New Video Card/Frame Rate Help

[douglasbuckley]

I have the following:

Pentium 4 1500MHz
512 MB Ram
Nvidia GeForce2 Ti
ASUS P4B Motherboard
Creative SB Live
Windows XP Update

I just purchased a new ATI-Radeon 9000 Pro, 128MB which also supports DirectX 8.1. I did this because my GeForce2 I could only get around 12-14 FPS when looking at aircraft and ground from spot view and also I thought I could get a better quality picture overall. Well, I load my new ATI video card and the quality went up and looks pretty good, but my frame rate is still around 14-15 fps on spot view and inside the cockpit it stays around 18-20 fps. Now that 14-15 is over Chicago looking at everything (love eye candy).

Question is what should I expect from a system like mine. I've heard some people get frame rates at 30-40. Could I be getting to hung up on frame rates. I thought would be alot of improvement with a new video card. Got it from Best Buys for 180.00 including taxes and the man said I had 30 days if I didn't like it to return it and get my money back, he also said that this card would out perform the GeForce4 4400.

Could you help me out on this and what I should do, if anything.

Appreicate your help.

Buck

[MKaprocki]

>he also said that this card
>would out perform the GeForce4
>4400.

Not true at all. The 9000 pro is just better than the Geforce 4 MX 460. The 9700 will beat a Ti4600, but the 9000 is nowhere near a Ti-series Geforce 4.

Matt

[WingsofLondon]

Anything over 15-20 is normally just a waste of processer/RAM.
But I wouldn't know anything about that (Gotta love my 1.6GHz 512MB RAM with 6 FPS on ground and 20 in the air :P)

Regards,
http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3d795ee3604b0b45.jpg
Theres a saying that goes "If at first you don't succeed, try try again." To bad this doesn't apply to aircraft on low fuel :-lol :-wave.

[douglasbuckley]

Well, I guess I could take it back and get a GeForce4 4400, but they didn't have one and what I paid for the ATI at 180.00 is their something better in this price range. I've seen 4600's go for 300.00+.

Buck

[vimac]

You are right, anything above 24fps the human eye and brain cannot see. That is the reason why "films are made at 24fps"

I remember some tests being made long time ago with Formula 1 pilots to see if they could see above 20fps and none made it.

Vimac

[Simon Evans]

If that were really true then why would flickering be an issue when the refresh rate falls below 60Hz? (60 frame per second)?

You misconstrue the difference between being able to discern the DIFFERENCE between the frame rate and the ACTUAL frame rate. It might be hard to get the human eye to recognise much past 24-30 fps but the perception of increased fluidity is there. However, the organ is capable of differentiating a difference, that much is certain.
Films are made at 24fps because that's the speed they are made at - and no other bio-technical reason that I'm aware of. In the early days the speed was defined by the ability of the equipment to run at high speed and the fragility of the film stock.

Television typically updates screen rates at 50Hz, computer screens at between 75-120 Hz. It would seem logical that matching the frame update rate to the screen refresh rate would be the ideal solution.


Simon Evans

[Simon Evans]

>Question is what should I expect
>from a system like mine.
> I've heard some people
>get frame rates at 30-40.
>Could I be getting to
>hung up on frame rates.

Yes, and on believing what people tell you. They may get 30-40fps, but it won't be in the same situation that you describe. We have very few `benchmarks` in FS2002 by which we can measure these claims accurately.

> I thought would be
>alot of improvement with a
>new video card. Got
>it from Best Buys for
>180.00 including taxes and the
>man said I had 30
>days if I didn't like
>it to return it and
>get my money back, he
>also said that this card
>would out perform the GeForce4
>4400.
>
>Could you help me out on
>this and what I should
>do, if anything.
>
>Appreicate your help.
>


First of all, check you have the latest drivers for your SOUND card. There were known issues with WinXP and SB cards - I don't know whether SP1 includes new drivers but it's always best to check the manufacturers web site.

That, by itself may solve your problem.

Next, make sure you have removed all traces of your NVidia card - Radeon's do not sit happily in systems where latent driver files and registry references exist to other cards. Just installing the card and letting XP do the installation does NOT remove the old card software completely. Details of removal are at www.guru3d.com. You can easily check by opening regedit and searcing for Nvidia. If it finds any mentions you're in need of a clean-up.

