Simviation Forums

Greetings,

I need recommend a video card to someone for FSX.  I've been waiting to see which is the better card, nVidia 8800GTX or ATI 3870X2.  I haven't seen ANY reviews on the ATI for FSX yet.  What are the opinions on this?  Is the 8800GTX (ultra) still the king?  

-J

Your call on that

the motherboard chipset is deciding factor.. if its old you will prbably want to go with the ultra and if its newer you would be better on the x2

the 2x will not suffer from the nvidia core and driver problems and the IQ is typically better in ATI.

I really think you should wait.. seem like everyone waits till right before the market is ready to start pumping out new technology. Yearly considertions to buy upgrades should always be in June and in November. Reason being... the hardware your are looking at now will be outdated and even cheaper, and, you can consider a better upgrade at the same time

Thanks Nick.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte X38 DDR2 chipset.  I'm actually helping my father build a system for FSX and it's almost complete.  I've been holding off on the card for over 2 months for the very reasons you gave.  I just don't know if he can wait another 3-4 months to start flying-he's an ex-navy pilot, saw my system & now wants his own.  If he has to get a card now then it's 6 in 1 and half dozen in the other, correct?

Oh, can you briefly explain to me the IQ and core issues with the ultra?

-J

FS-X doesn't seem to use both GPU's on the X2, so it's the same as a single 3870.

ATI's AF & AA is better, I've upgraded from a ATI X1900XTX to a Nvidia 8800GT, the Nvidia is faster however I think image quality has degraged, seems to have less colour, more banding. Detail in AF/AA in the distance seems to be more pixelly (AA) and blurred (AF)

MM: That goes back to DRIVER development right now, not all about the game and that is why I suggested holding too because they are working on that and 2x 2 single 3780's work fine in FSX so please be sure to update your assesment. its not the card or FSX, its the drivers which are still in a dev phase



R: IQ = Image Qualtiy and being on a x38 the x2 will have full support however as mentioned above it is still a NEW card and STILL in driver development. 2x singles are an option and the cost is about the same. Even so, CrossX is new as well and as such there wil be improvements over time.

The Nvidia problems go back to and are not limited to this list

Flashing textures
Black flashing spikes
Flickering taxiways/fences and textures
Boxes flashing on screen and lights appearing slowly in view changes
Loss of progressive taxi arrows

[quote]
MM: That goes back to DRIVER development right now, not all about the game and that is why I suggested holding too because they are working on that and 2x 2 single 3780's work fine in FSX so please be sure to update your assesment. its not the card or FSX, its the drivers which are still in a dev phase



R: IQ = Image Qualtiy and being on a x38 the x2 will have full support however as mentioned above it is still a NEW card and STILL in driver development. 2x singles are an option and the cost is about the same. Even so, CrossX is new as well and as such there wil be improvements over time.

The Nvidia problems go back to and are not limited to this list

Flashing textures
Black flashing spikes
Flickering taxiways/fences and textures
Boxes flashing on screen and lights appearing slowly in view changes
Loss of progressive taxi arrows

[quote][quote]
MM: That goes back to DRIVER development right now, not all about the game and that is why I suggested holding too because they are working on that and 2x 2 single 3780's work fine in FSX so please be sure to update your assesment. its not the card or FSX, its the drivers which are still in a dev phase



R: IQ = Image Qualtiy and being on a x38 the x2 will have full support however as mentioned above it is still a NEW card and STILL in driver development. 2x singles are an option and the cost is about the same. Even so, CrossX is new as well and as such there wil be improvements over time.

The Nvidia problems go back to and are not limited to this list

Flashing textures
Black flashing spikes
Flickering taxiways/fences and textures
Boxes flashing on screen and lights appearing slowly in view changes
Loss of progressive taxi arrows

I bought the HD3870X2.

Having some compatibility issues so I havent started her up yet. But I really hope I made the right choice in buying it.

I bought it especially because of the factors mentioned by Nick above. 'd rather have some driver immaturity problems then my clouds blinking @ me all the time  ;)

ATI's AF & AA is better, I've upgraded from a ATI X1900XTX to a Nvidia 8800GT, the Nvidia is faster however I think image quality has degraged, seems to have less colour, more banding. Detail in AF/AA in the distance seems to be more pixelly (AA) and blurred (AF)

AF quality on the 8800 exceeds that of the X1900 as does AA. The problems are issues with the DRIVERS rather than the card itself. After updating my drivers my card defaulted to 16bit. Verify in the control panel that it's 32bit. Negative LOD bias to CLAMP.

If you have the right drivers all of the problems listed by Nick disappear.

Sorry but my eyes aren't deceiving me, in games (not just fs-x) picture quality is worse. In Race 07 even with AA it's still jaggy. There is definite AF "lines" unlike my ATI card.

If there was a single card solution that was equal or faster than the 8800GT I would have bought it. 3870x2 seems a bit buggy and make take months to get corrected drivers (my PC is under powered for that sort of card anyway)

Nvidia has a stupid bug... or maybe a 'design feature', where its predefined profiles override YOUR settings. So if you get jaggies regardless of AA settings. I think you should try Nhancer and duplicate the predefined profile yourself and set your own settings.


AF lines are often caused by Anisotropic Filtering 'Optimisations' and Trilinear 'Optimisations'. Turn them off.


I personally don't beleive the 8xxx series has inferior quality than the X1k series because my 8800GT murders my X1800GTO in every single aspect, and in tests the 8800 series had better AF quality than Radeon x1k ATi x16xHQ as well as having nice new AA modes which enhance image quality.

ATI has inherent better IQ but that also depends on the game too and the user setting things up

Performance wise Nv still has a leg up on ATI and has since the x16 series of garbage was released by ATI. Their x800xt series wiped Nvidia at the time and you wont see head to head competition back until this summer

Any 9000 series Nv is a re-vamped 8000, same freaking crap remarketed. ATI has broken away from the problems the 8000 series cores show because they dropped to the 20 and punted last year, replacing the silicone and fixing most of the problems Nvidia denies are there... (its BS too)

So right now, for raw performance Nv has that, for best IQ and least issues, ATI has that. I am speaking of the newer cards produced in the last 6 months.

However this summer, the games begin

replacing the silicone

You can never have to much silicone.  

Will a P35 chipset support the 3870X2?

absolutely

it will work with the P35 but more the x38 CrossX
and PCie 2.0 for full support

I have not checked up on current P35 motherboard offerings and do not know if they upgraded them. Sometimes Intel will re-release a chipset and add support..  none the less P35 does not support PCie2.0 the last time i checked.

but the card will still work