Building a Flight Simulator X (video card suggestions)

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar

Best Video cards i need to go with for the triplehead2go with direct X 10

  • SLI NVIDIA x2 8600 GT's

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • SLI NVIDIA x2 8800 GT's

    Votes: 21 41.2%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 2900XT's

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 3850's

    Votes: 3 5.9%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 3870's

    Votes: 14 27.5%

  • No you have no idea what you are doing pick the Video card i am suggesting

    Votes: 12 23.5%
  • Total voters
    51
I am not set on the Matrox Triplehead2go. I just want the best looking performance for my flight. To let you know all know what this all about is that this is not going to be a game. I am trying to get as visually realistic as i can get with this. So i spend more money on a computer practicing instead of blowing my money in the air practicing. I can tell you with the ammount of practice in month in the air would well pay for this simulator.

This computer is going to be a sim and thats its sole purpose no other. I am looking to do the multiview so it will be easier to see the panels in front of me and to the sides. I really dont care if have the triplehead2go i just thought it would be a option.

Now I dont really care SLI or Xfire i just want what is going to run best for this experience. I have been out of the game for a while when it comes to this newer hardware and i figured i would ask honeslty alot of these video cards are over my head in technology. I work on HP servers for a living so i am used to writing and troubleshooting code for multiple processors. I am looking to start buying hardware very soon.
 
OK, now my only question, Are you looking for the best or just best bang for buck, because with a game like this they are different things.

TH2G is nice, but there are some drawbacks, do a little more research and see if you can live with those limitations (some will limit your monitor options), and then it does means for sure you want the most powerful single output option you can get to push that extra wide resolution.

Perhaps in 3X8800Ultra in SLi would offer you more FPS in ultra-wide but usually that higher res will chew up resources much quicker, so it's a risky expense for something that doesn't force you to go that route.

But match it with the best CPU you can get for your needs.

FSX can be a resource hog, and while DX10 does help do stuff more efficiently, they also added more facets ontop of it as well.

Phil Taylor's Blog is truely the bible, as he's one of the lead developers on FSX. His knowledge of the hardware can be iffy at times (including a GTX as 512 alongside a GT) however if you read what he's trying to convey instead of reading the minutia, you can gain alot from his insight.
 
From what ive read, I havent seen anyone saying sli, or crossfire is the way to go in this sim, sorry for calling it a game, but the basics of gaming comps still applies to your sim. Another idea is to get yourself a mobo that will allow you to run sli, try one card out, see how it works, pick up another if your not happpy with the results, toss it in and see how it works, if you dont see a improvement, send it back. Or sell it on ebay.
 
I have a good ammount of money to put into this i just dont want to take out a second mortage or, (sell my soul) etc.. I can afford to make the bigger adjustments like going to a Q6600 instead of the amd +4600 i was orginally looking to go with. I make adjustments like that, i just want to start piecing this thing together. If i go triplehead2go I am thinking 3 Sony 19" SDM-HS95P/B's or if i go just GPU based 3 22" samsung lcd's. opinions?
 
I agree with that, if you're going to go 3-wide, you really want the monitors worthy of it, I don't think 3 properly angled 19" monitors would even fill your view.

For a serious 3 monitor solution think 3 overlaping projectors, but for a budet, then I would say get 3 big LCD, and response time will really only be a major issue for the centre monitor, the surround monitors less to, and even with FSX it's not alot of jerky twitch gaming unless you're in a bad situation, so I doubt response time would be quite as important as for a head-2-head FPS game.

If you're conserving money in any fashion, then spend wisely and get 2 GF8800GT-512 and then desice on you option of SLi with TH2G or Multi-mon on 2 cards, after trying the performance of multi-mon on 2 cards. It give you alot of flexability and doesn't commit you to anyting extra, and is a smashing value when they're selling @ under $200 each.

The only hassle is the whole nV-intel SLi debacle, but the nV boards are still good enough for this to be a better option IMO than 2 HD3870.

Now two HD3870X2s... ... just kiddin' :sol:

Although personally I find that ATi's memory management is a little better at the insane end of the resolution scale you'd find on a T2HG, the only problem is they don't like the TH2G as much as nV and so have a little more limitations for configuration.
 

I havent lost yet buddy!

I wouldnt rule out the X2's. I heard the same thing from a friend that owned both a x1950xtx and a 7950gx2. He loved the gx2 but when he used dual monitors for FSX he hated it... he loved the ATI card.

