ATI 5850 for FSX or not

[Slotback]

I am just wondering Speed of flight, do YOU actually listen to the benchmark folks? Or do you actually buy ALL the hardware there is to get, and try it? Basically all you've done is posted your own pleasant experiences and assumed that your hardware is automatically the best that money can buy, and then you parrot AMD marketing from about 2005. You claimed that an AMD advantage was an integrated memory controller... i7 has had that for two years, and that platform performs MUCH better than Phenom II in this regard. What year do you live in? (FYI, what made the Pentium 4 SLOW was not the lack of an integrated memory controller, but a long and inefficient execution pipeline). In any case, in the benchmarks I've linked it is shown conclusively that the Core i7 is faster than the Phenom II, and it is also shown conclusively that an ATi graphics card will perform better on a Core i7 over a Phenom II. Claiming that ATi is ahead of Nvidia because they used GDDR5 is nonsense, it's like me claiming that Nvidia is ahead of ATi because they use a 512 bit bus interface. FACT, for the majority of the previous 12 months, Nvidia has been ahead of ATi. The only thing that has changed that is the Radeon 5xxx series, but I fully expect when Nvidia's new lineup is released, Nvidia will be leading again. A Core i7 will get far larger stable overclocks than a Phenom II... btw, good luck getting past 3.8 - 3.9ghz on a Phenom II without relaxing external clocks.... i.e. QUIT filling peoples minds with BS, and loose the damn attitude. None of this means AMD is bad, I always recommend them if one does not have the money for a Core i5, or Core i7, furthermore I will pretty much always recommend ATi 5xxx series at this moment in time. That will probably change.

FYI, frame-rate in FSX does not necessarily mean much. Most people lock it at 20 - 30 fps so they can actually, unlike you, fly faster than 250 knots without the memory turning to mush. I can see it in your screenshots btw, the ground scenery does not even look that good as opposed to, here, here, here, here, and here. I'm betting I can get more FPS on a Pentium 4 / X800 than you... doesn't mean it's playable at all though.



Your simulation:

(unknown speed, 17.8fps, very blurred ground, very little autogen)



My simulation:

(459 knots, 26.0fps, autogen maxed out, ground crystal clear.... it's difficult to read becase I'm at 1920x1080, resizing the picture down to 1024 makes the text small..)



ANYONE can unlock the framerate, load up the 2d cockpit, point the noise into a blank sky and say... "WOW, look how good my computer is".... but in reality it means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You were getting 17.8fps when the ground turned into a mush - NOT SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT.

btw, maybe you should read Nicks fsx optimisation stickies at the top of the FSX forum... because I am thoroughly UNIMPRESSED by your sim at this moment. Mine looks better, runs better, and I'm on slower hardware.



That's 424.5 fps btw and my sim is not even optimized. It was jumping to over 500 but I couldn't be bothered wasting more time trying to grab a screenshot of it. specs: Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.0ghz & 8800GT (stock clocks).


What actually does matter, however, is the actual experience the hardware gives. It is incredibly naive to think that Phenom II will outperform the i7, when in actuality, the i7 outperforms the Phenom II in every single benchmark, and also overclocks further.



BTW, the op needs a new videocard. IT might be good advice to recommend him the Radeon 5850, and Radeon 5870. But it is absolutely treacherous to recommend a Phenom II to him when he already has a MUCH faster Core i7. BTW, ATi can do clouds, only they get a bigger hit from them. Try enabling light bloom, water 2.0x max, max autogen, and 5 layers of cumulus clouds above a city, in PMDG MD-11 virtual cockpit, and you tell me how it runs. And yes, members like Nick Needham have tried both ATi and Nvidia. If you don't like it then ask him.... this is what he said...:

[quote]Because Ati cards are designed for shader driver rendering engines and FS9/FSX is a old school triangle rendering engine that requires a video core which is targeted at CPU bound render code which Nvidia still caters too.

and if anyone here wants to tell me ATi runs FS9/FSX better or equal to Nvidia under equal weather conditions and high load payware aircraft then that tells me they are clueless from the neck, up when it comes to hardware technology


You guys are welcome to use what you want but dont EVER post I am some kind of fanboy freak.. What I post comes from 45 years of being a lead engineer in the aerospace industry and if you think you can argue tech

[T1MT1M]

Well said.

[Thai09]

This is actually a very good discussion folks...

With the excitement SpeedoFlight shows, we get all kinds of facts and lessons on the table, thanks!


