Bad ATi :(

[Craig]

Hi guys, been gone for a couple of days due to a blown graphics card or so i thought.....

My Nvidia 8800GT had stopped working so I went out a bought a new card I thought I'd try ATi out hearing good things about them, so I bought a brand new ATi HD5700 1GB, installed it, turned the computer on and nothing ! turns out that one of my PCIe slots was the real culprit wasted £150, cant take the card back because its been opened (PC World)

Rule 1: never buy from PC world, Lol.
Rule 2: check both PCIe slots
Rule 3: Don't buy ATi..... (let me explain)

The old Geforce 8800GT was brilliant FSX at high settings running at 50 Fps ! and lovely chrome reflections..... now here's where I noticed a difference with the ATi card, it only wanted to display default reflections from FSX and not the custom ones I'd set up for the LuscombeX which is setup from within Gmax.

I had installed the latest drivers and ATi tray tools to configure the card properly but no amount of tweaking could get the reflections to display, so back to the Geforce card and all is well

So If you do plan on getting a new graphics card be very cautious of ATi, especially if you want to run FSX with eye candy.

Craig

[windrunner]

Unfortunately some things has to be experienced first hand. I've had this prehistoric ATI videocard (radeon x1600 512mb) that is still running fine, but I cannot use it with the latest drivers ati has released (the images are clearer and nicer but for some reason the fps drops drown too much and too fast). I've heard invidia is best for running fsx ( Metropolitan Legend? it seems not if you read the general opinion). I can't say, before reselling your ati, keep it aside and one day you can play with all the bell and whistles of the ATI Catalyst Control Center where you can tweak every parameter as you like.

Videocard drivers are essential and have to be installed carefully in a clean sistem (you have to erase every piece the old drivers left by using a dedicated software, cancelling the registry keys and all that extra work for maintenance). It's is not adviceable to install new drivers over old ones.

This site of full of information and helpoed me a lot in the past.

www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html

There is an nvidia guide too:

www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_1.html

[Craig]

Thanks Damian, I tried some old drivers but I still couldn't get the custom reflections to show must be something with how the ATi cards read textures, but Im no guru. Maybe the older cards are better ? at this than the new ones.

Thanks

Craig

[windrunner]

I don't think older videocards are better than newer ones (same thing for the drivers) but are done to work with newer sistems as technology runs faster and faster: great part of the results syou see depends on your mobo and the architecture of your sistem in general (psu and other hardware); AMD cores (that I own) are made to work in conjunction with ATI better. But, again, this can be another subjective impression or a subtle vendor strategy.

Every sistem has its own "life". I have three different ATI profiles I activate to work with three different games. I got used to that and I do it automatically before the start.