Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
Graphics Card |
DVA3911
Captain, CRJ-200
Joined on January 13 2007
Southeastern United States
11 legs, 13.3 hours
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Posted onPost created on
May 08 2008 19:23 ET by Shane Stanley-Ayre
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Hey Guys,
Im thinking about getting a new graphics card for my computer. Right now I am able to run fs9 with medium settings very smoothly. Im looking for a card that at most costs $100. Im probably going to get it at Bestbuy or any other store like that.Im really looking to be able to run fs9 with maxed out setting or possibly even fsx smoothly. Any suggestions?
Here are my specs
Hewlett Packard Company
HP Pavillion
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor
3300+
1.81 GHZ, 896 MB of RAM
Physical adress extension
Thanks!
Shane Stanley-AyreCaptain, CRJ-200
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DVA3124
Captain, B777-200
Joined on May 09 2006
Everett Century Club
Online Century Club
50 State Club
Globetrotter
Triple Century Club
"If it aint Boeing, I aint going" Oklahoma City, OK
360 legs, 1,367.4 hours
129 legs,
482.4 hours online 320 legs,
1,220.2 hours ACARS 12 legs,
46.3 hours event 9 legs dispatched, 0.0
hours
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Posted onPost created on
May 08 2008 22:25 ET by Michael Varela
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Shane,
I will recommend getting a 1GB of Ram upgrade and to get a better processor.
Here are the cards that I recommend for your budget.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8774249&type=product&id=1204331807508 $150
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8520932&type=product&id=1186007060320 $89.99
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8390163&type=product&id=1179876485511 $119.99
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DVA4265
Captain, B777-200
OLP
Joined on March 18 2007
Online Triple Century Club
Quatercentenary Club
"WE BE DELTA, Flossin n' Flyin " Phoenix, AZ USA
430 legs, 2,188.7 hours
398 legs,
2,061.4 hours online 388 legs,
2,045.8 hours ACARS 5 legs,
33.8 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 08 2008 23:45 ET by Trevir Maidel
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I have the Nvidia 8500GT.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3244227&CatId=1826
Unedited shots from recent flights:
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g18/punk15913/T7.jpg
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g18/punk15913/ss9.jpg
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g18/punk15913/ss12.jpg
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DVA4229
First Officer, B767-300
OLP
Joined on March 19 2007
"Sink rate. Sink Rate." Southeastern United States
54 legs, 100.9 hours
47 legs,
87.7 hours online 53 legs,
98.4 hours ACARS 7 legs,
11.9 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 09 2008 00:04 ET by Lawrence Woodworth
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PAE won't do you any good until you get to 4 GB of RAM. Even then, its use is going to be marginal as it is just a glorified page swapping protocol.
Step 1 is to max out your RAM for that Pavilion. Getting a killer graphics card is pointless if there's barely enough RAM to start the program. Visit crucial.com or kingston.com and type in your Pavilion model to see how much your board can take and what type it needs to be. If your computer uses DDR2, then thank whichever deity you worship because DDR2 is DDiRt cheap 2 buy right now. DDR(1) is going to empty your wallet by comparison. I picked up 8GB of DDR2 for $230 a couple of months ago.
Step 2 is to max out your graphics. You're probably a PCI-E interface, but you should definitely check before buying. Nothing sucks more than getting a new card home and finding it's the wrong card type. Also, check the card width (is it single or dual-slot wide?) and make sure your board has room for the card. I bought an ATI card for my son's computer that occupied dual slots and his sole PCI-E slot was situated with no clearance for a double-wide card.
After all that, determine how much you're willing to spend on the card, then go here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card,1923.html
Tom's does a nice breakdown of the best cards by price and they update the list every month. Just be aware that some of their recommended cards are actually dual cards in Crossfire /SLI setup if they think that will give better performance at that pricepoint. Crossfire/SLI don't do much for FS so those suggestions may need to be looked at harder.
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DVA2192
Senior Captain, A320
OLP
Joined on March 14 2005
50 State Club
Million Mile Club
Flying Colonel
Online Fifteen Century
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Long Beach 500 Club
Attleboro, MA USA
1,703 legs, 3,149.7 hours
1,635 legs,
2,989.8 hours online 1,667 legs,
3,076.4 hours ACARS 3 legs,
5.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 09 2008 08:32 ET by Richard Walsh
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I agree with Lawrence. RAM will improve your the performance. Then get a video card.
Richard WalshSenior Captain, A320
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DVA1690
Senior Captain, MD-88
OLP
Joined on May 05 2004
50 State Club
Quatercentenary Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Stage 1 Jet Double Century Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
"Life begins at Vr" Longmont, CO USA
474 legs, 694.8 hours
465 legs,
681.0 hours online 252 legs,
384.8 hours ACARS 3 legs,
3.9 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 09 2008 12:55 ET by Trevor Bair
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> I'm really looking to be able to run fs9 with maxed out setting or possibly even fsx smoothly.
I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here, but I don't think that's going to happen with a low-end video card. You'll have to sacrifice something to get those fps up if you intend to run maxed out and I don't see a low-end video card having enough throughput to do it. If you go out and spend $100 on a video card (especially from Best Buy -- they are overpriced in my opinion), you're just going to be disappointed and wishing you would have spend $50-$100 more to get a better card. Heck, the 8800GT that I have is hovering right around $200 now.
That said, there is hope in the form of Michael at FS-GS. www.fs-gs.com He can make just about any system run FS9 maxed and FSX pretty close to it (he sure did with my PC!). If I were you, I'd give him a shout via his website before doing anything.
The other posts in this thread seem to be pretty right on as well: RAM will help, to a point. Again, I'd talk to FS-GS and see what they recommend.
TRB
Trevor BairSenior Captain, MD-88
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DVA3911
Captain, CRJ-200
Joined on January 13 2007
Southeastern United States
11 legs, 13.3 hours
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Posted onPost created on
May 11 2008 17:16 ET by Shane Stanley-Ayre
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I was told at betbuy that for my computer I would need a BFG - GeForce 8400 GS Graphics Card and 1G of RAM and 1G of RAM and I should be able to run FSX or fs2004 with maxed out settings. But... lol on other computer forums I was told that that would not help at all. What should I do?
Shane Stanley-AyreCaptain, CRJ-200
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DVA4229
First Officer, B767-300
OLP
Joined on March 19 2007
"Sink rate. Sink Rate." Southeastern United States
54 legs, 100.9 hours
47 legs,
87.7 hours online 53 legs,
98.4 hours ACARS 7 legs,
11.9 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 12 2008 14:40 ET by Lawrence Woodworth
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I work part time at Geek Squad in Best Buy and - whether you get it at Best Buy or not - you ALWAYS want to get the most RAM your computer can handle. More RAM = less pagefile swapping = faster overall performance no matter what program is being run.
You want the fastest graphics card you can afford - if only for future use. FSX is heavily CPU-bound which means your processor should have more impact on FSX than the graphics card.
I will not back up that GS Agent's claim that you will be able to run FSX completely maxed out. FS2004 maybe, but very few combinations of hardware allow FSX to run maxed out and still be flyable (10FPS seems to be the generally accepted minimum frame rate on the ground). I'll bet that Agent hasn't used FSX before (most of the Agents in our store seem to be WOW players... go figure).
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DVA4133
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 02 2007
Century Club
"1957 Apache. No parking brake!" Southeastern United States
143 legs, 448.0 hours
5 legs,
6.7 hours online 138 legs,
434.1 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
May 12 2008 14:53 ET by Brian Beard
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Im running the following:
AMD Athlon 64 4200 Dual Core
MSI K8N Neo-4F
OCX Platinum DDR2 PC3200 2 GB
BFG 7950GTOC 256mb PCI-E 16x
All FS9 sliders maxed out, and I get a 60fps un-throttled. Around major airports it drop to 20-25 or so. KATL gets 17-25fps, depending on traffic. But else where I lock it at 30-40.
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