NNNG wrote:

"FYI, frame-rate in FSX does not necessarily mean much. Most people lock it at 20 - 30 fps so they can actually, unlike you, fly faster than 250 knots without the memory turning to mush. I can see it in your screenshots btw, the ground scenery does not even look that good as opposed to, here, here, here, here, and here. I'm betting I can get more FPS on a Pentium 4 / X800 than you... doesn't mean it's playable at all though."

I've said it before: Are people aviators or "scenery/landscape artists"?

Full speed in a F-16 at low altitude in real life: Don't you think everything get's a little blurred?!

Another thing: Pollution, smoke, smog, really bad weather, the windscreen get's blasted with insects, garbage and what not...

My suspicion is that many a "Fine Simmer" is a nerdy perfectionist who is on a meaningless hunt for

[Slotback]

I've said it before: Are people aviators or "scenery/landscape artists"?

We are not aviators or scenery / landscape artists. We are flight simmers.

Full speed in a F-16 at low altitude in real life: Don't you think everything get's a little blurred?!

No.

If you think it does...

1. Disable autogen
2. Set scenery complexity to Very sparse
3. set level of detail radius to low
4. set mesh resolution to 305m
5. set texture resolution to 10m

You tell me if that is "realistic" because that's your "motion blur". Looks like utter tripe I must say,,, and btw, generally buildings in real life do not magically disappear at 600 knots nor does the ground literally melt. In real life, things appear a blur because you're moving fast past them. This is simulated by.... moving fast past objects... e.g. buildings.

BTW, blurries when flying fast were a massive complaint with FSX. It looks like utter BS.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&s ... =&aq=f&oq=

Also what are you trying to say? The Phenom II is better than Core i7 because it can simulate "motion blur" thus delivering perhaps the number one complaint of FSX? (well honestly it depends on how the sim is set up...)

[quote]My suspicion is that many a "Fine Simmer" is a nerdy perfectionist who is on a meaningless hunt for

[Speed of flight]

Thai09 has it there. I am looking for the perfect sim experience. However, to NNNG, I didn't just point the thing at a blank sky and hope for the best. I was on Autopilot on a 1800 FPM ascent to 20,000 ft when I snapped those pics, with REX2 runing, etc.

Also, I can agree that an ATI card doesn't care what kind of CPU you have, i.e. a Phenom (2) or i7. However, just telling people that because you got a better benchmark score on something gives you better results is crap. Only geeks care about a number on a score sheet. Lets see the program run faster. A little friendly, RESPECTFUL, non-junky screeny competition with all your settings maxed, just to see if I'm the only one or not.
I don't buy your screenshot: you seem to be the kind of egotistical guy that just doesn't want to lose, that's why the attitude. It's obvious that you pause the game, snap a great screeny after the scenery has rendered, and try to call me on the carpet with it. I did say that when I get to a busy area, I dip down to 25-35. All I wanted was to see a screen with big frames, and you could have left your junk somewhere else, like in your PC case.

I'll tell you that I have tried MANY different hardware combinations. Not EVERY one, but MANY. I started out 4 years ago with an ATi X-700 pro with an Athlon 3500+. Still got 2 old MoBo's and my old phenom 9850, an Nvidia 7600 somethin, had

[Thai09]

Loosen up, NNNG!

Lots of stuff out there to avoid when flying, cows f.ex.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkOug1c9YCQ

This Shipboard Aircraft Safety Precautions

[Speed of flight]

I've said it before: Are people aviators or "scenery/landscape artists"?

We are not aviators or scenery / landscape artists. We are flight simmers.

Full speed in a F-16 at low altitude in real life: Don't you think everything get's a little blurred?!

"No."

Your ignorance is showing again.

"If you think it does...

1. Disable autogen
2. Set scenery complexity to Very sparse
3. set level of detail radius to low
4. set mesh resolution to 305m
5. set texture resolution to 10m"

This is the OPPOSITE of what I was saying. Best FSX can do, and highest settings. Jeese, you i7 people. J/K. Hooboy.

"You tell me if that is "realistic" because that's your "motion blur". Looks like utter tripe I must say,,, and btw, generally buildings in real life do not magically disappear at 600 knots nor does the ground literally melt. In real life, things appear a blur because you're moving fast past them. This is simulated by.... moving fast past objects... e.g. buildings.

BTW, blurries when flying fast were a massive complaint with FSX. It looks like utter BS."

