Video Card for Flight Sim 2004

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Miami_Fly_Guy

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Dec 20, 2005
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Hello, I've got a friend looking to upgrade video cards. He's an avid flight simmer and is looking for a serious upgrade from his pci express X600 pro. He isn't partial to Nvidia or ATI, but wants something that's going to throw some serious frames. I've always heard that ATI seems to edge out Nvidia in terms of the flight sims, but I'll ask your opinions. His budget is no more than $350. I was looking at the 7800gt's for him but another friend of ours has an x850xt which we were comparing the 7800gt to. In other words, recommend the best sub 350 dollar video card out there and how it would stack up to an x850xt. Any additional info regarding it's flight sim 2004 performance would be great. Thanks in advance...
 
I've always heard that ATI seems to edge out Nvidia in terms of the flight sims
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A video card won't decide to go into crappy mode if it detects a flight sim. Nvidia seems to edge out ATi on OpenGL games, and ATi edges out Nvidia on DX games.

I don't think this matters too much for you though. A 7800GT is a good choice that will fall well under $350. Check out the X1800XL also. I don't think FS 2004 will be too much of a burden on a system with either of these cards.
 
Hi,

The ATI cards seem to display colours more vividly than Nvidia, also they don't seem to shimmer as much. Also there are no problems with FSNAV on ATI cards.
 
My X1900XT doesn't shimmer any less than the 6800GS and 7800GTX I've owned.
Color vibrance and such can be adjusted to your liking through nVidia drivers anyway, so if the stock settings offend, then there's plenty of room for adjustment.

As long as you turn the settings up high enough, you won't need to worry about it.


7800GT is the best bang/buck right now, though.
 
Strange, I had a 7800GTX and for Flight Sim I hated it, FSNAV needs about 1 minute to draw all the navaids, airplane is missing in the menu if AA is to high. Some textures (freeware Boston 2.0) were shimmering so bad I could see where the airport was before I even got near it by just looking at the flickering.

Since I changed to the X1900XT all those problems dissapeared.

In regards to the original question and the budget/needs I would recommend that he finds a X850XT and saves some money for the next upgrade.
 
Only issue like that I remember having with the 7800GTX is UT2K4 crashing if AA = 8x. 4x and below were fine.
How many different drivers did you try?
 
I have a 6800GS and play FS04 quite well on it. But if the budget is up to $350, look at a 7800GT, its a good price for the performance.
 
robberbaron said:
How many different drivers did you try?
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I tried almost every set that was available, including sets for x64.
Eventually I sold the 7800GTX and bought the X1900XT and haven't looked back since.

A question for you though since you are an FS2004 user? and an X1900XT owner. Do you sometimes see massive corruption in the sky, then it goes back to normal? I only noticed it since installing the 6.2 CATS, the 5.13 don't suffer from it.

I'm hoping the 6.3 will solve it, I can fully reproduce it so I might make a fraps video.
 
6800GS or 7800GT are all good. Maybe get an eVGA 6800GS for $170 approx at newegg and then maybe use the rest to up the rest of your system if it's a little behind.
 
Thanks for the replies, right now we're leaning more towards a cheaper video solution that will still get the job done. Again, thanks for your help.
 
Miami_Fly_Guy said:
Thanks for the replies, right now we're leaning more towards a cheaper video solution that will still get the job done. Again, thanks for your help.
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so how much is he looking to spend again?

Miami_Fly_Guy said:
Hello, I've got a friend looking to upgrade video cards. He's an avid flight simmer and is looking for a serious upgrade from his pci express X600 pro.
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in that post you said $350 or less

ATi is lowering prices when the 7900 series comes out. Supposedly the X1800XL is going to be around $299 and a X1800 GTO for $249. Some places are listing 7900GTs for around $350 and you can get 7800GTs for a lot less than that. Any of those would be a serious upgrade from the X600 pro
 
Just something to remember. Most realistic flight sims tend to be heavily CPU dependent, more so than any other type of game. I'm not saying a new video card won't help, especially if playing higher resolutions and AA/AF, but unlike most FPS games, he may not see the type of FPS increases he was expecting with a video card alone when dealing with a flight sim.
 
yea, the guy above has a point. If you want to go cheaper, I'd probably choose a 6600GT. i've seen some hit like 80-90 bucks on newegg (with rebates.. etc...). Look into those for a cheaper alternative that isn't horrible.Try to get more RAM and an upgrade for CPU (unless he's already got like an FX-57+ or Pressler/Cedar Mill Pentium D). just to make it run faster :-D I think newegg is selling a Pentium D 920 (2.8ghz) for 250 something... here it is.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116237

but hey, it depends on whether you've got a supporting motherboard and the right sockets :p

P.S. I play FS2k4 also. A 9800pro can run it real well already
 
FSX is being shown on nice systems (the live demos) and according to the DEV's they like video memory. All screenshots have been taken on a PC with an X800Pro 256 that gives good performance.

While FS is essentially CPU dependant, you need more thatn 128 Video memory if you have any number of addons installed especially scnery and AI traffic. I do a ton of texture thrashing ona 9800Pro 128MB, and will not upgrade until DX10 and Vista.
 
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