about my video card

[RickG]

Hi all. Probably a dumb question, but I sure don't know so I gotta ask. Do things like internet, email, or other application windows rely on the vid card to display them, or is the card mostly a games kind of thing?  Thanks.  Rick

[Mazza]

Well the vid card displays all the stuff so you need one

And it doesn't really matter about emails ect. on which one you get, Only matters in games

[RickG]

Hi Mazza. Ok, I kinda figured it had something to do with everything--just checking. So 2 questions then-- Does a vid card either work, or not, or can the performance degrade, so it works, just not 100%?  Also, is there some kind of diagnostic program for a card?  Thanks for your time.  Rick

[NickN]

Perhaps if you were to explain the reason you are asking this, as in why do you question your Vcard, and it would be better answered

The Vcard has, (very basic explanation) 2 sides to it,, one for typical desktop use and one for D3D which had DX and OGL support for 3D applications.

The majority of the card is dedicated to the performace side of 3D. It is possible for either to have issues and cause perf problems however usually that is only seen in 3D use. If the native support side has problems that are not fixed with drivers then its a sign of hardware failure

What is the issue

[RickG]

Hi Nick. This is along the line of my other post  http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1240100128   A new annoyance is that occasionaly in FSX my textures seem almost non-existant. There are virtually no ground textures, and planes are all grey, until I do that 'refresh scenery' thing. Also my regular fps of 20-30 drop to like 3-5 sometimes, for a short time. I am just wondering if all this is telling me my card may be going down the toilet. Thanks for your time.  Rick

[NickN]

Are you telling me that at one time you had great perf and visuals with FSX and now its all falling apart?

Your system is not what I would call a FSX tower.. more FS9 even if running 100% and clocked

In this case you are either dealing with a corrupted system or a hardware failure. You said your system was running dog slow even opening IE

My advice here to simplify things and move them along is to consider a complete wipe of the hard drive and reinstall of everything.. NOT A WINDOWS REAPAIR install, a CLEAN WINDOWS install from scratch. And make sure you have all your Windows Updates as well after the install.

Make sure you have all your drivers (check for updates) ready to install and then use the list at the top of the FSX forum to install FSX correctly and last to optimize the system.

You will find a link to FSX tuning in the same thread about 4-5 posts down

If after you do a clean install the same issues are present then I would say you are having a hardware failure somewhere.. does not mean it is the video card either

Before you embark on all that I would make sure this tower is clean of dust.. verify the CPU, video card and tower fans are not plugged up with dust and if they are get it all cleaned out and check again.

[RickG]

Well, I wouldn't say that my FSX had great perf and visuals by most standards, but realizing what I am working with, many times I have looked at the outside scenery and have been very impressed, as well as the sim flying relatively smooth. The texture downgrading does seem to happen more often lately tho. I'm sure I would laugh if I could see how it all works on a 'real' machine. Anyway, I will take up on your suggestions and see what happens.