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JIMJAM
May 13th, 2009, 16:54
Yes I used the search feature till my eyes hurt but no real answer other than "possibly smoother" and a higher fps will not be noticable.
I have a I7 920, 6 gigs, Vista 64 and a 4870 512. I run on a 32 inch lcd at 1920x1080.
I just recovered from a total os meltdown when changing from Ati to Nvidia so I want to stick to ATI for right now.
Question- Will moving to a newer 4870 with 1 gig of ram be noticable?
The one I have is one of the earlier ones with 512 ram.
I also see the new 4890 but it does not appear to be much faster.
This is the card I am considering
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102815
This is a FSX only rig. I like this card because its been around and proven and has a great cooling. Any 512 to one gig card experinces welcomed.

BTW-Extra points- Do I need to add a special fsx.exe line to get FSX/accel to utilize the extra ram? I am coming from a xp,2 gig setup so I am clueless. Thanks

harleyman
May 13th, 2009, 17:09
Yes...it will help...Expecially with higher AA......


If you are buying a new card anyway, this is a good choice as the extra mem will certainly help......



My 4870X2 only uses 512 for FSX and I have too considered this card for me....

JIMJAM
May 13th, 2009, 17:16
My 4870 runs fine I just feel it will be the cherry on top to have a gig of ram. Just dont know if that cherry is worth $200 or so. I am running the heavy hitters at fairly high settings with good performance. I am not expecting night and day with a extra 512 of ram but if it does help some,this will be my last FSX upgrade.

harleyman
May 13th, 2009, 18:41
It will help...$200.00 plus worth ????? If you got it spend it...It will help with heavies some too...


We all know FSX is CPU intensive..but extra vid mem will always help....

stansdds
May 14th, 2009, 01:59
A few years ago, 256MB was all anyone needed, but 512MB cards were available and that's what I bought. Glad I did as it gave my video card a little more head room and a slightly longer life. Today, 512MB is all anyone needs, but if buying a new card, I'd say go with a 1GB card for the purpose of having a little more head room and a little longer life for the card.

Same goes for system memory, these days 4GB is a good recommendation, even for 32 bit operating systems.

Alexraptor
May 14th, 2009, 03:24
Actually a 1GB card comes very much in handy for HD resolutions like 409x4096, especially if one in the future wants planes with that high detail as well as clouds and stuff like that hehe.

JIMJAM
May 14th, 2009, 06:08
I cannot find any dimensions,epecially thickness on this card. I have the 4870 installed and I have plenty of room for a longer card but the fan side is REALLY close to the case bottom. I run case open to keep it cool inside so Im good there. I am yet to read any real reason to go with their new 4890 other than power consumption which isnt much of a difference.
So as long as the card isnt thicker on the fan side and fits Im good to go. Thanks for the replies.
BTW- My i7 first thoughts. I run unlimited and was getting stutters in turns. Fooled with the tbm and settled on 70. I also noticed ALL the planes and helis felt alot different. They all felt more precise,agile and overall it seemed as though their flight models had gained another dozen or so parameters. Hard to explain but the air felt thinner and overall more fluid. I am running ASA,FEX,UTX,MytrafficX,various sceneries and have dozens of the "must have" payware addons.The picture and view distance is also ALOT cleaner and looks like a different sim. Guess FSX loves all those cores. I just upgraded from 3 gigs of the ddr3 to 6 and see no difference. At rest however with FSX not running,task manager shows I am using 1 to 1-3 gigs just with background progs running! Killing off some and I still am over 1 gig. Load times from ASA for FSX is however less than 10 seconds. I am still getting the occassional micro stutter in turns.

harleyman
May 14th, 2009, 06:32
Running unlimited will give you micro stutters on the i7 ..Its been my experience anyways..Try to lock at 60 and see how it acts...

JIMJAM
May 14th, 2009, 07:54
Yeah I am in the tweeking mode right now. I swore to myself with a new system,OS and fresh install I wasnt going to hack up my fsx.cfg and bloat the system again. All Ive done is change the tbm and try some catalyst aa/a/f settings. Other than the microstutters, my trees are really shiney.Are you running with catalyst a.i. on? Any other advice on settings differences coming from 32 bit XP to Vista 64 welcomed.
Also, is FSX automatically using my 6 gigs without adding any special command as with the XP 3 gig switch? Thanks.

harleyman
May 14th, 2009, 08:47
Let me go to my other FSX rig and post my CCC set up for you...

You need to do nothing for your Ram and FSX with Vista...






