Honest Graphis card opinion..

[diablo_red]

I have got FS2004 currently on order.

I checked the min spec which I exceed by some distance but I wish I had looked into the graphics card side of things first because....

Although my PC is quite new I only have a Nvidia 64MB DDR GeForce4 MX 420 graphics card (latest driver).

Now you have all stopped laughing I need to know just how well/poor the game will perform.

My spec is:

Dell Dimension 4550 Pentium 4 2.66 GHZ
512 MB DDR RAM @ 333MHZ
120 GB Hard Drive @ 7200rpm
Nvidia 64MB DDR GeForce4 MX 420 (latest driver)
Soundblaster 5.1 Live
Windows XP SP1

I am not after cutting edge graphics but will it at least be easy on the eye and playable? I also hear alot about frame rates?

All advice appreciated

Cheers

[Cherokee_6]

I have the same Video card and it was suggested to me to install the 40.72 driver version from Nvidia's website. I did that and it runs alot better.

I have found the newest driver does not always mean the best.

[Liam]

Stop laughing at your 64MB graph card? What about my 8 mb on board.  :-[

64 seems fine too me.

[4_Series_Scania]

In myhonest view, FS2004 should be reasonable with that graphics card, but, I would'nt expect too many frame rates! i.e. the more the better......



Your machine, considering its spec of a decent CPU, super fast RAM and a 120GB HD are just screaming for any mid range graphics card!

I've got an Asus FX5600 128MB card, slower RAM than your system, a really cheap & nasty Jetway VIA Chipset motherboard and the really terrible Intel Celeron 1.7ghz CPU !

[Iroquois]

I agree. The Geforce FX is an excellent card. I could get much more out of it if I had a faster CPU. I bought my Geforce FX5200 for $67US from eBay. The FX is truly superior to the Radeon and past GF cards.
You don't need super frames though. 10fps offers fairly smooth operation. 16fps is what a movie at the cinema plays at. 25-30fps is the most you should run FS at.  

[diablo_red]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I'll load it up and see how I get on and then make a decision as whether to get a new card or not.

One last question though.

If my current card is not compatable with DirectX 9 does that mean I should not install direct X 9 (as I understand it is with the game) or will it just simply not recognise it?

Thanks

[Daz]

yeah they say past 20fps and the eyes are unable to actualy see it so anything over 20 is good


another alternative is the geforce 4 ti4200 128mb its probably the best value graphics card out at the moment in my own opinion. my fs2002 runs about 20 fps fully maxed out on a cheap and nasty asus motherboard and an athlon 1.4 thunderbird