windows is looking for drivers” boxes and continue on.

Video drivers should NEVER be installed until ALL motherboard drivers have been completely uninstalled/reinstalled and verified.

3.
Install the updated motherboard driver, or if you are only updating the video, reinstall your original motherboard drivers... all of them

Reboot the system and let it sit. Wait for a few minutes after Windows returns to the desktop from a reboot to insure everything installs properly. After waiting for a few minutes cancel any “Windows is looking for drivers” boxes.

4.
Reboot again. Once rebooted to the desktop, again, cancel any Windows is looking for drivers” boxes and continue on.

Rebooting twice after motherboard drivers are installed insures they will register correctly to the system.

5. NEXT, install/update the video drivers.

Even if you are only updating video drivers and not updating the motherboard drivers you MUST ALWAYS uninstall the Motherboard driver first using uninstaller from add and remove programs.

Sounds like allot... well, I have see the results and it assures the drivers will indeed install and function correctly. I have also seen the negative results of not using that method. Trust me, its worth the extra time.

With ATI I really like the latest CAT release and I have never found a single hacked driver version that produced any results that were worth installing the drivers on my Radon 9800pro card. I cannot vouch for Nvidia since I do not own a Nvidia video card. Download the latest CAT drivers from ATI.com

If you use the ATI Media Center, be SURE to get the latest Media Center software and install it PRIOR to the ATI video driver installation.

Your BIOS may not be set correctly for 8X however before you go messing with the BIOS... make sure you have a clean driver install of both motherboard and video drivers.

ATI is HELL to get right if you dont do what I posted above.

After all is set and the CAT control center confirms 8X, Fast Writes, PCI write/read, AGP write/read, etc... settings fot the card should be:

4X AA

16X AF

Mip Detail : Quality

Catalyst AI: DISABLED

Vertical Refresh: Quality (dont set this to off)

Smart Shader: NONE

Support DXT Texture Formats: Checked

Open GL Tripple Buffering: Checked

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Reply #8 - Oct 5^th, 2005 at 1:31am

Nick N Ex Member

Flight Sim settings:

Scenery tab:
1. All sliders to 100% except for WATER DETAIL, leave at 50%
2. Uncheck GROUND SCENERY CASTS SHADOWS but leave a check in all other boxes.
Aircraft tab
3. Slider to 100%
4. Check in all boxes
Weather tab
5. SLIGHT DISTANCE slider to 70 miles
6. CLOUD DRAW slider to 40 miles
7. 3D CLOUD PERCENTAGE to 100%
8. Bullet in DETAILED CLOUDS
9. CLOUD COVERAGE DENSITY Slider to 100%
Hardware tab
10. TARGET FRAME RATE 25, don’t go any higher
11. RESOLUTION set to 1024x768x32 or higher. I run 1280x1024x32 since that is my SONY SDM-HS74P-DVI-D monitor’s native resolution. Any higher would be a strain.
12. HARWARE RENDERING OPTIONS, uncheck everything except: TRANSFORM AND LIGHTING
13. FILTERING to either bilinear or trilinear. Trilinear is best performer, bilinear is for best visual.
14. MIP MAP QUALITY to 4, no higher
15. HARDWARE RELATED LIGHTS to 100% or 8
16. GLOBAL MAX TEXTURE SIZE: MASSIVE or 100%

In the FS9.cfg file, scroll through the entire file and MAKE SURE there is ONLY ONE entry for your graphics card listed as: [DISPLAY.Device.XXXXXXXXX] if there is more than one entry, DELETE ANY DUPLICATES or VARIATIONS OF THAT LINE. ... DELETE ALL BUT THE ONE FOR YOUR 9800PRO CARD

Under the [DISPLAY] and [TERRAIN) headings, replace yours with the following:

[DISPLAY]
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=.7
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=.7
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=.7
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=.7
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=25
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=200

[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.50000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

Save the FS9.cfg file.

Boot the sim and see how you like the changes. If you want more performance, adjust the Scenery tab sliders back, staring with the DYNAMIC SCENERY and working your way backwards to AUTOGEN.

Traffic slider is up to you as this is the next killer of performance. I keep it around 60%

For best cloud performance don’t use weather engines… they will kill your system performance almost every time. The best is still the old and simple fix that is hard to find since the author became a payware author and removed his freeware from all the sites. The original freeware version is legal to own and rare to locate but I found it here: http://www.wspilots.com/index.php?page=4&action=file&file_id=26 Only install the clouds, leave the night enviroment alone. That package works great with the cloud detail settings I posted above.

Set the weather to REAL WORLD DYNAMIC and under the settings section (where the realisim settings are located), make sure in the WEATHER button the option "Download winds aloft data with real world weather" is checked as this gives your FS a more realistic flight experience and adds more real-world air turbulence to the simulation.

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Reply #9 - Oct 5^th, 2005 at 2:39pm

congo Offline
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Make BIOS your Friend
Australia

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Posts: 3663

Quote:

Video drivers should NEVER be installed until ALL motherboard drivers have been completely uninstalled/reinstalled and verified.

