Nightowl Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 The German publication FSMagazin published an article about a budget graphic card (arround €60 - €70) with some very good performance. It even beats some expensive high end cards. The card they are talking about is the Ati 4650 card with 1Gb DDR3 mem. Results of some tests in FSX are stated in the table below. It is ammazing how such a "cheap" card is performing so well. Just for your information! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnE Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 I believe that FSX is more CPU dependent rather than GPU, so its not really that surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John York Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 Yes, and they only show performance, not the graphics (picture) quality, which is really what a graphics card is all about. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightowl Posted June 6, 2009 Author Share Posted June 6, 2009 Picture quality is very good as well, no difference with my Nvidia card I used to use for FS. (both FS9 and FSX). I am surprised about this card. Mathijs Kok of Aerosoft recommended the card to the editing team of FSMagazin. After reading the article I decided to give it a go too, and I am possitively surprised as the fps improved with a huge leap, without affecting the quality of the images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobdeVries Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 What graphics card was it exactly because a Ati 4650 card with 1Gb DDR3 mem does not exist as far as I know.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtualwombat Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 Another caveat. Don't assume all ATI cards will work happily under all OS. The 4870 1GB card cannot run Vsync under W7 or Vista. That maybe important for folks running TrackIR, where VSync has to be on to avoid texture tearing. I don't know if this applies to the 4890 as well, which is just a re-designed 4870... Cheers, Noel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 There are some that have hardware far superior to mine and yet my system out performs theirs, all relative I'd say BUT carefull tuning KNOWING what your doing will be more beneficial than blundering along with hardware 3 times superior and not haveing it tuned correctly. Bit like showing up at La Mans with your ferrari running on 6 Cylinders instead of 12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZ255 Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Would a lot a Graphics memory be handy at FTX YMML, or does RAM store the textures? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Not necessarily as I believe it depends on your pre-rendering settings and other things of that nature. If you can take info from the CPU and render it on the fly to the screen your better off that if you have a high end card that will pre-render as it would need to devote time and GPU cycle to doing just that and then storing and retrieving the pre-rendered frames. The Pipeline ie FSB and the ability of the SATA Bus to get imagery from the HDD through the CPU and to the GPU and then the screen that ultimatly determins how well your system performs. I doubt my system would show ANY improvement by going to a 1 Gb Vid Card over and above the 512 I currently have. I experimented with O/Clocking the Vid Card and the only thing this did was create heat and instability (No Performance Increase on this system ). IMHO To build a good system for FSX and Gaming in general you must follow 5 simple rules. 1. Buy a Mainboard that will support any desired expansion in the near future and not buy a cheaper MB that will essentially be redundant . 2. Get a MB that has a FSB equal to or of greater bandwidth that the CPU 3. This Bandwidth surplus MUST follow through all sections of the PC to the Vid Card. 4. Your PSU MUST be at least 20% greater capacity than is needed to avoid un-necessary voltage regulation errors. 5. Run your OS on "C:\" and have ALL other programing and your Profile etc on other drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Methnks the figures obtained for both the 8800 and GTX280 are a little on the low side, perhaps suggesting there are other issues in the test. So many variables ... it is a shame you can't just get everything out of the box and just run it .. but as we all know .. various options have startling effects on performance and image quality some times. Just shows, though ... if you are on a budget .. current gen budget hardware can be quite pleasing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Snyman Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 But at what screen resolution though? Usually you will find that the lower budget card can't keep up with with a high-end card at higher resolutions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Its been my experience that screen resolution make no difference IF you have things set correctly and tuned . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John York Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Hey Maurice. Wouldn't like a little trip to the old Country would you? While you're here, you could give me a quick tune. My computer I mean. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 JohnY it might interest you to know I can do all that and more remotely just as if I was sitting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John York Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 I might take you up on that sometime Maurice, if that was an offer. Actually, I was joking. My machine has been working more satisfactorily during the last year (since Redline came over and put in a new 1 GB 8800 GT graphics card for me) than it has ever done. That and the bit of overclocking (discovered my 6600 had been installed with a factory preset of 1.87 GHz when it should have been running at 2.4 GHz and then he put it up to 2.8 GHz). Also some work with nHancer and the Nvidia settings has done wonders. The only problem now is I'm scared stiff of doing anything in case it all goes pear shaped! Although, if an opportunity came along I think I would increase my RAM from 4 to 6 GB. All the best John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightowl Posted June 7, 2009 Author Share Posted June 7, 2009 What graphics card was it exactly because a Ati 4650 card with 1Gb DDR3 mem does not exist as far as I know.. The card I purchased is the Club3D HD4650 with 1GB mem. http://www.club3d.nl/products/products_ending_page_7_with_id.cfm?product_id=118 The resolution I use (also on the previous card) 1680 X 1050. The test was done in Aerosoft's Manhathan (FSX). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobdeVries Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Thanks NightOwl, so no DDR3 but GDDR2.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightowl Posted June 7, 2009 Author Share Posted June 7, 2009 GDDG2 indeed Sorry my mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pips Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I have to admit that I find all this talk about motherboards, CPU's, GPU's, overclocking etc way over my head. About six months ago I upgraded my vid card from a NVidia 6600 to the newly released ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 1gig RAM. I also increased my RAM from 1Gig to 2Gigs. I saw an immediate improvement, but I still only get an steady 20fps with everything just middle settings, autogen low and all traffic zero. And avoiding large cities. The system I have is a: Intel Pentium®D CPU3.00GHz, 2.00GB of RAM, Windows XP with SP3, the ATI HD 4850. I have no idea what the motherboard is, nor how to determine such. I would have thought that with the above I should be getting better performance, but don't know how to go about improving things. Any suggestions (would be much appreciated)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Pips I believe that SIW or System Information for Windows from Gabriel Topala will do all you seek and more when it comes to interrogating your PC WITHOUT even thinking of opening the case. This is an awesome little program and free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pips Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Thanks Maurice, I'll D/load it and have a fiddle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pips Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Wow. This is a pretty amazing tool - the level of detail it provides it very comprehensive. Not that I have ANY idea what it all means. Under the Motherboard listing it shows the following: Model 4CoreDual-VSTA North Bridge VIA PT880 Pro Revision 00 South Bridge VIA VT8237A Revision 00 CPU Intel® Pentium® D CPU 3.00GHz Cpu Socket Socket 775 LGA System Slots 5 PCI Memory Summary Maximum Capacity 4096 MBytes Maximum Memory Module Size 2048 MBytes Memory Slots 2 Error Correction None Is that good or bad?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Well looking at this you have a Pentium Core Duo 3 Ghz VIA Chipset Mainboard , comparable with my PC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pips Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I was going to reply but i don't want to hijack someone else's thread. So I'll post in the Tech section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoseCFII Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 How about putting the 800 together with the i7? What happens then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Well looking at this you have a Pentium Core Duo 3 Ghz VIA Chipset Mainboard , comparable with my PC Hold on Mozz - are you saying a Pentium-D at 3Ghz is euivalent to a Core2Duo at 3Ghz? (or am I misreading his system info) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Thats what I'm trying to work out because the SIW data doesn't really tally with other data I have here on the C D ?? I'm as confused as you now . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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