I think it would be wise choice to get Q6600, X38 (Foxconn... DDR2 now and DDR3 later) and 1 3870X2 and another later when you decide if you need it and prices drop enough. That affords you room to play around with some time and money. The prices will drop as the HD3870 just dropped to 189 so I can see the X2 staying in the 400+ for long. It really is a steal if you think about it... you would be running 4 gpus!!!
 
ok so is here where i am sitting at. I am going to go buy parts today (case, cpu, hdd, and memory) I am sitting on the fence still.

q6600, p5k deluxe and 1 HD 3870 possibly Crossfire possibly in the future or
q6600, P5n-d and 1 8800GTS 640mb SLI possibly in the future
 


It's not about winning or losing, but if you want to be disqualified I can certainly oblige you. :hello:

I wouldnt rule out the X2's. I heard the same thing from a friend that owned both a x1950xtx and a 7950gx2. He loved the gx2 but when he used dual monitors for FSX he hated it... he loved the ATI card.
Click to expand...

It's only ruled out because as good as it is, it does trail the nV solutions in FSX for whatever reason, had Glock used it for other games (which is why I asked) then I'd put the X2 in the mix especially those with 4 DVi outputs; also ATi's support for the TH2G is also slightly limited to certain settings.

I think it would be wise choice to get Q6600, X38 (Foxconn... DDR2 now and DDR3 later) and 1 3870X2 and another later when you decide if you need it and prices drop enough. That affords you room to play around with some time and money. The prices will drop as the HD3870 just dropped to 189 so I can see the X2 staying in the 400+ for long. It really is a steal if you think about it... you would be running 4 gpus!!!
Click to expand...

I agree, but the major problem is that it does restrict his TH2G options, but it does make it easier to setup if he gets one of the 4 DVI-out models, because the 2 DVI models have no benefit. It's another option, but definitely less flexible.
 


I would avoid the GTS-640, the GT-512 is a much MUCH better option and often easier & cheaper to buy.

Don't let the memory size fool you, the texture and memory handling improvements in the G92 will make the GT-512 better even in high resolutions.

Good luck with the build.
 
Yes for sure... dont get the G80 GTS card.

First off... the P35 wont allow the best crossfire option. You will be restricted to two lanes of 8x a piece (I believe that's accurate). Same goes for the 750i. Wont be the best option for SLI. Restricted once again to two 8x lanes of PCI-e.

I would really consider the 3870x2. Only because it's uber high memory and it as thegreatape man said "works better for FSX than Nvidia"

The x38 is really the best option with the Q6600 and an X2! If you do decide to go Nvidia get the 780i board.
 
Thegreatape man... how have you posted 16k times? I mean if you have been around since this site probably existed (lets say 10 years) than that would mean that you posted every day 4 times a day since then. That's a lot of posten!
 
Hell i post about 20 replies a day, i can see how he does it. And as far as the lanes restrictions, dont worry about it, there is no performance diffrence, as has been discussed in many threads here before.
 
No I dont believe that... I think you may be refering to no performance difference with older cards. But it has been proved that the new 8800gt will see performance increase in SLI with full 16x lanes.
 
16x lanes or 8x, i havent seen anyone post any benches saying, yea it is better, also most mother boards, if you have 16x lanes and put in a sli option, automatically kick those lanes down to 8x.
 
I asked exactly the same question regarding bandwidth and x8 lanes a few months back, when I was thinking of SLi'd GTXs. Someone posted a link which showed in CoH there was about 3fps drop in x8 SLi lanes over x16 lanes. The frames were about 100fps, so the 3fps was negligible and the cards were 8800GTX's. If GTXs are only just bottlenecked by x8 lanes an 8800GT is never going to be. The GTX has far greater memory bandwidth than any of the G92 cards. :)
 

Why thank you :)
And with regard to the OP's question, my preference would be 3870X2's on an X38 board with the fastest quad you can afford/OC to, at least 4Gb RAM (although 8 would be better :)) and that should probably do it!
 

Check out Wuzy's and Crashman's post counts :pt1cable:
 


I'm not sure this is accurate... why would motherboard manufacturers make boards with (2) 16x pci-e slots when both slots are occupied vs. defaulting both slots to 8x? Well the answer is that it is better bandwidth.

I dont think that a 8800GT feels this but I bet and almost guarantee that a 3870X2 or 9800GX2 will.
 
Im not sure of the reason, but i have read many a complaint about it happening, since i dont have sli, dont want sli, dont need sli I never investigated it. But since pci-express 1.0 hasnt even been used to its fullest ability yet, what makes you think that 16x lanes is going to make the diffrence?
 

You are confusing PCIe v1.0 and PCIe 1x. PCIe 1.0 is a standard (same as 1.1 and 2.0), whereas PCIe 1x is a PCIe slot with only one lane and 16x has 16 lanes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom