Troubles with nVidia Settings

[yaarpanjabi]

Hi guys, I have a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 ( ) and I downloaded new drivers for it from the nVidia website. The problem is that whenever I use 2X AA, only half of the FS screen shows up, by that i mean its basically stretched to one side of the screen, like this...



The screenshot itself was actually fine, but on my monitor it shows up like that.

Using 4X AA means whenever i switch back to windows, I can't see anything on it, its basically just random lines of colours, quite crazy.

8X AA is so slow to load up into FS that its almost unfeasable.

What could be the problem? Everything worked fine until I installed these new drivers. How can I get the old drivers back? Or, is there a fix for the troubles that I'm having?

Cheers.

[congo]

The 5200 isn't a powerful enough card to run high levels of aa or af filtering in FS9, if you must use it, set x2q AA max.

The stretching is due to the game being displayed in a non standard resolution... ie 800 x 600 or 4:3 aspect ratio. Try setting the game's display/hardware settings to 800x600 / 1024x768 / 1152x864 or 1280x960 (unless you have a widescreen monitor which requires that you set a different aspect ratio ? )

When you install nvidia drivers now, they don't revert to your previous display settings, so you need to set the card up again.

rightclick desktop/properties/settings/advanced/video card tab

A compromise is needed, you either use AA on a low resolution (blurry) or use a high resolution with no AA (jaggies). If you want a better display you'll need to buy a suitable gaming card.

[yaarpanjabi]

But then why is it only in 2X and 2q that the screen appears streched? in 4X and 8 X it doesnt have a problem.

[Politically Incorrect]

With the 5200 especially since it is a older card the newer drivers may not be the best thing for you to use. The newer drivers availble are really set up for use with the newer cards. So newer doesn't always mean better;)

Try using a older driver such as the 66.93 or try some of ther earlier 70 series drivers. One of my other pcs has the FX5200 and can run full settings with good frame rates, I can't off hand recall which drivers I  use in it. When I get home today I will take a look and post back.

[yaarpanjabi]

With the 5200 especially since it is a older card the newer drivers may not be the best thing for you to use. The newer drivers availble are really set up for use with the newer cards. So newer doesn't always mean better;)

Try using a older driver such as the 66.93 or try some of ther earlier 70 series drivers. One of my other pcs has the FX5200 and can run full settings with good frame rates, I can't off hand recall which drivers I  use in it. When I get home today I will take a look and post back.

That would be much appreciated. Also, could you please tell me where to download the older drivers from?

Cheers.

[Politically Incorrect]

Yes it is the 66.93 that i run on the pc with the 5200.
You can find that and other older drivers here :

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.ph ... rt=&page=3

Now these work for me and may not for you so try a few various ones until you find the best for your setup.

[yaarpanjabi]

Yes it is the 66.93 that i run on the pc with the 5200.
You can find that and other older drivers here :

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.ph ... rt=&page=3

Now these work for me and may not for you so try a few various ones until you find the best for your setup.

Thanks so much for that, downloading it now, will keep you posted on how it goes. Did you say FS runs on full settings with your 5200? I can't even get anywhere CLOSE to full settings and still have reasonable frames. Whats your secret?

Edit: Just tested it with the older drivers. Works perfectly now. Thanks very much, you've been really great!!

Cheers.

[Politically Incorrect]

Glad to hear that this helped you some.

My secret to having almost everything maxed out is a lot of tweaking, too much actually to post let alone to remember but tips can be found on the forums.
The main thing is you want to set it up for your machine and find that happy medium of good frame rate and image quaility and that cant always be achived on all machines, many factors are in play besides just the video card and that is CPU, memory and running background processes amoungst many more issues.

So first thing is to make sure any and all unneeded programs and processes are shut down, the more ram the better (no reason for more than 1gig) and then play with your settings in sim, use your video card settings for AA and AF maybe try a setting of 2 and 4 respectivly, and then bump them up a little until you find a good result. Tweak a little at a time.

Also don't fly with the FPS counter running it uses resources and will make you base your sim experiance on it. Remember it isn't how many frames you get it is how smooth your flight is, so set your framerate to be locked at 20-25 somewhere there and then never look at the FPS counter again!

