Flight Simulator X and the right Video Card!!!

inefX

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Would like to know if there are any video cards that would run this game on max settings. Please feel free to add a setup is necessary.

Note: I've read the reviews on this game while performing on today's top notch gaming systems but none proved to pass the test at running flight simX on max settings.

Feedbacks appreciated!
 

mingocr83

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Well, you don't a big card, a 7600 could do the job very well, but I've heard that the ATI cards can do a better job than the NVIDIA. I personally use an Nvidia 7300LE with several add-ons and I get around 25fps.

Regards

Roberto
 

inefX

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http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Deluxe-DVD/dp/customer-reviews/B000GCJ6MK
www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/microsoftflightsimulatorx/review.html

Those are two of several reviews that tested this game on High end cards.

Should i invest in a SLi system with two 8800GTS? But keep in mind that tomshardware's VGA chart already did benchmarks and SLi looks pretty bad if i'm going to run on Max settings. This game MUST be played on highest possible settings.

Currently, this is what the game is running on

EVGA Geforce 7300GT 512MB DDR2
P4 @ 2.8GHz
768MB DDR Mem

My PCI-x slot is only 4x based.
 
Here's a benchmark that shows two 8800 GTX cards working together to achieve a lousy 22.6 fps at 1920x1200. (The same setup gets 54 fps in Oblivion, at the same resolution).

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_sli2007.html?modelx=33&model1=812&model2=804&chart=353

A 7600GT can get 20 fps at 1280x1024:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=716&model2=710&chart=291

It depends on your resolution. This game is badly written and you won't get it to reach many fps with any hardware. Sorry... Maybe wait until the 9800 GTX is out (around Christmas, apparently) and then see.

8800 GTS SLI is a bad idea. It's smarter to get a 8800 GTX and a 680i-based mobo, and later add another 8800 GTX if it's really necessary. As shown by the benchmark even that doesn't do much for Flight Simulator.
 

inefX

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I think it's more of a GPU problem rather than a CPU cuz tomshardware system specs are one of the highest for testing those cards.


Thanks for the replies!
 

james_8970

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You need a better CPU more then anything. This game does as it was already mentioned rely more on the CPU then the VGA card.
James
 

Malaga93

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Q6600, after July 22. If that's still not enough overclock it. Good luck :lol:

stupid game is single-threaded only, maybe with the patch it will support more cores, it's a great game but the optimization is pure crap, they should learn more from cry-tek or Valve.
 
A GF7600 won't run the game anywhere near max, and neither will a single GF8800 or HD2900, the game is a beast.

It's stil primarily CPU bound, but change the settings enough and you kill performance for the added visuals.
 
Personally I'd side with an HD2900 setup based on the dev's comments and the nature of the visuals in the game, but I think if you get either a GTS or an XT you'll get yourself on your way to deciding whether adding a second card for more power is worth it to you or not.

Really once you reach the upper level of visuals you will then start to be more CPU bound, but you need to get beyond that initial power level to reach a good baseline.

Expec the DX10 patch to change performance characteristics again when some of the effort can be offloaded off the CPU.
 

No1sFanboy

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Personally I'd side with an HD2900 setup based on the dev's comments and the nature of the visuals in the game, but I think if you get either a GTS or an XT you'll get yourself on your way to deciding whether adding a second card for more power is worth it to you or not.

I have to disagree here. Comparing cards running fsx is really a matter of splitting hairs but HardOCP did a thorough review and did better with both the gts and the gtx over the xt. They were able to run higher quality settings with both Nvidia cards.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM0MSwxMSwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

FSX is one title where I really notice higher AA. The lines of an aircraft against a blue sky can't be looking all jagged.
The other problem with the 2900 in those tests is the minimum fps it hits. With fsx you are already brushing up against unacceptable frame rates so minimums are more important than averages.

Of course this could all change when the dx10 patch is released but until then none of us know.
 
Personally I'd side with an HD2900 setup based on the dev's comments and the nature of the visuals in the game, but I think if you get either a GTS or an XT you'll get yourself on your way to deciding whether adding a second card for more power is worth it to you or not.

