Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
Oh Horrors..oh horrors... my PCI video card is not what I thought.. |
DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!" Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
May 17 2007 08:41 ET by Norm Hare
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Like a number of others, I am squeeking by on an older PC (2.2 P4 w/ PCI slots only and maxed out at 1gb RAM) While doing some research on my ATI9250, I realized that this video card is DirectX8.1 compatible. May I assume then that I am not able to take full advantage of whatever DX 9.0c has to offer? A whole new computer is not in the budget, but I was wondering if a newer PCI card with DX9.x support might help improve the video a tad. The few that are available are well under $80 USD.
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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 17 2007 08:55 ET by Lawrence Woodworth
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Upgrading to a 9.0c-compatible graphics card will help with other games, but as FSX is mostly CPU-bound I'm not sure you'll see much improvement there. It's going to be your call on whether you want to put more money into an obsolete PCI-based system. My recommendation would be to save the money towards a new rig with a multi-core processor that supports PCI-E for graphics.
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DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!" Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
May 17 2007 09:40 ET by Norm Hare
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Forgot to mention..I run FS9 only...and have no intention of purchasing FSX anytime soon. As far as saving for a new system..that won't happen. When I let the smoke out of this one, I will find a way to purchase an adequate PC. I do not consider my PC obsolete (I have always maintained that "OBSOLETE" is a salesman's term) as it works fine for what I do with it. So I am willing to spend a few dollars on a PCI video card taht is DX9 compatible. I do realize that video upgrades are not always the answer for FPS issues....that is why I posted the question. I do appreciate your incite though.
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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 17 2007 10:20 ET by Trevor Bair
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Norm, Do you have a PCI-E motherboard? If so, finding a good, cheap card should be no problem. Check out NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=SubCatDeals&SubCategory=48&StoreType=2&N=2010380048
Then I'd recommend looking at Tom's Hardware Guide for a comparison.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html
I am in the same boat as you with a P4, 2.0 GHz, 1 gb ram and a Radeon X1600 Pro. --Definitely not a system to write home about nor performance that would shock anyone (usually around 12-18 fps in cruise in the MD06). I was pretty happy with the X1600Pro though... It's not a top of the line card, but definitely no slouch either compared to some cards I've owned. My system was AGP though, so I ended up having to upgrade the whole system. The parts are in the mail and I should be building it out next week.
TRB
Trevor BairSenior Captain, MD-88
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DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!" Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
May 17 2007 10:31 ET by Norm Hare
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No...PCI only..no PCI-E or AGP slots. Unfortunately Toms Hardware has abandoned PCI graphics cards. I could only find PCI-X and AGP writeups. I may have to look through the archive.
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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 17 2007 20:22 ET by Lawrence Woodworth
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Norm, your "PCI only" motherboard is what I was referring to when I said "obsolete". Any PCI graphics cards still unsold are from the days when we still were worrying about Y2K. It's because of the age of the interface that Tom's has dropped them from its evaluations. Anyone still using PCI graphics cards isn't that interested in better performance. Even AGP motherboards are getting pretty long in the tooth and it won't be long before no more cards are manufactured for them, either. (I should note that my Gigabyte motherboard is AGP and thus long in the tooth as well).
Being obsolete doesn't mean the computer is useless. It just means that it will not be able to run recent game releases with any sort of quality.
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DVA3355
Senior Captain, B777-200
Joined on July 19 2006
Online Century Club
Flying Colonel
Everett 1500 Club
Four Million Mile Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"guiding you home..." Denver, CO USA
1,959 legs, 8,711.6 hours
181 legs,
715.0 hours online 1,891 legs,
8,382.8 hours ACARS 18 legs,
67.1 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 17 2007 21:04 ET by Daniel Hodnik
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I kinda have to agree with Lawrence here.
PCI cards are pretty tough to come by, though you can find them on newegg for example... http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201069609642&bop=And&Order=RATING
The problem that I am seeing is that you think you are not realizing the full potential of fs9 because of your dx8 video card? While this may be true I think I wwould have to say forgo the pci video card and save the 60-70 bucks for something else (computer or other). I don't think there would be any substantial improvments in video. Heck, I run counter strike source @ dx8.3 because of driver issues with my 8800gts nvidia card.... and i can't find the differences..
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DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!" Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
May 18 2007 06:47 ET by Norm Hare
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Well.. I don't play other games..I use my computer at home for FS9..EMAIL and Financial stuff. I thought I would post the question about DX9 support as my computer knowledge is geared more towards break/fix, networking and server/exchange administration. If I find a DX9 compatible PCI card cheap enough, I just may give it a go. I need to check our shop though as we may have one hanging around.
If anyone knows of a good tutorial site that explains the inner workings of FS9 (as to how it relates to hardware) that would be a handy piece of info to have.
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