These kind of reviews are rare

[Speedbird985]

Not strictly a screenshot, but...

It's not everyday you see graphics cards reviewed using Flight Simulator 2002 as a platform. Here's one: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQ0LDQ

Does anyone know of more?

[tjkotula]

Wow those frames are pretty impressive. The Radeon 9700 maintains 52 fps no matter what the filtering is set to. I love the water texture quality on max filtering. Despite the price I might have to give some serious consideration to this new card from ATI as my next (badly needed) video card. I want to wait a few months first though to see what nVidia creates in response. I'm sure it'll be $500+ when it first hits the shelves, although the Radeon 9700 is already down to $310 or so online from $379 two weeks ago.

Tim Kotula

XP 1800+
MSI KT3 Ultra Motherboard
512 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
Diamond Stealth III S540 32 MB VRAM

How do you know when it's time to upgrade your computer? As soon as you get the latest copy of flightsim, it's time!

[Bigshot]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Sep-23-02 AT 09:00PM (EDT)[/font][p]Here's a couple pics:
CFS2: http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbott...r9700_CFS2.jpg

FS2002: http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbott...on9700_LAX.jpg
http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbott...ge9700_640.jpg
http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/Tomcat9700.jpg
http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbott...n9700_LAX1.jpg

[MikeS_KPDX]

Those are amazing shots, I have to ask though, what possible settings are you using to get such clarity with the ground textures out to the horizon like that. I have GF3 TI200 and regardless of frame rates, can you give me any hints on what setting adjust that particular horizon clarity?

[aspong]

Yes please, I second that request.
:-wave

Andrew

[Bigshot]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Sep-24-02 AT 09:01AM (EDT)[/font][p]Everything is maxed out (extremely dense) and framerate is locked at 20fps. Very smooth and no blurrs. As I raise the frame lock, I loose terrain and as I lower it, I gain terrain. So 20 is the sweet spot on my machine. Also have ATC on default, mesh at 90% and I set visibility at 90. I was very surprised to see that terrain actually draws all the way to the horizon with enough power behind it. No bare spots anywhere. These jpgs actually don't represent the screen at all. It looks way better on the actual screen. It's clear and sharp and stays right on 20 fps. That's LAX in the distance on both city shots.

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.)

[aspong]

Impressive.
Thanks! :-)

[Wolfko]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Sep-24-02 AT 10:10AM (EDT)[/font][p]You are tricky! Here is my explanation for the sharpness of the shots:

- shot 1: I do not have CSF2, so I can't say anything about it.
- shots 2 & 5: the zoom factor is below 1, this explains, why the shots are so crisp.
- shot 3: the clouds hide where the blurriness begins
- shot 4: you definitely have got blurries in the very foreground

So don't fool yourself. :-)
"Men always believe, what they like to believe."

Regards

Wolfgang :-wave

[Spongey87]

They are still probably better than many of ours. My Radoen 32 mb SDR PCI could never have such good quality and frame rate.

By the way, the Radeon 9700 is supposed to cost $399 at release, and if you don't feel like spending so much money, you can wait for the Radoen 9500, which will be some 20% slower than the 9700, but still faster than the GF4 4600. I suppose that it will not cost that much, maybe $299.

Don't call me weird, call me spongey.

[Bigshot]

Fraid not. It's zoomed out to get the most in the pic. It's much better; much much better on the monitor. These jpgs destroy the actual pic. Believe what you want; but don't knock it till you sit in the chair and try it for yourself. How's mach 1+ on the deck for 50 miles and not one single blur anywhere. Well, it's great. That's why I'm using the fast jets. Cause I want to stress the **** out of it. I'm seeing low res textures changing to high res and visa versa; but that's about it. Now; have I seen a blurred texture. Yes; flying the falcon50 zoomed in real tight in outside view looking down at about 1000'. The falcon 50 is also the only one I've tried where it takes a split second to display the outside textures when going to outside view. Everything else is right there. So far, no stability problems except that the Dash7 don't work as said before.


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.)