Look up...Its a Sticky now....

JIMJAM
May 14th, 2009, 12:42
I noticed my stutters have more to do with my catalyst aa/af settings than any game settings or fsx.cfg edits. Lowering res,,detal,autogen,traffic ect. Turning them down does little but lowering the adaptive aa seems to reduce those micro stutters in turns the most. Especially helis where you can spin in a hover quickly, I bought that gig 4870 card and it should be here in a day or 2. Thanks for your help. I need to give my cars some attention this weekend but at night will try to do some more testing.

Bjoern
May 14th, 2009, 14:25
I'd rather spend the money on a better card altogether. If you can sell the 4870 and spend a bit of extra cash you might get a good used GTX280 which should leave the ATI weeping in the dust.

You won't see much of a performance increase from doubling your VRam, I even dare to say that the 1GB version is a wee bit slower than its lower memory brother.

JIMJAM
May 14th, 2009, 15:14
I have no loyality to either Nvidia or ATI. I used strickly Nvidia threwout FS9 and FSX. After Acceleration I had nothing but problems and numerous ctds,the dreaded menu lockups and countless other problems. Then I tried the new 4580 and all that stopped. Yes it choked in the clouds but the picture "on my system" was cleaner and all my problems ended. So I moved to the 4870 and on all games but FSX kicked ass. It was last week when I tried to install a gtx 280 that my os became corrupted and I spent 3 days resinstalling my os. I gave up, sent the card back,bought a new system and here I am. This puter is strickly web and FSX use only. All my 1st person shooter,adventure,racing games I run through a PS3 on a BIG hd tv. I agree that from what Ive seen and heard, Nvidia is the best card for FSX. That said, Ive given plenty of money to Nvidia and they got lazy and allowed ATI to catch up. I would like to think by supporting ATI, it has benefited us all. I am still a little paranoid and gunshy to switch back to them after being hosed so bad especially now that I have a brand new system thats running well.

Alexraptor
May 14th, 2009, 17:09
How on earth did you manage to corrupt your OS by upgrading the graphics card? O.o
Allthough i assume you did uninstall and clean out the ATI drivers before attempting to install the GTX 280 right?

JIMJAM
May 14th, 2009, 17:25
I have changed drivers probably a hundred times over the years. Know the procedure well. With the ati card and all traces gone, I went throught the ritual and installed the Nvidia card. Comp booted but all I got was a black screen. Safe mode,vga, nothing but a black screen. Reset bios. Booted then I started getting ntldr not found. Hard drive went missing. Reloaded XP. Booted into a black screen. I figured my Sharp Aquos 32 inch was getting a signal it didnt like but with a black screen,the card not being regonised,there was nothing to change. Reloaded XP. SOS. Now facing another os reinstall, a total FSX rebuild with a grand in addons, I gave up and decided it was a good as time as ever to get a new system.
Looking back I could have stuck in another card and worked it out. Some devices and software do not get along and I have simply grown tired of it. With all my other games being PS3 titles,FSX is the only PC game I have loaded. But hell, FSX is enough by itself.

harleyman
May 15th, 2009, 04:17
I'd rather spend the money on a better card altogether. If you can sell the 4870 and spend a bit of extra cash you might get a good used GTX280 which should leave the ATI weeping in the dust.

You won't see much of a performance increase from doubling your VRam, I even dare to say that the 1GB version is a wee bit slower than its lower memory brother.



That is so untrue ! The 280 does not leave ATI weaping....

Doubeling V-Ram will show gains. Reguardless what charts may show !

JIMJAM
May 15th, 2009, 06:43
My speed with the i7 is fine. Be it the Dodo heli or Aerosoft F-16. Thats running a ton of addons at a high res and high settings less the usual offenders. Shadows,bloom.... Ive noticed on some planes where before the skins and vr put took a second or so to load are instant. My problem are the micro stutters which I have greatly reduced by tinkering lowering the aa/af. Alot are just FSX problems that have always been there and always be. I am hoping the additional vram will help Seeing my res 1980x1050,32 inch screen and the performance hit using higher levels of aa/af, more vram is a logical upgrade. Some car guys say just by putting stickers on their cars showing what mods they have installed adds another 5 hp each. Having a gig card may or may not help but I will settle for a good dose of placebo effect.:icon_lol:

Bjoern
May 15th, 2009, 09:04
That is so untrue ! The 280 does not leave ATI weaping....

It certainly does in FSX.



