Video Card Upgrade

[Bubblehead]

Is there any significant difference in performance between a Radeon HD 7770 and a Radeon HD 7870?

[Bass]

http://www.hwcompare.com/12188/radeon-h ... n-hd-7870/

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/536?vs=548&

[Bubblehead]

OK. Looks like the HD 7870 far exceeds the HD 7770 in performance. My next question is: will the HD 7870 improve performance of the FSX?

[OldAirmail]

In all probability, yes.

But it may also depend on what chipset your motherboard has.

Mine has the Sandy Bridge chipset and can't fully utilize the HD 7xxx series.

The last proviso is that some systems seem to work better than others with the HD series. I've read of people switching away from the Radeon HD series to other brand cards and having better results.


On the other hand my HD 6850 works just fine.


I do have to say, though, that this was taken just after I'd reinstalled FSX, and have absolutely no add-ons loaded yet. Also, there were no tweaks applied. This is as basic as FSX can get, a fresh new install.

Although all of the flight gear stuff is plugged in, and the one Saitek "Flight Instrument Panel" is on and working, only 3 of my large monitors are in use. The other 3 weren't on at the time.

[Bubblehead]

My mobo is an Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0, Chipset is an AMD 990FX/SB950 and processor is an AMD FX 8320 8-Core.
One other question: My video cards is an Asus Radeon HD 7770. Would it be better if I crossfire it with another 7770? or would a single 7870 be better.

[Bass]

I would choose a single 7870. FSX dont give much at sli or crossfire.
(Havent checked your system)
My 2c.

[OldAirmail]

System wise, you have more than enough power. FSX came out in 2006, so anything made in the last few years, that isn't badly screwed up, should do just fine.

But I have to assume that you're interested in more than just FSX.

Or you're one of those people who dream of an Airbus A380 or Dreamliner in a spare part of your house.

I'd like to have such dreams, but I'm married.


BYW - My opinion of striving for higher FPS?

Your human eyes can't distinguish much over 30-35 FPS. So if your images are as steady at 30 FPS as they are at 60 FPS why bother trying to maintain 60 FPS?

To me, the whole purpose of having more FPS than you can see is so you can crank all the settings higher!

[lunitic_8]

In all probability, yes.


On the other hand my HD 6850 works just fine.

Was this with the settings turned all the way down? Was the game paused when you took this pic? If I remember correctly(forgive me if I'm wrong for it has been a few years) it's better to have a set frame rate instead of having it to try and achieve the highest frame rate possible.

[OldAirmail]

I uninstalled FSX and all of the add-ons because I was getting side effects from Add-ons that I had previously install. To put it simply I was installing anything & everything that looked interesting when I first started using FSX just over 2 years ago.

But it looks like the settings were save elsewhere, My Doc's probably.

Anyway, here they are;











The 172 had just taken off, and was running. Not paused.

There's nothing really exceptional;
Asus P67 Sabertooth motherboard
i5 2500K (not overclocked, there doesn't seem to be a need to, yet)
Samsung 830 SSD (there's a secondary Western Digital Black HD)
Radeon HD 6850 Eyefinity series card (with 1GB DDR5 ram)
16 GB ram

FSX is on the SSD. Scenery will be on the WD drive, eventually.

[OldAirmail]

Bubblehead, forgive us for going off on a tangent here, but in a way THIS IS relevant to your question.

You have (or are getting) a better graphics card than the one I have now (a HD 6850). You should have better results than what we're talking about.

In all probability, yes.


On the other hand my HD 6850 works just fine.

Was this with the settings turned all the way down? Was the game paused when you took this pic? If I remember correctly(forgive me if I'm wrong for it has been a few years) it's better to have a set frame rate instead of having it to try and achieve the highest frame rate possible.

Just to make everyone feel better, I think that that was a fluke.

I'm still in the button/knob/switch setup mode after re-installing FSX.

FSX is still in it's original post install mode, in other words there's no real modifications.


While running FSX with 6 monitors (plus the 1 Saitek Pro Flight Instrument Panel) just now, I'm getting 30 to 40 FPS. mostly around 35-40.

When I press the GPS button on the Pro Flight Instrument Panel to make the GPS screen pop in my DeskTop Aviator GPS panel the FPS drops by about 5 to 6 FPS.

There are still some things to tweak, and if all goes well I should be back up in the upper 50s or lower 60s again. Of course that's not taking into account the 5 to 6 FPS drop for the GPS panel.

[Bass]

And as OldAirMail shows in traffic settings, be careful there. It can really take power from the rest in FSX