I have to disagree here. Comparing cards running fsx is really a matter of splitting hairs but HardOCP did a thorough review and did better with both the gts and the gtx over the xt. They were able to run higher quality settings with both Nvidia cards.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM0MSwxMSwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not talking about right now exclusively, I'm talking about DX10. And right now all three cards are equal except for the intial weak AA for the Ati cards (do you still think the GTS has as much of an AA lead as it did when that article was written? do you think nV has improved their geometry and vertex performance since then?).

Like I said, I'd bet on the HD2900 based on the dev's comments, but any of the 3 will do fine for now.

BTW, something I never figured out, but maybe you could enlighten me, because I often find myself lost for words when it comes to [H]'s recent reviews posts.
Just how did increasing resolution from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 with the same settings on the HD2900 (and the other two) INCREASE it's performance? Just something I found interesting, and I'd love to know the answer to to understand how lower setting and performance is 'max playable' by their benchmarking standard? Is it that they don't have a 1920x1440 or above monitor to check above 16x10 and see what's what?

And if in their Apples to Apples 8XQ was actually the same performance as the 8XCSAA, then why not enable it instead of claiming it? Especially after opening with this statement in the AA portion of the review;
"Looking very closely at 8X AA it appears that ATI’s 8X MSAA is superior in image quality to NVIDIA’s 8X CSAA mode. But when you look down and compare NVIDIA’s 8xQ mode (which is true 8X MSAA) the image quality is comparable. "

Is it just me or are we no longer talking about apples to apples anymore?

The other problem with the 2900 in those tests is the minimum fps it hits. With fsx you are already brushing up against unacceptable frame rates so minimums are more important than averages.

I agree, minimum is important, but not as important in FSX as it is in a first person shooter. The difference of a few frames at the low end in what otherwise looks like identical hystograms doesn't convince me that the difference is that great. As for AA I wouldn't trust [H]'s comments on what they could and couldn't do, considering what I mention above.

Of course this could all change when the dx10 patch is released but until then none of us know.

That's true but based on the type of DX10 exploits that FSX will focus on (vertex and geometry) and the areas that the HD2900 is strongest at (complex vertex and geometry) and what that will help offload (the CPU), I'm favouring the HD2900 in this one. I could be wrong, but like I said both the GTS and XT are good, I just prefer the HD2900, and I think if you think about the future of FSX, you might understand why I do even if you don't agree, regardless of what [H] wrote in their review of the launch contender.
 

Malaga93

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stupid game is single-threaded only,

No it's not. SP1 already added multi-core/thread support.

yay great didn't know that, i always loved the flight simulator games now with the usage of the both cores maybe i will see a better framerate.
 

bydesign

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This is just another case of of M$ picking the wrong dog to run with. They have back themselves in a corner just as the did with HD DVD. Despite Sony's involvement Blu-Ray will crush HD's inferior technology in the coming years. FSX is the same way rather coding the most efficient way they favored ATI method which hasn't lived up to expectations. I personally don't care if it's in the DX10 spec or not good coding is all about efficiency which something M$ is incapable of.
 
FSX is the same way rather coding the most efficient way they favored ATI method which hasn't lived up to expectations.

What are you talking about? It hasnothing to do with favouring ATi or nV in coding, it has to do with playing to the strengths of what your applications needs to do. Flight Sims have huge vertex/geometry loads, and that's just it. Whether it were ATi, intel, nV, S3 or SIS who performed better at that, that would be the horse to go with for this one game because that's what this game will require most. It will also be somewhat texture heavy depending on situation so there may be lots of offset benefits, but the area which will benefit the CPU load from DX10 will be bother geometry/vertex and efficient materials handling (which will reduce texture loads). So really once the game arrives we'll know the differences, but unless M$ actually did the opposite of what you say and coded for nV's hardware then the benefits should favour the HD2900, although this might be one of the very few titles that that would be the case.

I personally don't care if it's in the DX10 spec or not good coding is all about efficiency which something M$ is incapable of.

I wouldn't disgree there based on their initial issues with the CPU side of their house, but it's inefficient for both companies, so the architectural benefits will have to work out which can overcome the bottlenecks the best.
 