Having a gig card may or may not help but I will settle for a good dose of placebo effect.:icon_lol:

Heh, it surely will.

JIMJAM
May 15th, 2009, 12:02
Why do guys like you always pop up AFTER I place a order?
I will post my findings once I get it.
But seeing that no two setups or users get the same results either real or perceived, its really of no use other than for conversation. FSX is going to behave like FSX wants to. It just a morphing mess of hardware clogging,blood pressure raising code from hell.

Bjoern
May 16th, 2009, 07:42
It just a morphing mess of hardware clogging,blood pressure raising code from hell.

It's actually just an old, fat guy in a wheelchair polished to the max and botox'ed and facelifted to near death. ;) :d

JIMJAM
May 16th, 2009, 09:11
Not JUST an old fat guy but the ONLY one we have.
The "other" one is is a teenage still wearing old diapers adverstised as something Nasa uses which should have been changed along time ago.
I will stick with the old fat guy and keep giving him facelifts till he looks like Burt Reynolds and Joan Rivers had a child.

JIMJAM
May 16th, 2009, 09:43
What am I doing wrong? New to Vista and I am trying to edit a panel.cfg. I make the changes, try to save it and I get a error box about not able to create the c?programfiles/microsoft/fsx.... Check the path and file name bla bla. Never seen this with XP and editing any file. Is there some special way to edit these files? I cannot even just exit and in XP it just ask if you want to save it. Sound,panel ect

Nevermind.

Bjoern
May 16th, 2009, 12:46
Administrator rights?

Write protection?

JIMJAM
May 16th, 2009, 18:01
Both.

Bjoern
May 16th, 2009, 18:57
Ouch.

Let's just hope 7 abandons that dictatorship of security systems.

JIMJAM
May 18th, 2009, 17:40
As promised. Got in my Sapphire Toxic 4870 1 gig card and here are my initial impressions over the Sapphire 4870 512.
First off, I had the settings tweeked and overall happy with the 512 card.
Installed the card, NICE vapor-X heat sink. Anyways, stutter city and flashing white ground textures. Went to the Catalyst and let the prog set the clocks. Same result. Went back to stock. Same.
Reduced them to gpu 780 and 1000 on the memory. Better but still see some ground flashes. So far it runs worse than the 512 with the exception of loading. Changing views,internal ,external are instant. I am going to fool around some more with the hundreds of possible combinations of settings to try and eliminate the stutters. I tried adding bufferpools in various amounts but see no effect.TBM is at 70 and I may change it around.

harleyman
May 18th, 2009, 18:03
It must be a setting like AA or AF...


Or a corrupt driver..Did you uninstall the CCC before you added the new card ? If not it might need to be done, then reinstalled...

Be sure to use a driver cleaner too..

JIMJAM
May 18th, 2009, 19:19
Its usually almost always ocing or running the cards memory too high. FSX is real picky about fooling with memory. Ive lowered it to stock settings and its better but I still see the occasional white section of land flashing. Going to do a reinstall of the vid driver. Its basically the same card,same driver just with slightly higher timings and more memory so I cant imagine it being a driver issue but then again nothing surprises me.

Alexraptor
May 19th, 2009, 02:32
Ouch.

Let's just hope 7 abandons that dictatorship of security systems.

Dream on! Windows 7 security is a nightmare!!!
Sersiously... i despise this "ownership" crap they got in Windows 7, makes me want to puke.

JIMJAM
May 19th, 2009, 08:23
I have been into sims since Microprose f119 stealth fighter on a Tandy 20 mgz computer that cost me $3 grand. All I gotta say is I look forward to the day when I can toss the computer in the trash and fly a good sim on a console. I enjoyed tweeking games but I am just sick of it. Neither ATI or Nvidia ever gave a rats ass about any of the MS sims and although there are some great guides out there, its still alot of blind luck involved in running the sim. Hell I guess I will dig out my old 8800gt and reload XP.

harleyman
May 19th, 2009, 19:01
I think you must have traces of old Nvidia drivers still there..


I'm still running FSX on Vista 64 with a E5200 and a 3850 ATI card flawless..No set up at all ...


You got something going on there I believe...

Bjoern
May 20th, 2009, 10:19
Ive lowered it to stock settings and its better but I still see the occasional white section of land flashing. Going to do a reinstall of the vid driver.

Already tried different Bufferpools values?

It fixed my garbled graphics on the 4850 pretty well, so it might as well fix your flashing terrain.


