old NVIDIA cards

Naive maybe, but can a GeForce 5200 (standard low stream) handle Flight Sim 2004?

I am running with the NVIDA GeForce FX 5200 and things look great. Is it the same card?

"Naive maybe, but can a GeForce 5200 (standard low stream) handle Flight Sim 2004?"

Not naive at all, a perfectly logical question.

Based on my experience with an FX 5200, I would say yes, it will handle FS2004, but at fairly low resolution and no antialiasing. I found that any antialiasing crippled my FX5200. Frame rates dropped from around 18 average to around 12 or 13 average with even 2X AA turned on.

With antialiasing turned on, your airplane textures will be smooth, making the aircraft look more real, not like they were made with lego pieces.

It is a weak card for this flight sim. Better, if you can to spring for a bit extra
(as in double) and get an FX5700 or better if you can afford it. I mean you want to get as much as possible of what MS put in to the sim out of it..

Hi csb41
With such a question you should mention what else you got. I have an 2.6 gh /512 mega mem and a good hard drive wit nvidea MX/100/200 128 Mh on card (it is really old one) and at Seattle 36 with clear ski I have 22-24 fps

If you have some thing above 800 mh and Anti Aliases off
and sliders well in a middle with 512 mh mem you should not have any problem to start. That is the good news. The bad news is with in short time your appetite will grow fast and that kind of food is really expensive

Hi all

Thanks for that - looks like I need to upgrade the video card after all. Apart from the card, the pc spec is good - 512 MB, 2.66 GHz etc.

Program is locking up on opening (I get the first picture, and then - nothing). Would updating the driver help (have had a "3d Hardware - not enough video memory: use 3d software" warning), or should I just go for, eg. a 5700?

Cheers

p.s. anybody lend me Euro 200?

All I know is I run the G-Force 5700 Ultra and it is great...Before that I built a puter with an ATI 9800 and took it back cause it would not act right,....

Turns out that it was probly not set up right...just learning you see....

Radar Man has that ATI card and loves it....*slaps him for that* LOL

OK, i am confused. I run with the FX5200 on a 2.8 Ghz P4 with 2 GB of RAM and my frame rates sit solid at 25 and the graphics are smooth as silk. I should expect better than this with a better graphics card?

"OK, i am confused. I run with the FX5200 on a 2.8 Ghz P4 with 2 GB of RAM and my frame rates sit solid at 25 and the graphics are smooth as silk. I should expect better than this with a better graphics card?"

ronaldpatton,

Frame rates would go up, but that would not translate into smoother performance than you are getting probably. Your frame rates are quite adequate to run smoothly. I have mine capped at 27.

What you would notice though with a better card is (provided you have a good monitor) is the ability to run at higher resolution without frame rate loss and better image quality because you would be able to increase graphic settings and use some antialiasing to make your airplanes look more life-like.

Geforce FX 5200 is probally one of the worst card i have ever seen. It is just a modified Geforce 4MX with more ram and just some support for DirectX9. I would advise everyone to stay away from geforce FX5200.

I set the anti-alias to 2x on my 5200 and things still run real smooth and look great. I am using a 21" Sony Trinitron. So it gets better that this? What card should I upgrade to?

Here are two posts about Video cards, you understand I am not an impartial observer (ATI).

I have a 22inch Mitsubishi Diamontron, 20inch viewable (crt)

http://flyawaysimulation.com/postt925.html

http://flyawaysimulation.com/postt32.html

I" set the anti-alias to 2x on my 5200 and things still run real smooth and look great. I am using a 21" Sony Trinitron. So it gets better that this? What card should I upgrade to?"

If that is the case and you are happy with it, then don't spend any more money on video cards. You are content with what you have. That's rare among us Flight simmers.

Just wondering, what screen resolution are you using with the Sony?

I know in my case the FX5200 was weak.
I'm using a 19" Viewsonic P95f+ and running at 1280X960 - 32 bit (full screen), all sliders except water up to about 75% aprox., 2X AA turned on at the Video card (asus GF4 Ti4800se) as you can see I have an old nvidia card..lol
P4@2.4 gig. (800fsb) 512 megs mem.