No1sFanboy

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I understand what you're saying, but I'm not talking about right now exclusively, I'm talking about DX10. And right now all three cards are equal except for the intial weak AA for the Ati cards (do you still think the GTS has as much of an AA lead as it did when that article was written? do you think nV has improved their geometry and vertex performance since then?).
I've seen the newer reviews and agree that ATI has made improvements but there is still weakness with AA. Here is Tweaktowns summary of the 7.6 drivers with regards to AA.
While we saw increases in our non-AA tests, we don’t see any improvements here.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1123/7/page_7_benchmarks_high_quality_aa_and_af/index.html
These guys have been very kind to ATI in their reviews. Heck they even put the xt up against the Ultra and concluded it was a better buy; no f'n kidding.

BTW, something I never figured out, but maybe you could enlighten me, because I often find myself lost for words when it comes to [H]'s recent reviews posts.
Just how did increasing resolution from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 with the same settings on the HD2900 (and the other two) INCREASE it's performance?

Will in the case of the gtx they did reduce the settings but overall I can only guess it is because the game is so CPU limited. If you look right here at Tom's VGA charts you see the same thing happening. The gtx goes from 22.4 to 22.6 going from 1600*1200 to 1920*1200. Both sites could use some new tests with sp 1 which should be tasking the GPU more.

Just something I found interesting, and I'd love to know the answer to to understand how lower setting and performance is 'max playable' by their benchmarking standard? Is it that they don't have a 1920x1440 or above monitor to check above 16x10 and see what's what?

I can't speak for them but I don't see too many sites testing 1920*1440. They tested at 1900*1200 which will take you up to a typical 24" lcd rather than some 19"crt at 1920*1440. The next stop would be the 30" panels which I personally would save for the sli/xfire tests.

And if in their Apples to Apples 8XQ was actually the same performance as the 8XCSAA, then why not enable it instead of claiming it?

At 8X AA where you would think the benefit of ATI’s 512-bit ring bus memory subsystem would benefit more from seems to underperform the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB. Note that this is using NVIDIA’s 8X CSAA mode, we did try 8xQ and found the performance delta shown here to be exactly the same still.

I agree, minimum is important, but not as important in FSX as it is in a first person shooter. The difference of a few frames at the low end in what otherwise looks like identical hystograms doesn't convince me that the difference is that great.

I agree with you that min. fps is not as important here as in a FPS but when you get down below 20 it takes away from the simulation. When you go even lower still it is hard to fly and back to the settings you go taking away buildings and making cities look like rural areas.

Ever since buying this flight sim last year making it run well has been my goal. Heck, FSX prompted my last upgrade cycle, I was perfectly happy with an my opty175 and 850xt combo before FSX. FSX also got me more interested in overclocking. I've now seen increases from new hardware, overclocking and sp1 and I look forward to the long over due dx10 patch. If you are correct and ATI has the better dx10 solutions then my 8yr old boy will be looking good with his 1yr old 8800gtx when I go red. Till then I trust nothing with re. to dx10. DX10 has been a lot of missed deadlines and initially poor performance as an add on.
 
Will in the case of the gtx they did reduce the settings but overall I can only guess it is because the game is so CPU limited. If you look right here at Tom's VGA charts you see the same thing happening. The gtx goes from 22.4 to 22.6 going from 1600*1200 to 1920*1200. Both sites could use some new tests with sp 1 which should be tasking the GPU more.

Yeah but if the pixel load is going UP then why does the XT's minimum FPS improve so much and the only thing hurt is the max FPS? Their 1600x1200 test show a completely different picture of the XT completely non-performant, yet move to Widescreen and the gap closes with less dips below 20fps even, and moves it closer to the others. To me it's just a poor test on a game that obviously has other areas of stress, and if it's just GPU bound then the fps shouldn't go up as a result of higher resolution it should stay bound. And if it was the XT alon that was causing performance issues then going from 16x12 to 19x12 should've dropped the performance even more. In all it's just an indication that it's a terrible game to be testing the 'my favourite setting' scenario. I would prefer a true apples-to-apples, but we can't even get that. Based on all the reviews that have come out since the [H] initial review, I value it less and less each subsequent review. Unfortunately it's one of the few with FSX tests.

I can't speak for them but I don't see too many sites testing 1920*1440.

