which video card?

Hi,
just bought fs 2004 and was wondering which video card would run it best, i currently have a ge force 2 on a pentium 4, 2.4 with 512 ram, this ran 2002 really well with full graphics, on 2004 i have to turn the settings to medium to get it to run at around 15 / 25 fps, this drops to around 7 when entering cloud, willing to spend around 100 / 200 pounds.

Thanx, Loko..

To be honest, your best bet would be to buy one of the newer GeForce cards such as the FX5600 or the FS5900 - or, if you are willing to spend about $425 - a GeForce FX5900 Ultra.

I am running it on a GeForce FX5200 with no problem, but will soon be upgrading to the marvelous FX5900 Ultra. Everything is set to the max apart from the clouds, which decrease the framerate dramatically. I'm sure a FX9000 Ultra would be able to handle full everything no problem, but it's pricey

Thanx for the info,
as i am one for realism, i think i will save a up a few pounds more and go for it big time, might take a while, but sounds worth it, as long as my wife doesnt find out how much it costs!

Yep, thats probably your best bet

You can find more info on the FX5900 here:
http://nvidia.com/page/fx_5900.html

Has anyone found a fix for this error using new NVidia cards with XP? The only suggested fixes I found did not work!! All Flight Sims worked except FS2004, which wouldn't open and would freeze up XP with this error!! Tried all drivers, newest to oldest I could find. thnx, rob

I am having a similar issue, I installed FS04, updated my ATI drivers before launching FS04. The splash screen opens then it goes back into Windows XP Pro without launching the program, no error messages. Tried to lower the resolution to 8x6 16bit but it did not help????

This could be a permissions issue. Try right clicking on FS2004 and click on Run As. Then Use Administrator and type the password in. See how that works.

Wow, that worked, now what do I need to do to set the icon permissions so it works normally and how did this happen?

Right, sadly - there is no easy way of setting the permissions everytime apart from doing that every time. I'm sure there is a command method such as user=... Password=... after the EXE call, but I don't know the syntax. Try searching microsoft.com for "Run As" or something similar and see what comes up. This happened because you moved or changed your My Documents folder to another location or something similar. I'm glad it works now

Hi all, I just wanted to finish of my part of this. I had that problem with Nvidia card, took it back, got a ATI 9800 Pro and it was OK, but finally decided to bite the bullet and took it back and got a NVidia 5900 Ultr and held my breath starting MS2004. BUT WOW !! What a difference!! This card is awsome and very noticeably better even tho my mobo is only AGP 4X !! I am totally happy with the awsome graphics in both FS 2000 and 2004 ! If it matters, I'm 55 but love flying ! rob

Yes - the 5900 Ultra is amazing; and if you can afford it, its definatley worth the money.

I just got a new Dell 3GHz machine with the FX5200, bought FS2004 and was very impressed with the results...until I turned on any weather, staright down to between 6-15 fps with broken sound, totally useless.

I checked another forum and apparently this is a known problem with the graphics card - should I try and get Dell (UK) to change it or does anyone know a fix?

DC

I have the same machine - the Dimension 8300 - also from the UK

I also have a 5200. To be honest, when you turn the settings up to the max on the 5200, the slow framerate is what you would expect from that card. If you want to run with full settings, I recommend you spend some money on a 5900 Ultra. That should get full settings running for you no problem. See posts above.

I have P4 2,8 Ghz 1024 Mb RAM and MSI FX 5600 with 256 MB and its great!!!

I have a pentium 2.4, Asus 5600 256mg Video card. 1.5 Gig of Ram. I have flt/sim 2002 installed. I then installed flt/sim2004 and the computer will not run this program, it just reboots. I run Win XP Prof. this program seems typical of M/soft ( rubbish )

hi first of all you have to del 2002 from the pc then install
f2004 and then all the drivers to make it work
regads to all and happy flying

There is no need to delete FS2002. You can run both versions of Flight Simulator with no problems.

I hate to tell you ppl this but the 9800 pro is better then any geforce card including the 5900 ultra.

In Direct 9 games the 9800 pro blows the geforce away.
In fact in certain direct 9 games the 9600 pro beats the 5900 ultra.

Please check out other deciated graphic card forums and ask them if you dont belive me.

The best card on the planet is the Radeon 9800 XT.

Amen! Oldskool. non-believers check out the nov 03 issue of maximun pc page 11

Well, I'll throw another wrench in the gears... A few mos ago I went to Best buy and first bought a 5700 and didn't like it. Went back and bought a ATI 9800...Wasn't sure if I liked it...Kept the ATI, Went back and got the 5900 Ultra. Man, it blew the ATI outta the water! Took back the ATI and am totally happy with the 5900 Ultra!! My rig... P4/2.53; 512 Rambus Ram, Asus P4T533 mobo... FS 2004 looks great !
I was going to send a screen shot here, but I can't figure out how to do it...Any help??? rob[/list]

Check this link out.
Woehahaha, bey bey Nvidia. Ati Rules.

Hi Belgian, glad you are happy with your ATI, but frame rates are not the whole picture... When I tried ea of these cards in my rig, the NVidia 5900 Ultra blew away any ATI card in graphics ( How the graphics looked !). If I lost some frame rates to get better graphics, Great ! Any frame rate over 30 is more than acceptible. Each person should try more than one card in their rig before spending that kind of ca$h ... Enjoy, rob

Yes, you are right.
Last I saw benchmarks on fs9 with Nvidias FX5700 ultra, wasnt bad at all.
Even better than 9600 series at high resolutions.

I got a question... Will flightsim 2004 run on AMD ?

Hi


Thank you for you answer ( sorry for my bad english )
Over one week i gonna upgrade my sytem to below:

AMD Athlon 2800+ 512K
512 MB Memory DDR400
80G of harddisk
ATI Radeon 9800 All in wonder

Will this run fs2004 ??

Greets and thanks

Raymie

Yes Amd will run fs 2004 fine mt current system has an xp3200 barton 1 gig corsair xms pc 3200 radeon 9800 pro video card wich I love had and 5900 ultra and it didnt even compare to the 9800 pro imo it runs great

Everybody thanks for your reply's
I got some questions again
what kind of Frame rates do you have in Flightsim 2004
And what sort of system do you use, to make that posible

( sorry for the bad english )

Greetz

Raymie

I Forgot

Do you guys know where to find more screenshots of Flightsimulator 2004 ?
i seen the screenshots on this site, they are pretty cool.

Greets

Raymie

I have just read through the replies on this subject and am a little confused. I just bought what I thought was a state-of-the-art computer that could run just about anything. It's a HP 380 (that PC Magazine ranked best of show at COMDEX) running Windows XP Media, with 512 ram, 120 gig hd and a nvidia 5200. I burn DVDs, watch TV on it while I am typing on MS Word and now I read from so many of you that my nvidia 5200 won't do justice to FS2004. I was all set to head out to the Compusa today and buy a copy but am now wondering whether I am wasting my money. Since I'm financially tapped out after buying this hardware, upgrading to a better card isn't an option for me. Should I just stay with FS 2000 and forget FS 2004?

Thanks for the response, John. You're right it is a 370 multi media. I am now encouraged to goget it. As to the updated driver point, do I just log onto the manufacturers site to get the latest nvidia driver? Thanks for your help.
Larry