Another performance boost is a good defrag of the HD, NickN has posted a wonderful way to achive this using O&O Defrag (which I also highly recommend been using it for years now) but a good defrag will help your sim as well as all other programs.

Good luck and i look forward to hearing your progress!

[congo]

yaarpanjabi,

When you hear people claiming they run FS9 fine.... maxed out or near maxed out ...... on poor graphics cards such as the FX5200, take it with a grain of salt.

Many claim it, but you'll never achieve it, that I can assure you.

[yaarpanjabi]

Thanks a bunch for your assistance everyone.

Cheers.

[Gunny04]

this reminds me of my MX440 on the HP and Gunnermans External MX440.... you could run FS at 'medium' settings......... without AA, Without water reflections, and a lot of other things missing (basicly it looks like crap), it is correct, without a good graphics card, you cant run FS maxed out or near maxed... The best I can get with my 6200 or my 7300 is without clouds and even then it CAN be a slide show!.... so its safe to say if people say they get the great settings and all on a slower/ancient graphics card (probably PCI or AGP 4X etc), they are probably full of it..... Cheers, Gunny

[Politically Incorrect]

Maybe it is the other way around and the people that say it can't be done just have no clue as to what they are doing

I went through this before with Congo and some others, whom BTW gave me some great pointers on setting it up. There is a post here somewhere probably about a 1-1 1/2 years ago where I posted screenshots taken with my 5200 set up and they clearly show how good it can be, along with frames in and above the 20's.
When I get time I will see if I can dig them up, if not search for yourself but my proof of it being possible is here somewhere on the "V" If it isn't under the name P.I., look for Fretnstuff.

Im not saying everyone can do it, and i dont make that claim I also agree that you need a good graphics card to achive what it is your going for, but that still doesn't mean you can't get by with what you already have.

[congo]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no one is really "full of it".

If a person thinks that a display is fine, great!

Now, maybe I'm just fussy, because I've had 3 large upgrades since the 5200 days and my display still barely gets by, I'm still down to 12fps at times with a 6600GT.

Current hardware, and indeed, requirements for modern software are not even listed on this old antique chart and they go way beyond everything on here for performance, now look at the sad little 5200 down there and realise just where it lies in the scheme of things.





Here is a more recent chart depicting the last generation gear along with some more modern cards. This chart picks up where the other one left off.



Now, as far as I'm aware, and correct me if I'm wrong, but only the very latest and most powerful video cards are able to cope with FS9 in high settings........... indeed, many people provide themselves with two of the brutes in SLI or Crossfire to improve on this sad situation.

Now, Percieve good graphics how you will, that is a subjective view, it's "fine" for anyone to do that without being ripped to shreds by the hardware wolves here in the forum.

But, you are going to be working very hard to justify the claims that an FX 5200 is a suitable gaming card and I doubt very seriously it will even handle a Win Vista Desktop in full flight with any degree of proficiency, let alone some payware addon is FSX.

[Politically Incorrect]

Congo I don't want to be taken wrong, I am not saying that the 5200 can be set to perform with the top of the line cards, but it can be improved by drivers and tweaking, this was already achived with a older driver. Now it is finding the best possible settings to run with. To find the happy medium that he can have to enjoy the sim with the hardware he has available.

Thing is when someone comes here with a issue with a older bottom of the line or midrange card. they will get more replies about having to buy the newest crap or be bashed for having something less than top of the line. when in fact all they want is help with what they have available to them.

It happens every time, just read the video card topics, everytime some one has a issue with a older less than great card the first replies if not all of them is anything but help.

So yes obviously the 5200 isn't going to be able to run FSX or Vista worth a damn, but it can and does run FS9 good if you invest the time to set it up to your machines capibilities, not everyone can afford to buy the newest hardware to fix a issue.

And I agree when I look at FS9 running on my gaming rig, with dual 7800s and then see it on the Dell with a 5200 then there is a dramatic difference, but thing is I never would have known it until I built a better computer

So no the 5200 isnt a "suitable" gaming card but you can set it up to be bareable and better than it was with the right drivers and some tweaks

Help is what he asked for so that is what I attempted to provide.