Last question (for now)..

[Brett_Henderson]

.. then I'll be assembling everything..

Does a PCI sound card help much, far as FPS in FS9 ?

I've got the

[ctjoyce]

We talked about this awhile back, and figured out that a PCI sound card dosnt do anything for FPS in FS9. The only thing that got us them was turning the sound off.

Cheers
Cameron

[Brett_Henderson]

Yeah.. I read and re-read those posts and there really wasn't a consensus...

[congo]

No, the total system draw of sound on these powerful rigs is minimal, it made a big difference on the less powerful systems of the past. You might be able to measure the difference, but I doubt you'll notice it visually as a performance hit.

This is why all my Soundblaster Live! cards are all sitting in the cupboard now.

The onboard sound is well implemented on NF4, though some mainboard manufacturers are using their own upgrade solutions, which I haven't tried.

[Brett_Henderson]

Agreed.. the on-board sound on my last two PCs was more than my ears could care about, quality wise. Digital's digital.. right ?

I didn't think a PCI sound card would help.. I just wanted to comfirm it. There's an uppity little computer shop not far from me. If you go there.. they'll help you just fine, but it'll cost you. If you question their prices.. they're quick to say, "go get your parts online, have a nice day.. now goodbye".. When I asked their coke-bottle-eye-glasses, hairy-elbowed, pale as a ghost expert this question, the disgust in my ignorance was palpable..

[legoalex2000]

honestly, i find the only reason for a PCI sound card falls under these conditions:

>there is no onboard sound
>the onboard sound is damaged
>you need extra audio ports (ie:SPDIF, line ins, line outs, mics)

other than that, IMO you'd be wasting your money.

Ramos

[congo]

[quote]When I asked their coke-bottle-eye-glasses, hairy-elbowed, pale as a ghost expert this question, the disgust in my ignorance was palpable..

[Gunny04]

Depends what you want...... Some sound cards can do things others cant.... I found my MB one loved to crackle in FS and other games (Really annoying) but when I got a new sound card, I got a lot more volume with the same speakers...... Basically if you get a game that supports 5.1 or some weird feature or rare on MB based cards, you wont have the full sound effects or atmosphere....... sure you can run a built in sound card, but if you can afford it, a simple SB live 5.1 or something are quite nice, me I love volume, clarity, and good sound, When I got a new card it fixed the crackle up immeditatly and games sound the same, but I only have 2.1 speakers........ Cheers, Gunny (These are not facts that I found, but rather my own oppinion and views from exipierence with certain things

[Brett_Henderson]

I'll probably be trolling the computer shops one of these days and break down and get a card..

I'm just a geezer who didn't like Windows when it first came out and 3.1-95-98-98SE-ME were horrific. You learn to not go looking for trouble. Install disks (diskettes), drivers.. at times it was like hitting your head against a wall. Installing a new piece of hardware oft-times ended up with a format session (especially 95 (the surest way to corrupt a registry was to do more than boot (and sometimes that did it))).

K.I.S.S. was the motto..

Last of my new hardware will be here tomorrow..Can't wait..

[Triple_7]

I ended up with a PCI sound card a couple months ago when my onboard refused to work.  Worth it for sound quality in not only FS but music and such...Well worth the money.  As a performance boost...nope  Wasnt expecting anything like that out of it anyhow.  But i did notice a whopping 1 FPS gain and a slightly more stable flight.  But that was also when the last hardrive burned up and a fresh one came in without all the extra crap buildup  And FS2002  

So unless you just have the 30 bucks or so burning a hole in your pocket...wouldnt worry about it

[congo]

Well, I've got a slight dose of industrial deafness, but I can still noticeably discern that onboard sound on the nForce mainboards is better quality than my Creative Soundblaster Live! cards, so I would imagine that unless you pay a lot for a real good, quality soundcard, you will be hard pressed to get any advantage out of an addon soundcard.

[Brett_Henderson]

OK.. it's up and running..

ASUS A8N-E nForce4-ultra

AMD643700 SanDiego

EVGA 7800-GT-256

Corsair XMS Platinum (1GB)


It's THE most dramatic increase in performance since I went from an AthlonXP2000/GF4MX440...  to an XP2500(Barton)/9800pro256..

FS9 is silky smooth with everything on ultra-high..

Default747 at Ohare, 100%AI, cold fronts (lotsa clouds).. never falls below 30fps and it seems there's no FPS limit once you're away from Ohare..

No delay generating scenery on side-views from 2D cockpit (that used to drive me nuts).. But there still is a very slight delay "texuring" the model the first time you go to spot-plane view..  OH well...

Everything is "out of the box", so I'm confident it will get even better when I tweak/OC...

One thing bothers me though... the splash screen and select-aircraft screen flicker a bit, but I'm not worried about it.

Thanks for all your help guys    :D

[ctjoyce]

Yup, thats about exactly how my system preforms. When you O/C your processer the extra 200Mhz to reach 4000+ speeds you should see a few of those problems go away (but I didn't see any real improovement until I did 400Mhz on my CPU). As for the GPU even a 50Mhz core and 25Mhz memory clock should see some pretty decent increases. Also you may want to pick up some of the optmised drivers to get the most out of the card

Cheers
Cameron

[congo]

YAY!

Brett, If I use a different screen resolution on my desktop than the game, my CRT monitor gets switched to default 60hz when I run FS9, is that the kind of flickering ?

[Brett_Henderson]

You know ?.. it just might be that. I've always run the desktop at 800x600 for my old eyes..

Far as I can tell though, it's all @ 60 hz (according to the properties from desktop looking at the advanced settings, Gforce 7800 tab)..

The flickering happens when I pull up any menu (hitting "alt") when the sim is running, too.

Maybe I need a better monitor. I've always shy-ed away from flat panels.. This is a relatively inexpensive (but as far as I can tell, wonderful) 19" MAG flat-screen.


P.S.   I'm getting ready to fly my 210 in your canyons.. can't wait to see it all on ultra-high    :D