Finally, FS can be a little finicky picking up a new card and making best use of the features. Best to remove/rename the FS2002.cfg file and then re-launch the sim - this forces FS to recreate the .cfg file and to pick up on the new card. You will need to re-set your preferences but you should see a qualitative and quantitative difference in frames.

Hope this helps.

Simon Evans

[vimac]

You cannot mix frame rate with refresh rate Hz!!! Hz is the speed (measured in Hertz) at which a monitor redraws an image on the screen. The faster the rate, the less likely the screen is to flicker, you can have a huge refresh rate on your monitor but still only 10/14 fps or less.

Vimac

[Wolfko]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-05-02 AT 06:37AM (EDT)[p]LAST EDITED ON Oct-05-02 AT 06:35 AM (EDT)

Maybe humans cannot recognize higher spseeds consciously but their sub-conscious can. Many of the movies, which are showed in IMAX theatres or similar are filmed and reproduced with 50 fps or even more. This gives a more real impression. Some even say the 3 dimensionala impression are increased.

An indication for this abilibility of our brain re. subconscious is also the fact, that it recognizes a single isolated frame out of an ordinary 24 fps film but >> just think of hidden advertisement.

Wolfgang

[McFlysky]

Take it back and save your money. Personally I wouldn't purchase any video card from ATI. The hardware is usually very good but they have a bad reputation for drivers.

There was an article on the Internet about ATI cheating on the QuakeIII performance test. That's pretty tacky!!!!

[Frusfro]

Yes but that was a long time ago...

Yes Ati´s drivers used to be really crappy but I can attest they have improved tremendously. I have a Radeon 8500LE and new Catalyst 2.3 drivers work absolutely frawlesly, no matter what aplication / game, you run.

About Quake III, yes that was a hot topic at that time, but ATI fixed the drivers and now the quality / performance is really great.

Yes in the past ATI´s drivers werea among the worst in the industry but they worked hard and improved. We cant blame a company forever because or the mistakes they made in the past. What is really important is what they are doing now, and what will they do in the future.

[douglasbuckley]

Simon,

I'm not sure what you mean by removing FS2002 cfg. file (I know what it is), but are you telling me to remove it completely and restart my sim or are you saying just to rename it and if so what name do I use. I will look at updating my SB Live drivers and installing them.

One comment was for me to take it back. Well thats really not a big deal, I can have it out in five minutes and reinstall my old GeForce 2 Ti, and then purchase a GeForce 4 4400 Ti., but again pay your money and take your chance, it might be better or it might just be like my 9000 Pro. Any comments on this.

Now I could be wrong and I'm no computer expert by any means, but it seems to me that given the spec's on my computer I don't have a low end machine and you would like to get the best performance you can get.

Buck

[Bigshot]

If you visit the rage3d board often, you will regularly see what the folks over there refer to as "nvidiots". Everybody has their loyalty assigned somewhere and some aren't willing to change. Personally, I'd always used nvidia products. I was open minded about my choice in video cards this time. And as a result, was rewarded bigtime. My frames are locked at 20 with all the bells and whistles cranked and the sim is not only beautiful, it is smooth as silk and completely stable. Not even close to being the same sim I had last month. Haven't seen a driver glitch yet and I'm running the 6166 stock drivers.

Alienware PIV 2.53 533mhz; Dragon Full Tower 340 Watt PS; 512mb PC-1066 Ram; Intel D850EMV2 Mobo; ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128mb; 40 gig Western Digital 7200; Koolmax Cooling; SB Audigy 5.1; 16x/48x DVD-Rom; (FS2k2 Running at 16x12x32 4xAA & 16xAF locked at 20fps.)

[douglasbuckley]

Simon,

You are slick, yes your are. I did what you told me to do, I downloaded update soundblaster live drivers and pulled the FS 2002 cfg. files out (their were two, one was an update) went to FS and I was shock. Everything max out I'm getting 47-52 fps with 1024X768X32 setting and thats outside on spot view looking at the aircraft and Chicago and the lake and higher when I went into the cockpit. I set everything on 25 fps.

The quality and graphics our great. I will keep this graphics card.

Thanks for all the help.

Buck