Ahh.. I think I know what might have been the Prob

[dalecaruso]

As I have posted.. I have had a number of problems with my system running FS9 mostly display, when I have trouble running anything with a VC ... well was testing out the Scoata ... I have upgraded the processor ... within the limits of the Dell 2350 ... have a gig of ram ... a few years ago ... when this was still under coverage.. Dell sent me an external video card for this ... GeForce2 MX/MX400 ... so I never thought to look more closely as it is a good quality company. Downloaded and was "testi driving" the Socata TBM700 ... with a great VC .. and shure enough ... stall problems.. and I don't mean the aircraft. So I checked the specs .. my card shows 32 meg .... good grief, I wonder if that has been the problem ... I have tis little program called InSpecs ... which gives you system information and based on you computer type will indicate what upgrades would work in your system. They indicated that I could go as high as the Radeon® X1300 256 MB AGP Graphics Card from Diamond Multimedia.. You mean all this time??
For those who have upgraded ... what is your opinion... will I see a difference and how?

Dale

[Dave3cu]

Dale,

I went thru pretty much the same thing over the past few years with an HP 525, going from integrated to Gf2 MX400 to Gf 5200FX and eventually the X1300 256MB. These were all in the PCI slot (not to be confused with PCI-Express).

Though InSpec suggested an AGP card, you'll have to physically inspect your board for an AGP slot. Dell specs on the Demension 2350 indicates 3 PCI expansion slots, no AGP. (My guess is InSpec is 'seeing' the AGP buss used by the Intel Integrated Graphics, but there is no AGP slot present.)

The X1300 will certainly give you better speed AND image quality than the Gf 2 mx400, but don't expect miracles........ a turtle is faster than a clam.. If you indeed are limited to PCI that's the real limiter. I was able to run at 1024x768x16, with 4xAA, most sliders maxed and hold 20FPS locked. The combination of 3-d clouds, heavy ai and dense scenery areas would bring it down, so I sometimes had to make some trade-offs.

Another card that is about equal (as far as the best PCI cards available) is the Geforce 6200.

Another thing you may have to consider is the power supply. With upgraded CPU, memory and now a graphics card, you may pushing it's limit.

Dave

[Admin]

The MX cards are not DX-9 compliant so upgrading to almost anything will improve the look and feel of FS9. I reasonably good luck with an FX5200 and later an FX5700LE on my P4. Those are both cheap now. I honestly don't understand why the MX cards are still being sold, but that's all there is at my local WalMart .

[spad0007]

The Ge Force 6200 PCI card should work
well for you you will see a BIG difference.
If you have a agp slot a PNY Ge Force 7600/512mb
Will be better but will need a new power supply
more than 350w start up 450+w would be better.
A PCI slot is limited for pixel pipe lines
as is AGP (24ppl) but PCI Express cards now have 128 ppl's
for big$. Any way Do what you can and keep asking these
guys they realy Know stuff.

[dalecaruso]

Ah.. may have the answer ... Son-in-law has a 256mg video card in their old computer ... should work.

[spad0007]

Free video cards are the best if he will donate it.
If you are installing it your self.
Be absolutely sure to use static protection.
I can not stress this enough! Video cards can And Will be degraded
by static or not work at all (DOA) Do not touch the gold traces ever.
If it Is a NVIDIA card
get and install the forceware 93.71 drivers.(last for dx 9.c)
Whichever card it is remove all trace of old drivers!!
This can be hard but A necessary step.
How to's can be found at the major flight Sim sites.

If the card has a fan with some hours on it clean and inspect same.
Wear static protection!
Look to see if it is a sleeve bearing fan if so don't trust it.
Get a double ball bearing fan.
If No fan Clean the heat sink. Wear static protection!
If removable type inspect the heat transfer goop is evenly spread not
too much and not too little. Think about adding a fan.
If some one ells is doing the job make sure they Wear static protection!
And allways use a antistatic bag for transport.

[spad0007]

Whoops I posted Before I saw that you already got your card in so never mind.

[dalecaruso]

thank you.. the new card seems to be working ver,y very well ...

New Graphics Card installed ... well, not new ... as in in a box ... but out of a "retired" machine.
here are the details..
Brand : ATI
Model : ATI Radeon 9200 Pro
Slot : PCI (33 MHz)
GPU Core: RV280
GPU Speed : 239 MHz
Video Ram Size : 256 MB
Video Ram Type : DDR
Video Ram Speed : 200 MHz
Driver Version : 6.14.10.6462
DirectX Installed : Version 9.0c
Available Slot : PCI

[AirCoaster]

Dale, I have an ATI Radeon 9200 running in my Dell Dimension 2400 2.4Ghz, 1Gb ram, and it gives me great service for FS9. FSX is another story. There are a few tweaks you can do to the FS9.cfg to get distant fog a little better. I can run all of my scenery sliders to the right without high settings on clouds, and running AI is around 16FPS which is tolerable flying. Without AI I get close to my clamp speed of 24FPS. Also, running the visibilty down a notch, or so helps with FPS. Visibility is in World/Weather/Custom Weather. Set the video card controller to allow program control, and leave vertical sync off. I think vertical sync is a personal preference thing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the ATI 9200, if I think of anything else I will post here. Oh, don't forget to update the drivers to the last known driver package for the 9200 series. This series is no longer supported with updated drivers from ATI.