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&s ... =&aq=f&oq=

"Also what are you trying to say? The Phenom II is better than Core i7 because it can simulate "motion blur" thus delivering perhaps the number one complaint of FSX? (well honestly it depends on how the sim is set up...)"

Hmmm. Seems to me the #1 complaint was all you Intel P4 users complaining about FPS/can't max the settings.

[quote]My suspicion is that many a "Fine Simmer" is a nerdy perfectionist who is on a meaningless hunt for

[Thai09]

Agree Speedoflight!

A quote from this page:

"One of the friendliest forums on the Net!"

Yep, but also with some of the most arrogant "I-know-better-than-You" types around.

Read what Snave has to say about being a pilot and a simmer:

A pilot's view on flying and FSX:

"Ah! you have to love the contentiousness that develops every time someone dares to criticise someone elses tweaks in FSX. I've told you the truth, Mathijs has stated it plainly: FSX has the capability to deliver what most simmers need. But it's the simmers demands - their WANTS - that screw it up most times.

The fact that FSX can't deliver what most simmers WANT is a different issue...

Let me put this into context: I flew a Warrior recently (a real one, not a desktop recreation) to perform a photographic mission for comparison purposes for simmers. It got screwed up:
1: While preparing for the flight from Fairoaks I had to do a walkround in long wet grass. FSX fails to deliver the experience of wet socks, it cannot recreate the fuel drain contortions (I used a rubber mat, but still got my knees wet) and it failed conspicuously to represent the sheer bloody aggravation of getting my maps into a too-small map pocket.
2: It was a sunny winters day and the crazing on the windscreen meant that at certain sun angles there was no view out the front, and at others the poor quality of the glazing meant that every straight line had a kink in it (anti-aliasing as a FALSE flight sim experience? Whatever next?)...
3: After take-off, the GPS gave us a perfect route to the area required, missing all the airways and other traffic, Unfortunately at 1500 AGL the haze was so bad that we could barely see the ground at any slant angle (a criticism levelled at FSX oh so often) and ATC routed us away from some traffic coming into Farnborough, so we strayed conspicuously from the red line. I can see the complaints from FS veterans now.
I then overflew Goodwood without even knowing that was where I was, climbed out over the coast and then turned back to Shoreham and Fairoaks. At no point could I make out clearly a tree, a house or even a golf course on the ground... industrial estates were visible and major roads, but they all look alike - Funnily enough, JUST like FSX...

So don't give us any crap about `realism`. Most non-pilots simply haven't a clue.

In fact, I would now go further, based on our advice:

BEFORE you go out and spend 800 Euros on a new rig, spend a hundred quid on an air experience flight and learn what FSX is really trying to recreate. It will be a terrible, shocking surprise. Or a revelation, depending on whether you take the advice to heart...

Snave, on 11 December 2009"

More here:

http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php ... 30796&st=0

[Speed of flight]

[quote]Loosen up, NNNG!

Lots of stuff out there to avoid when flying, cows f.ex.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkOug1c9YCQ

This Shipboard Aircraft Safety Precautions

[Speed of flight]

Agree Speedoflight!

A quote from this page:

"One of the friendliest forums on the Net!"

Yep, but also with some of the most arrogant "I-know-better-than-You" types around.

Read what Snave has to say about being a pilot and a simmer:

A pilot's view on flying and FSX:

"Ah! you have to love the contentiousness that develops every time someone dares to criticise someone elses tweaks in FSX. I've told you the truth, Mathijs has stated it plainly: FSX has the capability to deliver what most simmers need. But it's the simmers demands - their WANTS - that screw it up most times.

The fact that FSX can't deliver what most simmers WANT is a different issue...

Let me put this into context: I flew a Warrior recently (a real one, not a desktop recreation) to perform a photographic mission for comparison purposes for simmers. It got screwed up:
1: While preparing for the flight from Fairoaks I had to do a walkround in long wet grass. FSX fails to deliver the experience of wet socks, it cannot recreate the fuel drain contortions (I used a rubber mat, but still got my knees wet) and it failed conspicuously to represent the sheer bloody aggravation of getting my maps into a too-small map pocket.
2: It was a sunny winters day and the crazing on the windscreen meant that at certain sun angles there was no view out the front, and at others the poor quality of the glazing meant that every straight line had a kink in it (anti-aliasing as a FALSE flight sim experience? Whatever next?)...
3: After take-off, the GPS gave us a perfect route to the area required, missing all the airways and other traffic, Unfortunately at 1500 AGL the haze was so bad that we could barely see the ground at any slant angle (a criticism levelled at FSX oh so often) and ATC routed us away from some traffic coming into Farnborough, so we strayed conspicuously from the red line. I can see the complaints from FS veterans now.
I then overflew Goodwood without even knowing that was where I was, climbed out over the coast and then turned back to Shoreham and Fairoaks. At no point could I make out clearly a tree, a house or even a golf course on the ground... industrial estates were visible and major roads, but they all look alike - Funnily enough, JUST like FSX...

