Malakai Field 1040165 Posted January 25, 2008 at 08:41 AM Posted January 25, 2008 at 08:41 AM hi , guys ok i have a NDVIA 440MX 128mb card and 712 mb of ram. I get around 20 -25 online and 25-35 offline without constant flickering of the fps. im thinking of getting a 512 mb card NDVIA of some sort ( my opinion NDVIA is the best). but what i want to know is how many more frames will i get with a 512mb NDVIA card, than a 128mb NDVIA card, also do graphics card come with ram or not. also what graphics card would you guys recommend me coz i love flying online and now im getting bored co of my frames ect. any help from anyone is welcome thanks for your time reading Malakai Field Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Prest 1012645 Posted January 25, 2008 at 09:51 AM Posted January 25, 2008 at 09:51 AM You dont mention the rest of your specs? Ram, Cpu, etc FS Is very CPU intensive but your current graphics is very low spec so an upgrade will help. My old pc was a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz 3GB Ram ATI X1950Pro 512MB Ram. I could run the PMDG 747-400F with full sliders and average 20-25 FPS on ground default airports, 14-20FPS at Heathrow 2008. I have since upgraded to a Quad core for fs9 and it never drops below 30FPS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Atkielski 985811 Posted January 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM Posted January 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM The performance of MSFS depends more on the speed of your CPU than on the speed of your graphics card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antonio Palmieri Posted January 25, 2008 at 01:03 PM Posted January 25, 2008 at 01:03 PM Dear Malakai, If you would like to stick with nvidia, check out their 8800 series. Highly recommended. Now, most likely the old rule about the more you can afford the more power you will buy is still applicable. Graphic cards come with their own RAM, and their own processor (GPU in their case). Generally speaking, the faster the GPU and the more video RAM on your card, the more fps you will get. However, it is not always so straightforward. Because one has to identify where the bottleneck in their own system will be, and then get the videocard that will be the best value for money according to the the specs of the whole system. In other words, if you were to get a top card like an 8800 Ultra, while you would most certainly see a HUGE improvement on your fps, it might be an overkill because your CPU is not going to be able to feed data fast enough to the GPU. You would probably have moments when your CPU would work at 100% and that would be the bottleneck. Then you could consider a cheaper card, and with the money saved there perhaps you could add add some more RAM to the system, something that FS9 will certainly benefit from in terms of fps. Yes, give us some more specs of your system, operating system and CPU and answers will come. I know what you mean by the way. For several years I flew online (and here I include events, major events, high traffic volumes and all) running FS9 on my laptop, 512 RAM total, 64MB shared intel videoram!! It worked, cause it was finely tuned, but my new system works a lot better! I am not the expert. Others on these forums are way more knowledgeable. See what they say and happy flying Antonio DAA211 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Williams 877539 Posted January 25, 2008 at 03:49 PM Posted January 25, 2008 at 03:49 PM Remember that the limitation can be the machine architecture, not the card. For example, if you have a first-generation PCI-E machine, I'd be willing to bet it wouldn't do you much good to put the absolute best video card you can buy into it, because the bus isn't fast enough to handle the amount of data the card can process. Or said differently, the bus can't feed the card data fast enough to keep it busy. So, it's important to match the specs of your machine with the video card so you're not wasting money on power you can't use. Eventually to move up in video card, you've got to replace the PC (or the motherboard at least). With that said, most people buy woefully underpowered video cards (and yours is pretty dated), so chances are good that an appropriate video card will bring a significant performance jump. My point is simply don't always [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume your machine can handle "the best video card available" unless you've checked it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunnar Horrigmo Posted January 25, 2008 at 05:13 PM Posted January 25, 2008 at 05:13 PM If you would like to stick with nvidia, check out their 8800 series. Highly recommended. I agree. specifically the 8800GT is the thing to get at the moment -- close to bleeding edge performance for half the price. there is a problem, however. the 8800 series isn't available with AGP, and if I'm not mistaken, the 440MX was never available with PCI-e, so Mr Field can't use it. if you need an AGP card, get the ATI X1950 Pro. it may well be the fastest AGP card there will ever be. I recommend a new computer, though. --Gunnar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malakai Field 1040165 Posted January 25, 2008 at 10:10 PM Author Posted January 25, 2008 at 10:10 PM lol , Guys i have no clue what half of you are saying i know what you mean about how i have to distibute power well and not get the best card .... howm uch do knew motherboards cost ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Littlejohn Posted January 25, 2008 at 10:41 PM Posted January 25, 2008 at 10:41 PM Hmm... Judging from what you've mentioned about the card, I did some searching for the specs of the card. It is definitely a 4x or 8x AGP card, so if you were to go with a newer card but keep the same board, your best bet with an NVidia card would be a 7900GS or something in the 7000 series of cards. I don't think the 8000 series has anything AGP in it (they may, but I am totally not sure). Other than that, you're looking at a motherboard upgrade, which depends on if your machine is name brand or not. With your motherboard being AGP, I'll also [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume that it is capable of DDR/PC3200 memory at the most. If you decide to keep it, you could fill up your memory slots (if they aren't already filled. You'd benefit from 1G of memory, and for PC3200 and lower, it should be coming about pretty cheap. Once again, without knowing the specs, it's hard to say. You could get a newer PCI-E motherboard for < $100USD, but it would also mean buying the memory for it too. If you're looking something 512MB for the video card, consider the PSU as well. Here's what I did, as I was in your boat. My specs previously were: Athlon64 3000+ 1G memory DDR PC3200 (2x512) Gigabyte K9NS-Ultra motherboard ATI Radeon 9600SE 128MB 8x AGP video card 500W Antec PSU I pulled all but the PSU out (threw it all into another machine where the motherboard was dying), and replace it with the following: Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPU 2G DDR2 PC4200 memory (2x1G) Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 motherboard NVidia (EVGA) GeForce 8800GT SSC 512MB PCI-E video card 500W Antec PSU The 3 most expensive piece to this (read: more than $100USD) were the motherboard ($109), the video card ($269), and time (priceless). The entire cost of upgrading was less than $500USD (memory I caught on sale for $50, and the CPU was $45). Plus this gives me room to upgrade on all fronts. The drives are the same, with the exception of an OS reinstall (I always reinstall when I do that, and FS9 is on a separate drive). So just some things to think about. AGP will be around for a while, but a lot of technology is not heading that way. You will see an improvement when you upgrade your card should you stay with AGP, but without knowing all of the specs of your machine, it's hard to suggest anything more than just the video card and memory upgrade. BL. Brad Littlejohn ZLA Senior Controller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts