Video Hardware: Monitors | Multi-Monitors | Video Cards | Drivers etc

Hi,My video card failed . It's an ATI Radeon X850XT 256MP AGP and I need to find a replacement or a suitable alternative. I run WindowsXP and FS2004. My CPU is an Intel P4 3.0 Ghz 800 FSB on an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe motherboard. My View Sonic monitor has a maximum resolution of 1920x1440 @64 Hz, but I run it at 1600x1200 @77Hz.I've searched for a replacement but none seems available. Is there an alternative AGP card out there that would work as well ?Thanks,Jack

I'm about to pull the trigger on a laptop for fs9. Specs of my current top choice listed below. Would greatly appreciate any help if I am off base somewhere, as I've looked over the forums here and based on what I've read this seems more than adequate. I notice drive make/speed is missing but I'm not tech savvy enough to know how important that is.I will be running with some scenery and aircraft addons and would of course like very smooth performance. Been away from the sim for a couple of years and have never run it on a laptop so I appreciate any assistance. I have a little upward flex in the funds if I could gain significant improvement from upgrading processor or g…

I am starting to plan a computer upgrade. One of my requirements will be to run 4 screens: 3 LCD panels at 1680x1050 for multi-screen gaming (i.e. FSX) 1 Wacom Cintiq at 1280x1050 Currently, I am running three screens (2 LCD's + Cintiq) and that involves the kludge of using a PCI card to power one of them. The PCI video card has been nothing but trouble and I'd prefer to stay pure PCI-e (or the equivalent) next round.I've been reading about Nvidia and ATI's options for multi-screen gaming (ATI has something out, Nvidia not yet?), and it's leaving me more confused than I started. I can't sort out if this sort of configuration will work off 1 card, 2 SLI cards, or some com…

Spotted on Guru3D forums, looks like MSI has a leg up on the new Catalyst drivers. Major speed improvements on my 5870 on other titles, a bit better on FSX it seems.Note: while these Catalyst 10.1 drivers are on the MSI video card site, they are in fact the ATI branded drivers and will work on any Radeon supported by Catalyst. For some reason, the drivers are not available as of this post on ATI's driver site (only 9.12 there).Dl 129Mb, includes Windows 7 x32 and x64.http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=do...0&prod_no=1909

After FSX was released, I waited 2 years for the hardware to "catch up" to the new demands of the program. Last year I went out and got what the BestBuy Geeks said was the best they had at the time, a Gateway FX 6800-01e system with Intel core i7cpu 920@ 2.67 ghz., 3.00 GB DDR3 1066mgz ram, and an ATI Rdeon HD 4850 graphics card. I since have added a 6 GB memory kit for a total of 9 gb, and a TripleHeadtoGo with 3 19" monitors. Performance is just acceptable, and I get framerates from 30+ in rural areas to only 5 near San Francisco and KSFO with occasional stutters and pauses. I also have Ultimate Traffic II enabled but scaled the traffic down quite a bit. After 2 years I…

Would you rather suggest me to wait for Fermi or keep my GTX285.Here is a short story:I received my card yesterday, as per previous post. Card is technically OK, but the packaging was damaged and card has already been used.What the shop did not know, is that the guy who already had the card registered it with eVGA. So I am not able to transfer the license, and I can't use the 10year guarantee offering. Do I really need it is the question. I also got a great rebate for that on the card, it costed instead of 370€, only 300.They told me I could return the card, without questions asked and have my 300€ refunded.Anyway, I did read on two posts about Fermi how it's supposed to …

First of all, what an awesome piece of equipment this is.Second:To whoever said that FS9 is CPU limited, and that you rather go CPU upgrade than GPU, you are so wrong. It all depends on what you currently have...I just installed my new eVGA GTX 285 into my old computer, the new i7 is still on the way.Basically, I didn't even reinstall the driver, just changed the card from 8800GT to GTX285. Driver reinstalled automatically, had to change the line for the card in the fs9.cfg (I rename my existing fs9.cfg, let it create new, copy the Nvidia line from the new, paste in the old and rename it back) and set Nhancer settings again.Anyway, my first observations:Nhancer is set to …

With my new system I am planning to get a new LCD/LED 23 or 24 inch Monitor. Will a GTX 260 be able to run it at the 1920 x 1200 2ms resolution with good frame rates? I am trying not to go too much higher than a GTX 260 so a 285 is not in the cards at this time. How bad would it look if I changed it from it's native resolution down to 1680 x 1050 2ms?Would I be better off going for a 22" with 1680 x 1050 2ms native resolution? I do plan to upgrade when Fermi is out and the bugs are worked out, that is why I plan on the larger screen at this time. I plan to connect the monitor with a HDMI connection.My new system will consist of:i7 920 @ 3.8+6gb 1600 RAM750W PSUJeremy

