e-GeForce FX5200LE AGP, fine but...

[krylite]

Fine card for FS9. I recommend for a low budget upgrade.  They are going for only $45 at newegg.com now!(supports all the dx9 vertex shaders, so water shines!)

But... the whole screen gets "blurry" and the text too when I start of FS9. This usually happens when I had set hardware settings in the display properties for geForce. i.e. Antialiasing 2xQ, Anisotropic 2x, Vertical sync on, etc. Graphics still fine but it's like an extra "overlay" over the whole thing where text(for menus, com traffic text, activeSky, etc) seems thicker etc.

When I leave it on completely app controlled, FS9 is the same "sharpness" as the desktop.

Any hints or help? Appreciate it. Thanks.

[4_Series_Scania]

Fine card for FS9. I recommend for a low budget upgrade.  They are going for only $45 at newegg.com now!(supports all the dx9 vertex shaders, so water shines!)

But... the whole screen gets "blurry" and the text too when I start of FS9. This usually happens when I had set hardware settings in the display properties for geForce. i.e. Antialiasing 2xQ, Anisotropic 2x, Vertical sync on, etc. Graphics still fine but it's like an extra "overlay" over the whole thing where text(for menus, com traffic text, activeSky, etc) seems thicker etc.

When I leave it on completely app controlled, FS9 is the same "sharpness" as the desktop.

Any hints or help? Appreciate it. Thanks.

Sorry, but the words "Fine for FS9" and "FX5200LE" don't inspire me with confidence!

$45 spent on an old Geforce 4 ti from the likes of  e-bay would be a far better buy!  ;)

[the_autopilot]

LE does NOT equal fine.

Get a 6600 gt.

[congo]

The 5200 was the low end of the 5xxx series when they first came out, and were already inferior to many cards already on the market before their release. The "LE" suffix was appended to a few manufacturers cards and usually denoted components that were underclocked to preserve stability on chips that didn't make the official specification.

In other words, you bought a poor card made poorer.

Sorry for your luck. This doesn't mean it won't work, though. If app controlled is working you can always use that setting, but it's not recommended.

Vertical sync should be set "always off" unless you have display problems.

Anisotropic filtering OFF (the 5200 may handle 2x in sparse areas)

Antialiasing 2x Q  maximum, and you will want it off if there are clouds.

Limit FPS to 20

Wind down other settings until you have a flyable framerate.

Fly with bad graphics for as long as you can stand it, then bite the bullet and spend some really big money on the best card you can lay your hands on, and above all, don't tell your wife.  ;D

[krylite]

Thanks for the responses and tips. Hehe, ok, maybe I should have said passable. Actually I was mistaken, my new card is actually a FX5200 128MB DDR "Light Version" in order to fit my mini form factor where it only fits 2.5" high AGP cards. It didn't really say "LE". Not too many to choose from at that price range(< $100) and size.

I guess I haven't seen the more expensive cards in action to really appreciate a difference. Here are the features listed in the back of the box:

NVIDIA CineFX engine
4 pixels per clock rendering pipeline
Up to 16 textures per pass
"blistering" full screen anti-aliasing
AGP 8x/4x
Optimized for DirectX9.0
Support for DX9.0 Vertex Shaders and Pixel Shaders 2.0
NVIDIA nView Multi-Display Technology
Dual 350MHz RAMDACs
NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control 3.0
Video Mixing Renderer
Integrated TV Encoder

So still not up to "fine" standards for $45? I get 20-25 fps ok, with some loading jerks near detailed airports. Computer is Dell P4 hyperthreaded 2.84 mhz, 512MB ram so decent but small form factor. Thanks.

[Dan]

Well I've got the 6800LE - Off a good chipset anyway, but still an LE. It seems a fine card to me.

Im wishing I had spent a little more on my monitor... gone SLI.... and got a bigger his that and the other. You can't have it all, or at least I can't. Im happy with my set up.
Dan  ;)

[congo]

I guess I haven't seen the more expensive cards in action to really appreciate a difference.

You got it in a nutshell there krylite.



Dan,

My long suffering peer, where  on earth did you get that stonking beast of a PC? You must be sooooooo happy with it!  :D   And so what happened to your old PC?
( I hope some old rich lady is made happy by it each time she opens her emails! )

Well, yeah, the LE's are crippled, but the 6800 chip is way, WAY more powerful than the 5xxx series.

You guys can't be blamed, there is so much confusion generated by the whole video card industry, it takes some very dedicated research to sort the facts from the fiction. Even when you think you have it all sorted, you can still make a less than perfect choice, because you don't really know what the box will contain due to variations such as Video RAM specifications on the individual cards.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a buffet type Video Card store:

"Yes Please, I'll have a 6800 GPU, on a purple and Gold PCB, the 256mb Hynix Low Latency RAM, with those funky pink heatsinks and oversize blue fan."

She smiles genuinely and replies "Just take a seat anywhere Sir, Here is your free coffee and steak sandwich while we process your order, Thankyou for supporting our new store.    " .......  and with that wink, you head for your table, munchies in hand, wondering if you are dreaming or not.

[Gaudi]

You guys can't be blamed, there is so much confusion generated by the whole video card industry, it takes some very dedicated research to sort the facts from the fiction. Even when you think you have it all sorted, you can still make a less than perfect choice, because you don't really know what the box will contain due to variations such as Video RAM specifications on the individual cards.

By the time I was considing the colors on the Box to
be the main feature of a video-card, I knew I had lost something: My Mind!

Nice to find a place with people who still got theirs.

Now my question, I read somewhere on this forum that
nVidia cards were able to render nice water-effects. Do the ATI cards not have this feature, even newer ones?

Thanks for any reply,

(...someone who, likes to keep his head close the water!)

[congo]

Hi Gaudi,

The refernce to the water effects and nvidia cards comes to the forums because it was thought that certain new nvidia cards in the past........ namely the GF4 MX420 thru 460 series........ did not support the advanced water texturing in FS2004.

That perception was incorrect, and the only reason that the textures didn't work on those cards was because Microsoft did not enable those features on the cards in the FS2004 configuration files.

An entry simply needed to be added to one of FS2004's files, the "display.cfg" file to enable the fancy water.

There was rumour at the time that a back door deal was done between MS and the video card manufacturers on this point, in order to sell higher end cards to simmers, but I seriously doubt this was true.
More likely it was a simple oversight.

As far as ATI cards are concerned, they were more expensive at the time than their nvidia counterparts in general, and actually suffered less Frame rate loss, (FPS loss), while running the water texturing in all it's glory.

In other words, the ATI cards of the last two or three years were setting the graphics standard while nvidia has been struggling to match their performance, albeit nvidia provided an economic solution for many of us.

The playing field was levelled  when nVidia recently released their 6000 series of cards, in particular the 6800 series, which left nothing to be desired from ATI.

ATI quickly responded with their X800 cards and the race is still very close in the video wars.

The upshot of all this twaddle is the fact that in a few short years, PC graphics hardware has finally advanced to a near acceptable level, and more importantly, it comes at a price that some of us can nearly afford.