Not everyone who reads this thread is gonna be an expert, so a warning needs to accompany it methinks.

I can just see a bunch of guys doing a format after the above advice, or just totally losing performance after wiping out the mainboard drivers and not knowing where, what or even realising they need to install mobo drivers.

I tried using driver cleaner for about a year, it caused me re-formats, so I dumped it. It may have a place, but not in my pc. I've always resolved issues without it.

I usually just install a driver over the top of everything, though I sometimes uninstall the driver to be replaced first. (When I remember before clicking the new driver install!)
It always seems to work ok. And, yes, I can hear you screaming, but I don't care, it works when I do it.

The average Joe is gonna make a mess of his PC if he starts messing about with drivers. Unless there is a real problem with your display, best to leave it alone.

Despite contrary opinion, even at the corporate level, with software titles stating the requirements of the "latest" video drivers............ I always find there is an "old" driver somewhere that works better than any of them. I'm still using nv43.51 for my TI4200 and it rocks for what it is.

A good reason to update a video driver would be a known driver fix for an issue with a particular piece of software you want to use. (like flourescent colors on textures for instance).

Driver updating for performance gains is a dubious exercise at best, with very small gains ever realised, and usually resulting in some other issue to offset your success, even if you did get 1 more frame per second out of the update.

Don't un-install your mainboard drivers unless you know what they all are and exactly where you have backup install programs for them. Typically, people misplace them after first installing their pc's, then they are forgotten.

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 #10 - Oct 7^th, 2005 at 12:17pm

Nick N Ex Member

Quote:

Not everyone who reads this thread is gonna be an expert, so a warning needs to accompany it methinks.

I can just see a bunch of guys doing a format after the above advice, or just totally losing performance after wiping out the mainboard drivers and not knowing where, what or even realising they need to install mobo drivers.

I tried using driver cleaner for about a year, it caused me re-formats, so I dumped it. It may have a place, but not in my pc. I've always resolved issues without it.

I usually just install a driver over the top of everything, though I sometimes uninstall the driver to be replaced first. (When I remember before clicking the new driver install!)
It always seems to work ok. And, yes, I can hear you screaming, but I don't care, it works when I do it.

The average Joe is gonna make a mess of his PC if he starts messing about with drivers. Unless there is a real problem with your display, best to leave it alone.

Despite contrary opinion, even at the corporate level, with software titles stating the requirements of the "latest" video drivers............ I always find there is an "old" driver somewhere that works better than any of them. I'm still using nv43.51 for my TI4200 and it rocks for what it is.

A good reason to update a video driver would be a known driver fix for an issue with a particular piece of software you want to use. (like flourescent colors on textures for instance).

Driver updating for performance gains is a dubious exercise at best, with very small gains ever realised, and usually resulting in some other issue to offset your success, even if you did get 1 more frame per second out of the update.

Don't un-install your mainboard drivers unless you know what they all are and exactly where you have backup install programs for them. Typically, people misplace them after first installing their pc's, then they are forgotten.

If you dont uninstall at LEAST the motherboard AGP (GART) driver, ATI driver installation may not work right. The ATI 9800, or X800 manual states that at minimum the AGP driver should be replaced(updated) or reinstalled prior to running the new video driver installation. I had an ATI engineer clarify those instructions quite some time ago. She apologized for the unlcear nomencature (whoch ATI has never fixed) and clarified the correct driver installation routine, which is what I posted above.

I have seen more performance problems traced back to improper driver installation routine than any other reason. Allot of people dont even know they have a perfomance problem and think their adapter is running at 100%

...hint: one of the reasons 'clean installs' clears up stability and performance problems is because of all the improper driver overlays.

I have yet to 'clean install' any of my systems for years now and never will need to for performance reasons. Its all in knowing how to correctly install and maintain that installation as driver updates, etc are added.

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Reply #11 - Oct 7^th, 2005 at 2:00pm

RollerBall Ex Member

Quote:

I tried using driver cleaner for about a year, it caused me re-formats, so I dumped it. It may have a place, but not in my pc.

Same here. I don't use it either

Quote:

I usually just install a driver over the top of everything, though I sometimes uninstall the driver to be replaced first.

Me too. There are dozens and dozens of drivers on a PC and a device only recognises and uses those which it needs to work. Also, it doesn't matter if you remove an nVidia card and replace it with an ATI even, because as far as the new card is concerned, the old drivers which are left are no different from those which run any other device and they don't interfere. However, they take up unnecessary space and it's therefore a good idea to uninstall them as they can often run to quite a Megs

Quote:

Driver updating for performance gains is a dubious exercise at best, with very small gains ever realised, and usually resulting in some other issue to offset your success, even if you did get 1 more frame per second out of the update.

Absolutely. I just confirmed this during my latest update stuff. I benchmarked the graphics driver that came out of the box and then installed and benchmarked the latest nVidia drivers. They were appreciably slower. Not surprising really as all that has been added to them are drivers for other newer cards in the nVidia range ie data has been added that my card does not need.

I quickly reverted to the older drivers and I won't bother messing with them again.

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