True, but if you're going for 'max playable' then stopping at 16x12 for the 4:3 tests in every scenario, simply shows that it's a test limitation, not a card limitation. And of all the times when you want to compare them it's on a CRT that can scale to the best fit, unlike and LCD which is stuck at native resolution.

They tested at 1900*1200 which will take you up to a typical 24" lcd rather than some 19"crt at 1920*1440. The next stop would be the 30" panels which I personally would save for the sli/xfire tests.

The next stop is 20x15 which is another 4:3 resolution that most 21" and 22" gamers had on their Sony and Viewsonics. Remember that section is 4:3 gaming, so the 30" LCDs don't factor into it, but resolutions above 1600x1200 do for anyone who still appreciates CRT gaming and has the money to buy any of these cards. I think for a 'best fit' test, they aren't 'best fiting' the CRT gamers out there. Heck my old Phillips 17" was a 1600x1200 monitor, they couldn't find themselves at less a 19x14 let alone 20x15 monitor for testing?

If we were stuck at 1280x1024 testing with THG's tests we'd get a very different picture, and assuming the CPU bottleneck, not question what happened above 1280x1024 if we didn't have the tests?
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=740&model2=722&chart=291

The GF7900GT playing in the field of the Gods should show that issue pretty clearly. Or moving down to 10x7 the GF7900GS beats both the GTS and GTX.

And if in their Apples to Apples 8XQ was actually the same performance as the 8XCSAA, then why not enable it instead of claiming it?

At 8X AA where you would think the benefit of ATI’s 512-bit ring bus memory subsystem would benefit more from seems to underperform the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB. Note that this is using NVIDIA’s 8X CSAA mode, we did try 8xQ and found the performance delta shown here to be exactly the same still.

Yes, I read the section, and like I said, they should prove it not say it. WTF are they doing running CSAA at all if they say it doesn't match the same IQ setting? Why not just run ATi's wide tent AA and pretend it's the same as the CSAA? I know they tried to add that caveat, but the fact that they tested the poorer version and then said it performed the same as the better version simply shows lack of internal consistency/validity.

Till then I trust nothing with re. to dx10. DX10 has been a lot of missed deadlines and initially poor performance as an add on.

I understand that, but considering the similarity in performance right out of the bag, the areas that DX10 will benefit a game like FSX the most, and most importantly to me considering the statements made by the M$ developers about the G80 and R600 when making the DX10 patch, all I'm saying is that I would recommend the HD2900XT over a GTS as a starting point, but like I said, that's my recommendation. I wouldn't take the [H] DX9 benchmarks over the M$ DX10 comments when it comes to picking a card to play FSX. Of course others may differ.
 

brechenme

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I use a
E6300
2 gigs of PC6400 ram
and an 8800 GTS 320mb



I play the game at max settings with no lagging or frame rate issues.

EDIT:

I play at 1280x1024 my max screen size for a 19" monitor.
 

chanjchan

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I am more confused then ever now. can someone build a product that works without any problems. i simply would like to use my flight sim
as promissed on the box.. the best flying experience ever, so make it happen and stop talking about. "I WOULD BUY ANY THING THAT WORKS
LIKE WE WANT IT TO". please get your act together then give us the break down.. can any one help PLEASE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

Chanman
 

Spitfire7

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I feel your pain. I as well am looking for that system.

I currently have the Q9550 4ghz, 4GB ram, 8800gt on 1680x1050 and I can play on Ultra High settings with decent frames, but when i want to go to maxed out settings including bloom, max traffic, farthest weather distance, building shadows and you name it will all the bells and whistles, I am barely getting 14fps. That is not playable for me and there is no way that Brechenme with a e6300, 2GB ram, and a 8800GTS is able to play on max settings. Yes he said he's on the 1280 res, but he must not have bloom and some other special bells and whistles. Cloud draw distance is probably low and traffic is probably on normal Ultra high settings which means you can still increase 3/4 of the way.

Lets keep this one going guys, because I am upgrading right now and I want to see who is able to play on completely maxed out settings. not just ultra high, but manually increased to the absolute max on minimum or 1680x1050 res. What do you got?
 

Spitfire7

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Any luck yet? Share the wealth of what you have learned from when you started this thread so long ago. Times have changed and there are a lot of new toys out their since you started this. Any new info?