Simviation Forums

For the last couple of years I've been trying to enjoy FS2004 on this:

Gateway 1.8 Ghz, 1024 Ram, Gateway Graphics(64 MB).

I haven't been able to do anything with the graphics  because the the cabinet won't allow for a normal size graphics card upgrade.

This coming friday I have this arriving:

Dell 9100 Pentium D 820 (Dual Core), 2.8 Ghz 800FSB, 1024 MB Ram, ATI Radeon X600 SE 256 MB PCIe Graphics Card, and Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS IEEE 1394 Capable.

Now I KNOW I'm gonna see some improvement, but I notice from some of the other posts about graphics cards the the X600 is an older card.

My question is. Have I made a mistake and Purchased something thats going to need upgrading sooner than later?

The new one is a refurbished Dell (New Warranty) that I chose because the price just looked too good to pass up, and I have limited monetary means. Am I in for a big fall on my expectations? Will my new system be able to run FS2K4 "Full bore"?

It will be quite a step up from the old graphics. Still not close to what some of the newer higher-end cards will give you, but a leap in the right direction. Considering what you had, you should be pleasantly pleased.

Given it's a PCI-e motherboard, you still have graphic card upgrade options for years to come should you choose.

Sweet! Hey thanks for the reply.

I've been a big Simviation fan for a while now, but only recently went paid member. I got tired of being able to watch a whole TV show while waiting for a big file to download.

I have about 300+ a/c I've downloaded from Simviation and I've done a lot of repaints I think came out pretty good. When I get the whole procedure on permissions and upload directions I want to put up some of them.

Thanks again for replying.

Keni

The X600 is not an older card, it's modern, but it's not as powerful as a dedicated gaming card needs to be these days. It won't perform nearly as good as the better cards.

If you aren't interested in the immersion and richness that good graphics give, then it's fine for you.

Great buys are great until you need to actually get them up to spec. I hope in your case that the X600 is not an onboard chip, and that you will have a PCIe x16 slot for graphics expansion.

My PC is also coming tomorrow!
Great, then we can draw the comparison!  :)
Your set up looks quite nice, maybe a 3Ghz would be more future orientated than a 2.8Ghz, but not bad none the less!  ;)

My PC is also coming tomorrow!
Great, then we can draw the comparison!  :)

And you get a 7800GTX

Thanks for the replies, gentlemen. I appreciate the feedback.

I know this is a total "newbie" question, but why is it when I see GeForce or Radeon cards it's like there's more than one maker or brand?

i.e. The eVga, AOpen, BFG and other GeForce cards or Sapphire, DMR, ATI and other Radeon cards.

Are GeForce and Radeon system types and not brand names?

Thanks in advance,

Keni

GeForce and Radeon are the Series of cards (IE Geforce 7800GTX) While BFG Tech and Sapphire are brands.

ATI and nVidia are the two major players producing graphics processing units (GPU's) and graphics chipset designs.

ATI actually make or get someone to make their own brand cards (Radeon's).

nVidia has been calling their card designs "GeForce", and as far as I know, they aren't in the business of producing their own cards.

Both chipset makers license third party manufacturers to build their designs and use their proprietry chips.

By purchasing one or the other of the two types, nVidia/GeForce or ATI/Radeon, you inherit the Characteristics/Drivers/Support of that "Genre".

Traditionally, ATI have usually provided a better card on paper and visually compared with nVidia cards of the same time period, but the Radeon's seem to always be more expensive and they have had much bad press over their driver support.  Many folks have become emotional supporters of one camp or the other. I think personal experience has more to do with it than anything, there is not much difference between them really, and the lead is taken by one, and then the other, like some great video race.

and can i just say bbstackerf even your old computer walks all over mine in terms of power! but the Dell looks a good one hope ya have fun with it!
Kinda Regards
Ben

Thanks for the responses, ctj, congo, and bassman. Well, friday is here, and I'm starring out the office window nervously. Everytime a UPS truck goes by I hold my breath. Man, I must be an addict.  ;D I'm like a kid waiting for Santa.

Regards to all and enjoy your weekend!

Keni

Well, it finally arrived this morning. It's sitting here waiting for me to bring it home and hook it up. I hope it does what I hope it will. The more I read up on the boards it seems like I didn't move up that much. The dual core is basically useless in regards to running FS9 any faster, the X600 isn't even a dedicated graphics card - it's a multi media card.

Guess I'll just have to wait till I see for myself if she (I always give my PCs female names cuz I don't fully understand them and they can be tempermental) can impress me.

It will be a decent upgrade, don't worry. It won't perform miracles is all.

One word. Wow! Man, this was deffinitely a good move. I got it home, hooked it up, turned it on and held my breath. I started out with default settings. Nice and smooth. Kept raising everything and getting more and more impressed.  

It started getting a little jittery when I had all the settings including AI traffic maxed out.  So I backed it down a bit and wound up with the recolution at 1024X860 32bit, scenery, aircraft and hardware at full, weather full except cloud coverage at 50%, and AI traffic at 70%.

Even had it running at 1280X1024 32bit resolution which ran fine, but I had to sacrifice some AI traffic and deselect dynamic scenery.

Never been able to run it this high EVER. More than happy with what I was able to get out of my new system.

The only down side? Having the screen resolution so clear makes imperfections and mistakes in my repaints stand out. But I think I can live with that because I can fix that without spending more money.

You should drop the resolution and use the same resolution on your desktop as on your apps if possible.

At 1024x768x32 or 1152x864x32 you can use AA & AF in moderation to achieve best quality/FPS balance.

Clouds at 100% significantly gives the sim a more realistic feel, well worth losing the super high resolution, with the possible exception of you doing most of your flying on the tiny instrumentation of some addon cockpits.