Hi guy's and happy new year, Guy;s been having some issues with drivers,updated to win 7 pro 64 bit with a 275 gtx asus vid cardbut just cant get the performance out of it like i was in xp pro 32 bitAny susgestions on a good vid card driver to use ,if i cant get it up to standard will think about going back to xpcheers mark

I'm looking for your opinion on how much of a bang for the buck I could get performance wise if I upgraded to a new(er) graphics card -- here's the rub -- with a budget of around $100 or so.My specs:E6600 slightly OC'd to 2.69 GHz at stock voltage (am I being too much of a nervous nelly to not push higher?)2 Gig Corsair PC2-6400FSX running on it's own drive -- 10K RPM Raptorand... a 7600GT with only 256 MB of memory.I'm getting OK performance -- hitting my FPS limit of 30 in quiet areas and usually able to maintain at least 15 FPS (with occasional stutters) in most crowded areas, even with REX2 HD clouds, ASA and UT2 running.So, from a cost-benefit perspective, are there …

Hey guys,My Hanns G 28 inch died last night although it had been signs of going for a couple of weeks now... It started showing some "snow" or artifacts a couple of weeks ago. Best way to describe it is as noise that looked like flickering snow. I actually thought it was a driver issue and have been changing drivers chasing my tail until last night it finally went black upon boot. It would come back intermittently but is too unpredictable to use. So last night after trying the 28 on a GTX 285 and an 8800 GTX and then trying a different monitor on both cards I was able to verify the monitor was definitely the issue and not the cards or cables...So this morning like any goo…

I have just upgraded to an i5 with an ATI 5850 at the same time as moving to Windows 7 64bit. I have re installed my FS9 that I use most of the time but also tried to give FSX a go as I have a new rig. I have installed it pretty much the way Nick N suggested but I have a pretty major problem. Other than the fact that both FS9 and FSX seem to be more buggy in Win 7 (difficult to minimize to desktop and back again, FSX runs in windows basic mode etc etc) the main problem I am facing is screen tearing. This only happens in FSX and I am running a matrox triple head2go system running 3840 x 1024. Whenever I fly using my track ir the screen tears quite considerably even though …

And the reason is: triangle setup rateGF100 is the only (consumer) GPU on the planet that can setup more than 1 triangle every clock cycle. In fact, it can do (up to) 4 of them each clock cycle. As many of you know by now, MSFS has a lot of geometry in each scene, so much so in fact that it is the primary limiter of GPU performance. This problem could have been solved earlier if MSFS were compatible with the popular multi-GPU rendering mode of AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering), but alas it is not. Note: I have no empirical data which demonstrates that GF100 boosts MSFS performance, this is a *theory* based purely on the recently released GF100 architectural information.…

I have an old computer over here, these are its current specifications:Dell Optiplex GX280Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (Prescott)1.25 GB RAM DDR2(1 GB PC5300 + 256MB PC3200)Integrated grahpics Intel 915 128 MB (taken from RAM)Windows XP Pro SP3Flight Simulator 2004 (updated to 9.1)In KSEA I can keep up to 18 FPS (Locked at 20, scenery and autogen at Normal) in Carenado's Cessna 182RG when in VC (gauge quality set at high). I'm thinking of upgrading the RAM from 1.25 to 2GB (I'll remove the 256-MB stick, it's too slow... or should I leave it? I have 4 DIMM slots) and adding an inexpensive 512 MB Nvidia 8400 GS video card (all computer hardware here is overpriced). How much impr…

I'm going to building an all new computer and I think the only thing I'm left with is to decide on the video card. It looks like there will be a $100 between a GTX 275 with 896 MB of RAM and a GTX 285 with 1 GB or RAM. The various posts I've seen suggest that not a lot of improvement will be had with the GTX 285 over the 275 and I probably wouldn't even be asking if I could find a 275 with 1 GB or RAM. So bottom line, how much difference will I find?For the time being, my monitor is not being upgraded and will therefore leave the resolution at 1280x1024. However, I do see an upgrade at somepoint in the future. I have no plans for massively high resolution, but would …