So don't give us any crap about `realism`. Most non-pilots simply haven't a clue.

In fact, I would now go further, based on our advice:

BEFORE you go out and spend 800 Euros on a new rig, spend a hundred quid on an air experience flight and learn what FSX is really trying to recreate. It will be a terrible, shocking surprise. Or a revelation, depending on whether you take the advice to heart...

Snave, on 11 December 2009"

More here:

http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php ... 30796&st=0

How true. I could run around outside in the rain to get my socks wet, come in here and fly, and have a great experience with higher realism, but that just doesn't seem a likely activity for us simmers to perform to achieve a "higher level of realism". I'm comfy here in my chair, and long for the days in that Piper Cherokee Warrior humming over the headset. However, I'd do it next time without some 18 year-old instructor telling me how to fly, be a man, etc.
Washington State was a great place to take both my lessons. Great for longer than scheduled flights. Renton Airport in Renton WA went IFR only during my 2nd flight, and we got stuck in the air for an extra hour. My instructor was a VFR guy, and was good enough to only charge for the 1 hour. Simulate that.

[Speed of flight]

NNNG wrote:

"FYI, frame-rate in FSX does not necessarily mean much. Most people lock it at 20 - 30 fps so they can actually, unlike you, fly faster than 250 knots without the memory turning to mush."

I wonder what really does matter then. If smooth, lifelike virtual motion doesn't matter, what does? A high 3D benchmark score? Because with that, it really means something. It means that really doing anything doesn't matter, but a virtual, mentally-masturbatory high score is the all important basis for performance. What I think I'm gonna do, is turn all the settings all the way down, hit over 1000 FPS, post a pic, and see if THAT really matters...

[Thai09]

Can't find this realism in the Sim:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34823304/ns/travel-news/

Cows, birds, garbage... What next?

[Speed of flight]

Phenom II recognized as "as good for the money" as intel i7. That's what's next. Ultimate in reality.

[Speed of flight]

Got some new pics. As I said before, ALL SETTINGS ARE MAXED, LOD radius tweaked to 7.5 from the 4.5 stock. REX2 running, even flying fast this time. Jeeze.

Hope these are good enough. Re-sizing kills the detail. Some don't have to go as small as others to be under 150KB.

Rome


Flying a chopper in Rio


Downtown LA


Me making my poor, outdated, amd cpu bottlenecked ati card render clouds against its will...


And, for those thinking that we ATi users still have never seen a cloud in fsx...


Nothing in the 100's, but I think there won't be much complaining about that. If I made the .CFG file back to stock, I'm sure it would go plenty faster, but who wants to do that?

[Speed of flight]

Where's your proof? Do you listen to the benchmark folks? Or do you actually buy ALL the hardware there is to get, and try it? How can you say that when it's actually true? Don't just try and argue with no basis. You haven't a clue, my friend. It works for me. I posted pics just to prove it.

I didn't know I had to post benchmarks only to show the blatantly obvious... this is stuff school children could understand...... but I digress.... I posted benchmarks... they all agree with me, not you.

That's rude, even. What do you run? You get 300 FPS? I bet not

I run a two year old Q6600 (2.4ghz) overclocked to QX6850 spec (3.0ghz) and an overclocked 8800GT videocard. I get a constant smooth 26 fps, which allows me unlike you to have crystal clear all the way up to 600 knots.

You're such a weenis. "Schoolchildren could understand" "Unlike me, a constant 26 fps" garbage. You sound more like you need to try to belittle someone, or get them all angry or something when you can't possibly keep up. Don't try to accomodate a lack in hardware or knowledge with a comment to put someone below you. Your lack in character and true experience shows when you say things like that.
It's ok, though. I can understand the lack in intellect that often follows someone who wants to win so badly. Justify your entire existence with a 5-digit benchmark score. Play the game, and knock it off. You aren't any better than anyone else.

By the way, your 400+screenshot doesn't even look genuine. Looks photoshopped. Just figure I'd help you out the same way you did to the poor guy wanting to upgrade on a budget.