Need card selection help

[jimmyj68]

I have an old gpu size 8800GTS in my new Intel DP35DPM with 8400C2D. I only play one "game", Flight Simulator, and I like it to be pristine (as possible) viewing. My new system is running Vista with DX10 and and my monitor is a BENQ 19" max resolution 1280x1024.

I have some hard charging scenery addons that really put the card to work and it shows some instability and video tearing if game settings are maxed out. I'd like to get a more capable video card - I don't want to spend 3 - 4 hundred bucks.

If it helps to know I'm running Vista in 32 bit but with 4 gig of memory installed. Sound is an Asus Xonar DX, power supply a Be quiet! Dark Power Pro 650watt. And - right now in a Lian Li B25B case everything is real quiet - I don't want a video card that will destroy my noise sdignature.

P.S. I haven't owned an ATI card in years - but I'm willing to change in light of some of the latest reviews.

 

[Quiksilver]

Which 8800GTS?
8800GTS 512?
8800GTS 112 shaders (or was it 128 shaders...)?
8800GTS 640?
8800GTS 320?

I'd say for $400 pickup a 4850 and Q6600 quad core as Flight Simulator is pretty cpu intensive. The only thing with the 4850 is you have to fix the fan yourself by editing a file.

 

[jimmyj68]

8800 gts 640---and what do I do with my C2D 8400?

 

[Quiksilver]

Sell it? Use it as a backup?

 

[jimmyj68]

Trying to sell stuff on AT scares me. First time I tried it some folks treated me as if I were trying to scam them. If you have no "heat" no one will trust you so you get no "heat"?????

That aside, the game crashed on me a little while ago (on approach to Helsinki, Finland's Vantaa Airport) with the message it had run out of memory?????? What memory? The motherboard memory or the VIdeo card memory?????? How do you know????? With the system operating perfectly enough to tell me the game crashed for lack of memory it would seem the video card's 640mb isn't enough????? The best selling cards out there now have usually 512 meg of memory.

 

[SickBeast]

I think you should keep your current stuff.

At your resolution, a new graphics card isn't going to gain you anything except for maybe in Crysis.

The E8400 is a way better gaming CPU overall than the Q6600. That thing supposedly will overclock to 4.4ghz on air consistently.

As for your memory problem, it sounds like it ran out of system ram. Try to patch the game if you can. It could be a Vista issue. I reverted to XP from Vista64; too many issues in games and I found the OS to be generally too bloated after awhile.

 

[Quiksilver]

I wouldn't know what the error was, but sames it has only happened once it doesn't seem like a problem. If your afraid to sell the e8400; just keep it and go with the first option of purchasing an 4870 then later down the road perhaps grab a quad core.

 

[jimmyj68]

It's not the first time it has happened - it will artifact sometimes and not crash, and sometimes it will artifact and crash - it even did it back in the XP Pro system. I thought maybe the card might be faulty but it operates perfectly most of the time and only acts up in FltSim X.

It may be my fault for setting up incorrect settings. To be honest I'm not sure how to set the card for the best performance - which adjustments have priority? The settings in the NVIDIA driver or the settings wthin the FltSim? Running at the native resolution of the monitor,1280x1024, and with the settings for scenery provided in the addon scenery software set for near photo level ground and earth imaging seems to cause the card and or game to crash.

I have to hit the sack - I'll come back in the morning to talk some more.

Thanks for bearing with me thus far----

Oh! how can a quad care improve things if the game isn't written to operate multicore?