As for that "gonna dig out the 8800GT" sentence, I'd really like to show you my "I told you so" dance, but I don't have a webcam. :icon_lol:

Firstly though, I'd try a complete reinstall like Harleyman suggested. If the situation doesn't improve after that, I'd sell that 4870 and swap it out for a NVidia card. ATI and FSX simply isn't a perfect combination.



Dream on! Windows 7 security is a nightmare!!!
Sersiously... i despise this "ownership" crap they got in Windows 7, makes me want to puke.

As long as it's disabled in admin mode...

harleyman
May 20th, 2009, 11:10
Already tried different Bufferpools values?


As for that "gonna dig out the 8800GT" sentence, I'd really like to show you my "I told you so" dance, but I don't have a webcam. :icon_lol:





ATI and FSX simply isn't a perfect combination.

.

Your first statement is totally not called for....

As far as your second statement...NOTHING could be further from the truth... ATI works equally as well as nvidia for all games and Sims....



The truth is there is NO perfect combination for FSX...Some just work and others of the same config struggle....

Alexraptor
May 20th, 2009, 15:14
ATI works equally as well as nvidia for all games and Sims....


Actually thats not entirely true, some games are specificly optimized for Nvidia cards and others utilize some features exclusive to nvidia cards with CUDA support.

JIMJAM
May 20th, 2009, 15:35
After Acceleration was released, I like alot about gave up totally on FSX. My Asus/Nvidia/AMD system DID NOT like Accel. I had every problem there is so I removed it. With Nhancer/8800gt I was able to get FSX to at least run albeit I never got a good clean picture and had the dreaded menu crashes. Then the 4870 arrived with rave reviews. I installed it and gave Nvidia the finger. They were proof of what having NO competition can do to a company. At the time I was also playing Cyrsis, Bioshock,Swat and other pc titles and the ATI RULED. Except on FSX of course. Now that I have converted over to console with the exception of FSX,Ati had better pull a rabbit out of its hat cause I have no real reason to stick with them. I am still getting the occasion micro stutters and even on a slow plane doing less than 200, a external view a I can see blurries and watch them fill in. Shouldnt be happening on a I7,6 gigs,1 gig card. My last system was a amd fx-64 dual core ,XP with 2 gigs bloated with every addon known to man and my perfomance gain isnt night and day. I understand FSX is a fossil tech wise but I am not going to build another custom uber machine and watch its price 1/2 in 3 months. Ive got a Delorean and 2 girlfreinds to pay for. I will let you guys chase the Holy grail of FSX setups cause Im done chasing that carrot.
I still want to find out why I am getting these random chunks of ground flashing white. Looks simular to the common runway flashing but a large randomly sized chunk not squares.
Sorry I am so wordy but a cup of coffee and Lyrica with a Lortab will do that to ya.:jump:

Bjoern
May 25th, 2009, 09:29
Your first statement is totally not called for....

?



As far as your second statement...NOTHING could be further from the truth... ATI works equally as well as nvidia for all games and Sims....


...except FSX.

As good as the image quality delivered by ATI may be, a 60 to 70 per cent drop in frame rates in clouds is not acceptable in any way!

txnetcop
May 25th, 2009, 09:50
?




...except FSX.

As good as the image quality delivered by ATI may be, a 60 to 70 per cent drop in frame rates in clouds is not acceptable in any way!


I agree so why don't you, as an engineering student, learn how to set your ATI card up correctly because I have demonstrated over and over again that there is a negligible frame drop of one or two fps. I will gladly post again the pics over New York, in a raging storm, fps rate of 30 with an ATI HD 4850 taken in sequence all at the same time frame.

People in here depend on accurate, unbiased opinion. If you don't know how to set your ATI card up, just ask. I will be glad to help
Ted

CG_1976
May 25th, 2009, 10:49
OT/TO please, With Nvidia 9500GT 1 gig on my beta computer the last drivers released for W7 64, I beleive are 185 series released may 6th are causing me a micro stutter issues. Any ideas on how to rid these micro stutters and can I use the roll back function to roll back my driver to the one that worked before nividia fubared the latest drivers.

harleyman
May 25th, 2009, 12:32
Trans..

Look in your FSX config ...

Hunt for ...Texture_Bandwidth_Multiplier =40


Once found try changing the value of 40 to 60 thru 90 ..One at a time...Change the value and save then test it out...

Bjoern
May 25th, 2009, 15:23
I agree so why don't you, as an engineering student, learn how to set your ATI card up correctly because I have demonstrated over and over again that there is a negligible frame drop of one or two fps. I will gladly post again the pics over New York, in a raging storm, fps rate of 30 with an ATI HD 4850 taken in sequence all at the same time frame.