[dalecaruso]

I have got my FPS also set at 24, Running Bill's Silver Wings ... so the autogen and most other scenery settings at up there as well. I use the GA-Traffic and of course the default ... setting it at 35%. The GA-Traffic.. I went through and set all the aircraft it handles to between 20 and 35% ...
So I should go to the ATI site .. and download the last or latest set of drivers for the 9200 series???

Dale

[dalecaruso]

is that the Catalyst 6.11???

Dale

[AirCoaster]

Yap, that's the one. You won't need the WDM, but the Catalyst, and the drivers you will need, if you plan to do any tweaking. I played with my tweaks for almost a month before I got something that worked well. When I get home from work, I will shoot you the FS9.cfg display textlines, and then you can copy, and paste them into the .cfg to help speed things up a bit. I will look at the sliders, and let you know how I have them set.

[dalecaruso]

Got it .. installed it ... since our systems are so close, I think your's is the dell produced the following year .. I uped my processor to the 2.99mhz Celeron .. couldn't find the Pent. IV available for it .. they do make one. running a gig of Ram ... here are my settings , at this moment ..
Terrain Mesh-90
Terrain Texture Size - Large
Terrain detail - Water/Land - Max
Special Effects - Med.
Scenery Complexity - Extremely Dense
Auto Gen - Very Dense
Sun glare and Lens Flash - both on
Aircraft - Custom with VC Guage quality - High and only Aircraft cast shadow turned off.
Weather
sight distance - 120 mi
Cloud Draw - 60 mi
3D CLoud 80%
Cloud Detail - Detailed
Cloud Coverage - High
Hardware
Resolution - 1024x768x32bit
Render - ON
Transform and Lighting - On
Frame rate - 24
MIP - 5
Rendered Lights -7
Filter - Bilinear
Global Max Texture Size - High

[AirCoaster]

Ok Dale here's what I have for the config file:

[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9200 SERIES .0]
Mode=1024x768x32
MipBias=8
Stencil=0
DriverValidate=0
AntiAlias=1
TableFog=0
TriLinear=1
UseShaders=1
Fog=1
ExpFog=1

You can copy and paste the above to your FS9.cfg file, but I would make a copy of the orignal first. Notice the [DISPLAY.Device.
at the beginning, look for that in the config file.

Scenery Tab:
Terrain Mesh 100%
Terrain Texture HIGH
Terrain Detail LAND ONLY
Water Effects HIGH
Dusk/Dawn Texture Blending CHECKED
Extended Terrain Textures CHECKED
Special Effects Detail HIGH
Scenery/Autogen DENSE
Ground Scenery Casts Shadows CHECKED
Sun Glare UNCHECKED
Lens Flare UNCHECKED

Aircraft Tab:
Global Aircraft Quality HIGH

Weather Tab:
Sight Distance 60NM
Cloud Draw Distance 40nm
3-D Cloud % 70%
Detailed Clouds
Cloud Coverage Density HIGH

Hardware Tab:
Device Name Radeon 9200 Series .0
Render to Texture CHECKED
Transform & Lighting CHECKED
Anti-Aliasing UNCHECKED
Filtering TRILINEAR
Mip-Mapping 4
Hardware Rendered Lights 8
Global Max Tetxure MASSIVE
FPS Clamp 24FPS
Resolution 1024x768x32

WORLD/WEATHER/CUSTOM WEATHER 50nm

Your sound card may have a bit to do with resources so I would say turn off anything you aren't using. These settings give me good flying in remote regions, and at less dense airports. So you will need to modify the seetings for more densly populated airports.

So, that's it have fun.

[dalecaruso]

interestingly ... I have three .. one is for the old card ... and that is the first one I find as I go down the config list...

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400.0]
Mode=1024x768x32
followed immediately by ..
[DISPLAY]
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=25
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40
[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=90.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=0
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1307992
[SCENERY]
IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5
DYNAMIC_SCENERY=0
DYN_SCN_DENSITY=0
DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=0
SUNGLARE=1
LENSFLARE=1

Farther down are two entries ..
[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9200 PRO Family (Microsoft Corporation).0]
Mode=1024x768x32
MipBias=5
[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9250.0]
Mode=1024x768x32
MipBias=5
then comes ....
[JOYSTICK_SLEW {8E027340-48B4-11DB-8001-444553540000}]