At those settings, flying say the default 737 into KLAX (for example) at night or day everything running ATC, AP, GPS, the sim runs smoothly with no stutters or problems.

When I had the FX 5200 installed in my machine, I could not do that kind of flying without experiencing stuttering all over the place and low frame rates.
The card just didn't have enough video processing power for me.

I'm running the Sony monitor at 1280x1024 in 32 bit color.

i just stumbled upon this forum when i was searching for tv-output refresh rate stuff on my geforce.. i havn't ran a flight simulator program in years.. but i run all the latest games on my old 800mhz cpu/ geforce2mx (i hardware modded into a a quadro2mxr, but that didnt make much difference for vid games).. anyway. ive had this card forever cuz im poor, so trying to keep up with kids with super computers has been an on going tweak-my-card battle. i get an average of 40-60 fps in HL/Q3/etc which is pretty good for my senial(sp?) senior geforce2. without applying all the tweaks and maintaining my computer for performance, my fps will drop to 10-20, which is a pain. anyway. i figured id share some simple methods to improve performance on any card.. im only familiar with nvidia control settings, but if you have a dif card just search around for the settings and im sure youll find it:

1. update vidcard drivers. nvidia updates their drivers nearly every month and each time claims a large percent increase in performance. for my old card some old drivers work better.. but if yours isnt 5+ years old, update whenever you can for a boost. -> www.nvidia.com

2. update directx. i have a dual boot of XP Pro and 2K Pro. directx 9.0b works great for me in XP, but not so hot in 2K. so i run 8.1 in 2K. but if you have XP id recommend updating to directx 9.0b. you can find this update and other important windows performance and security updates at -> windowsupdate.microsoft.com

*just an extra note.. dont install the graphics card drivers from microsoft, unless you can't find them on your manufacturers site. the ones microsoft supplies for graphics/sound cards are usually outdated. but get all the other stuff.

3. update sound card drivers: doing this actually improved my fps. i guess the new drivers aren't as heavy on the cpu. i have a creative sound blaster live. -> www.creative.com

3. turn vsync to "always off": you'll find this helps a great deal. im not sure why this option is even turned on by default. -> right click desktop>properties>settings>advanced>%yourcardname%>opengl settings>vsync dropdown-change to always off.

4. use opengl for games and 3d applications: my fps is horrible when i run games in directx. so if you have this option in your games video settings, id recommend trying opengl instead.

5. defrag your hard drive often: this will help your hard drive access files quicker. i run norton utilities speed disk, but windows has its own built in defrag tool that works fairly well. try to run this once a week or so.. also, turn off your screen saver/power off settings when running this so it wont be interrupted. run at night because sometimes it can take an hour or few. -> start menu>programs>accessories>system tools>disk defragmenter.

6. turning antialiasing off also helps, but i leave this on default because i prefer the appearance for 3d modeling applications.

7. run in lower resolution: for example.. running an application in 800x600 will usually be faster than running in 1280x1024. 1024x seems to be a good medium for me on a 21" monitor.

8. i guess that's it. there's also a bunch of other windows registry tweaks and/or tweak utilities you can experiment with if you really want to dig deep.. but the above should be satisfying for most.

and just for a little disclaimer.. this is general stuff thats worked for me and some of my gaming friends. but for some reason, it might not work for you. i dont think any of it is permanent.. drivers can be uninstalled etc, but sometimes its a pain.. so just to protect myself -> use at your own risk.

i hope it helps. feel free to share with others if it does.. if it causes a problem post a reply and ill check back to see if i can help fix it. good luck! -stubbeh

Thanks you, that is all excellent advice.
I scandisk and defrag every weekend and am amazed at the huge amount of people who never do it, not sometimes but never.
Thanks again and I hope some follow your advice.

Sound advice about the sound card no pun intened.Probably the easy'st driver to mess up on a pc today the sound card driver
Often over looked but can cause all sorts of video nasties

Good ol mans spot on again with the defrag(it may take a long time first time but do it weekly and its much much quicker)

Im not a lover of Norton (its very good just a little hungry)Windows defrag is .........ok(better than nothing) but there are better (and quicker)out there free and 30 day testers(try google for O&O)

And yes yes to openGL

I'm running FS2004, any suggestions on settings for a GeForce2 (64meg) card??

