best vid card for MS FLIGHT SIMULATOR???

[Davegod75]

topic says it all. Kinda thinking dual head card but wanted your thoughts. Also the price should be around $100.

Thanks

 

[Killrose]

What are your sysytem specs? Your price range dictates either one of the older Vodoo3's or a used TNT2 Ultra, though for a little more you could spring for an MX. On my system I play that game at 32 bit, 2xFSAA, 1024x768, gets a little slow sometimes but even then stays payable.
MS CFS2 is a different matter, though I think it is a little buggy, looks a lot better than MS CFS1.

 

[hans007]

if you can spend $120 a v4 4500, would probably be good, just because well the fsaa is better, and flight sims dont need the greatest fill rate. I know some will argue a gf2mx, but its not as good fsaa, and not as good 2d. You could just pick up some $10 cheap PCI for your 2nd monitor.

 

[superbaby]

The 3dfx V4 doesn't have FSAA. I recall that feature is disabled in those cards because it is lacking in fillrate. To get FSAA in a 3dfx card you will need to get a V5 or higher.

 

[RoboTECH]

superbaby, that is an incorrect statement. The v4-4500 supports FSAAx2

 

[Davegod75]

i was looking at the voodoo 4500 and the benchmarks are horrilbe compared to the gefore2 mx. I'm looking at the evga card plus.

specs on the system are

asus K7M
tbird 700@900
128mb pc100

 

[RoboTECH]

*sigh*

show me the benchmarks on MS FS2000, since that is the primary game in question here.

now show me the FSAA benchmarks, since that is what any flight sim'er will use

wh00ps......

 

[Cosmic_Horror]

flight sims are very heavily cpu limited! Any of the cards will run basically at the same speed as the cpu is the limiting factor, untill you get into a very high resolution. Just choose the one with the best picture quality.


That said the V4 4500 does support faa but that does cut the video bandwitdh in half. Shouldn't be at low res (640 x 480) but at 1024 x 768 in 32bit colour you may start to see the effects of it.... (note this is speculation on my part as i have no benchmarks to confirm one way or the other, but logically to me it does make sense).

 

[mschell]

I've used MS Flt simulator on a few different cards, a plain jane 32MB ATI Rage Fury runs about the same as a GeForce MX, the ATI displays the sims textures and sky a bit better. All the graphical options in the sim are maxed except for dynamic scenery which is a real frame rate killer.
Forget about FSAA and just run resolutions at 1280x1024 or higher. This virtually eliminates any "jaggies" and really sharpens landscape details. It also allows a wider field of view which is a big help for flt sims. Both the GFMX and the Rage run the higher resolutions with no problems. Even though MS Flt sim is D3D, some cards have display issues running the sim. Matrox cards were/are famous for odd visual glitches, 3DFx had crashing problems(the system, not the planes!). I can only vouch for Nvidia and ATI myself.
Oh yea, I'm running a I815/P-III @825MHz but 1GHz would probably be optimum for best frame rate.

 

[Wingznut]

Nevermind... misread the topic.