Video Card question for NickN

[FlyinMisfit 0]

hi Nick,have you had any time to do some testing with the ATI5870? if so, what do u think? would u recommend it over the GTX285 for FSX?i would have posted this in the video card/drivers forum, but it seems like ur a little more active here in this forum. i plan on upgrading to Win7 later this month and will be doing a clean install. a good way/time to clean out all of the NV drivers if the 5870 is worth it.thanks for any info. u may have on this.happy flyin, FM

[Guest djt01]

hi Nick,have you had any time to do some testing with the ATI5870? if so, what do u think? would u recommend it over the GTX285 for FSX?i would have posted this in the video card/drivers forum, but it seems like ur a little more active here in this forum. i plan on upgrading to Win7 later this month and will be doing a clean install. a good way/time to clean out all of the NV drivers if the 5870 is worth it.thanks for any info. u may have on this.happy flyin, FM

The new ATI 5870 has already been discussed in the video card section.I just installed an Asus 5870 in my i7 975 machine over the weekend (which previously had an EVGA GTX 285 FTW) installed. So far with the exception of some image quality issues with a couple of my racing sims it

[FlyinMisfit 0]

The new ATI 5870 has already been discussed in the video card section.I just installed an Asus 5870 in my i7 975 machine over the weekend (which previously had an EVGA GTX 285 FTW) installed. So far with the exception of some image quality issues with a couple of my racing sims it

[Guest djt01]

hi djt01,i did see the 5870 discussion in the video card forum. however, i'd really like to get Nick's opinion on the 5870 w/FSX.btw, are u using any of the heavy iron A/C in FSX? ie...PMDG747, LD767, PMDG MD11? if so, when u have time i would like to know what kind of performance ur getting with the 5870. i too am a little skeptical about the 5870 performance in FSX. especially with it's 256-bit memory bus. happy flyin, FM

I

[FlyinMisfit 0]

i see ur using the 191.xxx drivers with ur gtx285 - beta or retail? also, what version of nhancer are u using?what kind of an improvement if any compared to the 182.50's and nhancer 2.51? (with FSX of course)happy flyin, fm

[Guest djt01]

i see ur using the 191.xxx drivers with ur gtx285 - beta or retail? also, what version of nhancer are u using?

The 190.03 beta's were being used with Vista 64 and other games not FSX. I have not had any problems with them.

what kind of an improvement if any compared to the 182.50's and nhancer 2.51? (with FSX of course)

None, what the signature fails to show is that I was still using the 182.50's with FSX on the XP/SP2 64-bit install before I got the ATI 5870.

[FlyinMisfit 0]

thanks for the info.

[Guest djt01]

thanks for the info.

A little update on the ATI 5870

[FlyinMisfit 0]

thanks for the info. glad to hear ur enjoying that 5870. feel free to post more info. when you have the time.btw, if it's not to much trouble what are your FSX in game settings? AA, AF settings?happy flyin, fm

[Guest djt01]

thanks for the info. glad to hear ur enjoying that 5870. feel free to post more info. when you have the time.btw, if it's not to much trouble what are your FSX in game settings? AA, AF settings?happy flyin, fm

The settings in FSX are exactly what NickN

[Guest Nick_N]

I need to make something clear about my suggestions around cards/settingsFirst, the new ATi card is the first card since the x800XT series that shows promise for matching Nvidia in MSFS rendering but its still a shader render engine based video card. Nvidia is still catering to the old triangle rendering engines in their core designs and that may change very soon as ATi starts to overtake them again. In that, it is theoretically possible a video card from ATi/Nvidia in 2012 may not run FSX any better than one released this year. I still find the new ATi card is a bit behind with MSFS, not far but still lagging where the perf is needed. With that my suggestions around video cards still stand:If a user is building a system specifically geared to MSFS and does not have a need to run games such as Crysis, stick with Nvidia. If a user wishes to have the ability to run the shader based render engine games (tradeoff with MSFS) then the new ATi card can present value to the user. The reason ATi has had issues with MSFS is 2 primary areas.. (there are a few others too but I will hit the highlights)1. ATi

[Guest djt01]

The primary reason I post the use of Nhancer with Nvidia is to control shimmers and to enhance the visuals especially on modern large screen displays. Those settings may NOT be needed for ATi cards to obtain the same result, therefore with ATi you do need to experiment with AA level to find what looks/works best for your system and what you appreciate as a quality image. Dropping AA with ATi to 4x will probably help overcome weather problems. There are some who say they do not see shimmers and the image looks fine to them without the use of Nhancer.. I think that is subjective as my eye is very sensitive to visual quality and as of yet in 3 years of FSX use with Nvidia have seen any system look better without it.. to each his own on those settings

That

[FlyinMisfit 0]

I need to make something clear about my suggestions around cards/settingsFirst, the new ATi card is the first card since the x800XT series that shows promise for matching Nvidia in MSFS rendering but its still a shader render engine based video card. Nvidia is still catering to the old triangle rendering engines in their core designs and that may change very soon as ATi starts to overtake them again. In that, it is theoretically possible a video card from ATi/Nvidia in 2012 may not run FSX any better than one released this year. I still find the new ATi card is a bit behind with MSFS, not far but still lagging where the perf is needed. With that my suggestions around video cards still stand:If a user is building a system specifically geared to MSFS and does not have a need to run games such as Crysis, stick with Nvidia. If a user wishes to have the ability to run the shader based render engine games (tradeoff with MSFS) then the new ATi card can present value to the user. The reason ATi has had issues with MSFS is 2 primary areas.. (there are a few others too but I will hit the highlights)1. ATi

[Guest Nick_N]

Nick, thank you very much for the 5870 info. i have one quick question for you concerning FSX. does the 512-bit Mem. bus on the Nvidia 285GTX cards provide any performance advantage over the 256-bit bus on the ATI 4870/5870 cards? even though the Nvidia cards still use the slower GDDR3 Memory vs. the faster GDDR5 Memory that ATI uses. thanks again for your time and info.happy flyin, fm

Absolutely which is what I said aboveThat memory bus is one of the advantages the Nv card has over the ATi for FSX.. its been that way since the release of the 8800 series cardsPhil Taylor posted the importance of that bus speed to FSX in his blog as wellYour pipe speed is what makes that work.. GDDR doesnt mean squat if the pipe is narrow. Its 6 of 1 or 1/2 dozen of the other In reality the 5870 has a SLOWER memory bandwidth even with GDDR5 GTX285= 158.98GB/s 5870 = 153.60 GB/sbut regardless what FSX responeds to is core speed, memory bus with a good shader clock on a healthy number of Texture Multiplier UnitsYou can have a massive pixel/texture fill rate and a massive shader operation speed.. if the render engine is not 'shader' based and the bus aint gettin the data from point A to point B any faster then you wont see any advantage and the core operations have to wait for the data to get across the bus so having a higher core speed on a restricted bus isnt making the card faster to FSX either. The GTX285 still trumps it in FSX.. not by much but it still runs FSX better. Other games are different, which is why I posted its a good trade-off if you want the Crysis or other modern shader render game support

[Guest djt01]

The GTX285 still trumps it in FSX.. not by much but it still runs FSX better.

I believed before I bought the 5870 that it would be