Hello people :)I am starting to wonder if I did anything wrong with my rather new PC.I suffer from time to time complete freeze/crash while running fs9. Tonight, I managed to get the message about what was causing the freeze/crash: the nv drivers.Most of the time, the PC is totally locked, so no way to see what happened.The graphic card is an Asus nVidia GTX 260, operated on WinXP Home 32, 4gb and the 3GB switch for the OOMs etc.The drivers version is 190.45, the latest that were available when I bought the video card.I installed the original nVidia drivers, not the manufacturer's (Asus).The PC was brand new, the OS installation is brand new as well, never had any other g…

What video card is good for me?6 graphics card in my mind there, which one is better for FSX???1. EVGA GeForce GT220 Video Card - 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI, VGA (I think this one better?)http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/se...p?EdpNo=52966532. EVGA - GeForce 9500 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI Express http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=36693. PNY - NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI Express http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/se...20PCI%20Express4. EVGA GeForce GT220 Video Card - 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI, VGAhttp://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...p;Sku=E145-02225. PNY GeForce 9500 GT Video Card - 1GB GDDR2, PCI Express 2…

Hello to all of you, I recently posted a question regarding perf after buying a new moniter. I went from a 17" moniter with a max res of 1280x1024 to a HD 23" moniter with a max res of 1920x1080. I saw perf. decreases because of the higher pixel draw req. I currently have an i7 920 OCed to 3.6Ghz with 9 G ram at 1600 with the Rampage 11 Gene mobo and a GTX260 nvidia card. If I was to buy the ATI 5870, would I see my perf go back to what it was on the old moniter? Do I need that card? I just want to run my games on my new moniter with the same perf as my old moniter. Would a new GFX card even help with drawing more pixels or am I just out of luck?

After installing Nvidia driver 195.62 for my GTS 250, I was setting up Nhancer per NickN's guide, and a question came up: Should CPU Multi Core Support (under compatablity) be enabled for a dual core processor? The guide says to set it to single core for XP, but doesn't FSX SP2 utilize the second core to some extent?I've tried it both ways and don't really see a difference in frame rates, but there are so many variables (aircraft, scenery, slider settings, Etc), that I'm not sure which is better. Any thoughts from those of you using Win XP?Dale

Several new articles on the new nVIDIA GPU, GF100 or Fermi, available here:http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3721&p=1http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/01/17/..._facts_opinionshttp://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gf100-...tx-11,2536.htmlhttp://www.guru3d.com/article/nvidia-gf100...nology-preview/Looks very promising, but still no hardware available for benchmarking and nVIDIA don't reveal any data about actual clock speeds, chip size (costs), power consumption or generated heat :( But it sure looks good on the (white) paper :(

I've posts regarding black or missing texture by people using Windows 7/64 and FSX. These seemd to usually be with PMDG aircraft, but it seems some have reported it with other aircraft. No one was able to actually give a reason why this happened, but many have speculated that it was related to the nVidia drivers. Does anyone have more information on this? Was it an issue, or currently an issue? And if so, is it in fact related to nVidia drivers? Does anyone have any screenshots of exactly what this looks like and is happening?I ask, because I am planning a new computer and ideally want to use the nVidia 275/285. However, these issues could make me rethink if they'r…

Hi Folks,I'm having a problem with FSX where after an hour of flying or so, when I call up the menu and access the Map or Instant Replay or Settings etc, when I exit the menu and go back to the sim the display becomes corrupted. The cockpit vanishes and the scenery textures flash and flicker. If I press Esc I can End Flight and go back to the main FSX screen, interestingly though the preview image of the aircraft on the Free Flight screen just shows as a black box. Do you think this is a problem with my graphics card?I'm running a i920 @ 3.8ghz (core temps during Prime95 are 58c), 6Gb Ram, Asus P6T Deluxe V2, BFG GTX285 OCX card (with factory settings), and Vista 64. I'm …

I'm not sure what I did but now my desktop, fs2004, etc.. won't fit on my moniter correctly. The screen seems too big. I have tried to manually move it but no go. I just installed a gsx 260 graphics card. Any help would be great.Thank Youanthony

Just wondering what primary video card controller I should have set in my Bios. I have a gtx260 card for a pci express. My options in the bios are: GFXO-GPP-IGFX-PCIGPP-GFXO-IGFX-PCIPCI-GFXO-GPP-IGFXIGFX-GFXO-GPP-PCIThanks for the help. I'm really not familiar with these settings.Thank YouAnthony

I have a 26" LG and would like to run two 20" monitors on the sides, but I think the left and right views would looks weird.