I know that GeForce2 doesn't accept all DirectX v9 features, so what can I disable or flip on to boost my FPS, which is pretty low (yecch)

I like running 1024x768 w.antialias on, but one thing annoys me more than the low FPS, and thats lazy ground tile detail updating !

My system is:

AMD AthlonXP 2800+
512MB DDR RAM
Windows ME
Geforce FX5200
Directx 9.0b
56.55 drivers from Aopen (www.aopen.com)
My framerate on average is 28
I have Anti-aliasing on 2x from video card
Also Anisotropic filtering set to 4x (improves quality)}Every other setting left at default.
Latest sound card drivers (C-Media)
Latest AGP drivers (SiS)

And these are my FS settings:





Good luck! [/img]

Im on PIII 600Mhz nvidia 32mb tnt2 can someone tell me if upgrading to a geforce fx5200 would improve my frame rate. help!!!!!!!!!!!

XXXXXXXXXXXXthanx!

You should see a slight improvement

With careful setting up via the settings page you should see an improvement
Search the forum for Nvidia or fx5200 there ia a page with suggested settings

I just bought a new AVGA Geforce 5200fx Card 128 mb card and it sure beats the pants off the onboard VIA graphics . I have just about everything set full and it looks great . The only thing that slows me down are those darn clouds . my computer consists of an athalon 2800 processer and 1 gb of ram . I also set the BIOS AGP aperture to 256mbs. I Am also curious as to what you guys use to measure frame rates is there a tool I can download or is there somthing built into MSflight 2004 or are you guys all superhuman and have the abilities to count 10 to 30 frames per second? One last thing I am having problems when flying in the 3d cockpit on certain aircraft of the the scenery blacking or browning out The 737 does it but the 777 is ok also the Extra is realy bad. any Ideas

Thanks larry
ve7lgt@rac.ca

To get FPS press "Shift +Z" two or three times together and two lines of red text will sow at the top of your screen. The second line will have the FPS, the rest are interesting and informative also.

Some of the aircraft that you download may have a higher LOD (Level Of Detail) than others and it may be too much for your card to handle

Clouds take a huge bite out of your FPS, set them as low as possible.

Good luck and enjoy the card, they are much better than integrated cards.

OK I tried that But I only get one Line of red text and I cant see anything about FPS It starts off with N47* than som measurments in feet eg. 27.35' and tan som info on alttitude winds and airspeed is there another way I am using FS 2004 with the latest update?

It's on the second line.

No, there is a new patch, if you are going to use it you'll have to follow it step by step or it won't work.
I never loaded it.
It has nothing to do with shift+z

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_update9.1_english.asp#download

Try the Shift+Z again, it works, just be patient, after you see how to use it once you won't have trouble again. Use a little bit of a rocker motion with you fingers since the keys are so close together.
I sometimes use it instead of instruments.

ok I found it I used the settings above and It would seem that I am averaging about 30 FPS I have set the water up to half as it was to ugly without. It never drops below about 20 fps even in the clouds . How important is the FPS as It looks so much better with the antialiasing kicked in ?

Those are very respectable FPS readings, you should be pleased with them.

With very low FPS the aircraft stutters as it fly's, sort of a slide show.

OK sounds good I was just experimenting with the Nvidia settings on task bar and setting it from high perfomance to High quality seems to have improved the look of the scenery and it seems to have maintained the fps . has anyone else tried this?

A good video card will improve everything, scenery and FPS. That's why we're always pushing the old $wallet$ to get a better one.
The only way your going to see how good the sim looks and runs is to play with the settings.
Once you get it perfect, you'll start playing with it all over again.
We love to do that!

I know what you mean I love to tweak wether its my computer or my Amateur Radio equipment or just about anything . I think tweakin a hobby in itself!!

well this is my system:
AMD 1145
fx5700 geforce 128mb
what can be the best performance for this one