I traded the HD4850 in for a 9800GTX+, which runs pretty much everything way better than the 4850 ever did, so no need for the setup suggestion.

Despite that, I have tried to get a good setup for the ATI by every means possible, but to no avail.



People in here depend on accurate, unbiased opinion. If you don't know how to set your ATI card up, just ask. I will be glad to help.

It wasn't a setup problem. The card didn't play well with the other components or a fresh Windows or simply with FSX and my preferred settings for it. Period.

It is understood that your mileages surely vary, but mine was too low and so the card had to go.

I have recommended ATI cards to people before and still do. Those people, however, do not use FSX at all.

txnetcop
May 25th, 2009, 16:03
One things I discovered with the ATI cards is that HIS and Sapphire cards require ATI TRAY TOOLS in order to operate well as these cards are much faster than the standard ATI video cards in most cases. I did manage to get Catalyst to work on the HIS HD4850 Turbo but with much trial and error. I posted an ATI TRAY TOOL Guide on here somewhere. I highly recommend it if you OC your video card at all.
Ted

CG_1976
May 25th, 2009, 20:55
Trans..

Look in your FSX config ...

Hunt for ...Texture_Bandwidth_Multiplier =40


Once found try changing the value of 40 to 60 thru 90 ..One at a time...Change the value and save then test it out...

Hehe FSX wife slapped me with her prop again. I forgot to rebuild my config after driver update. I just did that and my stutters went byby, so I put the FSX wife back in her place and satisfied. Thanks Harleyman:applause:

Bjoern
May 26th, 2009, 06:34
I highly recommend it if you OC your video card at all.

ATI Tray Tools is mandatory for any ATI card user, thanks to the ability to change AA/AF settings on the fly and creating profiles for games.

harleyman
May 26th, 2009, 07:06
ATI Tray Tools is mandatory for any ATI card user, thanks to the ability to change AA/AF settings on the fly and creating profiles for games.



I have a VisionTec 4870X2 and never needed Tray Tools...

I have a 3850 and never needed Tray Tools or Riva Tuner eighter ...

Bjoern
May 26th, 2009, 10:07
Then you're missing out on a lot since ATT makes the clumsy CCC superfluous.

harleyman
May 26th, 2009, 10:12
Dude...

I am missing out on nothing...

BOTH my FSX machines with ATI cards run and look just beautiful....


Actually....My new 500 dollar box out performs my one that cost $2,200.00

Bjoern
May 26th, 2009, 14:30
Fair enough, yet why the hostile undertone?

I was just trying to help.

txnetcop
May 27th, 2009, 17:28
Fair enough, yet why the hostile undertone?

I was just trying to help.

Hey Amigo I don't think Harleyman's comment was hostile. However if it was, it was not aimed at you per se, he's got a full plate right now.
Ted

harleyman
May 27th, 2009, 18:55
Fair enough, yet why the hostile undertone?

I was just trying to help.




Sorry...It came out very wrong...i appreciate your input...Slaps self...LOL

langshan
May 27th, 2009, 23:43
Dude...

I am missing out on nothing...

BOTH my FSX machines with ATI cards run and look just beautiful....


Actually....My new 500 dollar box out performs my one that cost $2,200.00


Hey Harleyman, can you give specs out on both of your machines? Looking at converting to intell machine late fall/winter time frame and
would be interested some recommendations. Leaving AMD after all
of these years and going to an intell i-7 chip.

Mike

Bjoern
May 28th, 2009, 07:48
Hey Amigo I don't think Harleyman's comment was hostile. However if it was, it was not aimed at you per se, he's got a full plate right now.

Okay, I see.


Sorry...It came out very wrong...i appreciate your input...Slaps self...LOL

Never mind.

Beer? :icon29: :d

:ernae:

harleyman
May 28th, 2009, 07:55
Okay, I see.



Never mind.

Beer? :icon29: :d

:ernae:



Maybe we should count them in six packs...LOL

Bjoern
May 28th, 2009, 11:14
Maybe we should count them in six packs...LOL

Still got half a box in the kitchen. :d

Major_Spittle
May 28th, 2009, 16:09
Well, I just installed my GTX260 black edition without changing anything other than max FPS in FSX and I can't tell the difference between it and my 8800gt superclocked.

FSX was programmed by monkeys, I can't wait until something new gets released or X-Plane figures out a multiplayer system. :banghead: