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  • Aerosoft

Agreed but it's not wise also based on a large real world experience (hehehe I do have a life outside FS :lol::lol::lol: ) to be the first in line and end up with bugs in hardware or software...

Hence regarding graphics it's wise to wait for the second generation and then invest in a bug less product :wink:

For example you have now 2x 8800GT in sli below the price of an 8800GTX first generation lol

Some interesting read too:-)

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-hd-3800-...view-29720.html

FSX isn't even the investment word for DX10 only :shock: since it's a preview :lol:

Hence the developers have to discover all the DX10 possibilities to and then implement them just as with the previous version of DX...

History repeats itself here...

Well, you got your 'preconception' (don't take offense), I got my own experiences. I get really looking skies, clouds, water effects and on average 20% better fps with DX10.

Now technical, apart from old FS2004 code that has problems with SP2 and DX10 there IS no way to develop for DX10 in FSX. You develop for FSX, FSX handles the code and sends it to Direct X and DX talks to the graphics card/sound card. There are a few things that make it work better for DX10 but those have been documented since the first FSX SDK. For example using a fully closed design architecture will allow far better shading in the VC. But that coding for FSX, not for DX10.

The FS scene is about to drop into four sections:

- XP + FS2004. Stable but limited in model size and hardware. It can only use one core and all development in CPU speed is based on multi core. In other words, FS2004 is now about as fast as it will ever be, us developers can not increase levels of details as there is no hardware to run it or the compilers will not handle more details. Example? The Seahawk for FSX has a load more details for FSX, we could not add a single polygon for the FS2004 version because it would not compile when increased in complexity.

- XP and FSX. Relatively stable, expandable in models and hardware (you can BUY framerates)

- Vista and FSX SP1 DX9. No real advantage over the XP version, you just have the memory issues of Vista to handle. Adding SP2 just adds more bugs and the nice new stuff of Acceleration.

- Vista and FSX SP2 DX10. If you got the hardware you get good framerates that look good. Still the memory issues of Vista and the new bugs of SP2. No know limit in complexity, loads of new options to use.

I got all these 4 versions running in my office. If I just like to have some fun with FS I always use the DX10 machine. For the simple reason I think it is the best at this moment.

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Well, you got your 'preconception' (don't take offense), I got my own experiences. I get really looking skies, clouds, water effects and on average 20% better fps with DX10.

Now technical, apart from old FS2004 code that has problems with SP2 and DX10 there IS no way to develop for DX10 in FSX. You develop for FSX, FSX handles the code and sends it to Direct X and DX talks to the graphics card/sound card. T

Mathijs no offense taken but not pre

:wink: and running FSX on dual boot C2D E6600 @ 2,7 Ghz with 4 gb crucial ram and WD 10000 rpm drive just fine... no blurries too

Actually using both sims since developing to for FS ;-)

As for DX I know how it works :lol:

I have seen DX10 and Vista Ulimate and FSX live in action to and at this point it isn't worth for me the upgrade for the DX10 feature only :wink:

That is my point the difference between XP and FSX or Vista and FSX + DX10 is maybe more FPS but a lot of money per FPS too ;-)

So for me at this point in time it's for development purpose the switch to DX10 but else ;-)

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Vista and FSX SP2 DX10. If you got the hardware you get good framerates that look good. Still the memory issues of Vista and the new bugs of SP2. No know limit in complexity, loads of new options to use.

What are these specs Mathijs? What specs do you use at the office to run this category?

Rob

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  • Aerosoft

What are these specs Mathijs? What specs do you use at the office to run this category?

Rob

CPU: Quad Core (under 250 euro)

Memory: 2 Gb mem (under 80 euro)

Mobo: we like Asus (under 100)

GPU: no real alternative for the 8800 range right now (under 250)

Use your old box, keyboard and mouse and you are looking at 700 euro in Europe, 750 us$ in the states. Will run FSX both in DX9 and DX10 great. Frames have NEVER been cheaper then they are now. To get the same frames in FS2004 when it was 1 year old would have taken at least 1000 Euro/$ (the Euro and Dollar were roughly the same at that time).

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And that's what he calls a "modest" system. Sigh...

At least I'll have a Core 2 Duo from tomorrow, replacing the Core Duo that blew up flying the ATR (though likely that was a coincidence) today.

Does put the replacement of the 7600 with an 8800 on hold for a few months though, until my bank account cools down.

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  • Aerosoft
And that's what he calls a "modest" system. Sigh...

At least I'll have a Core 2 Duo from tomorrow, replacing the Core Duo that blew up flying the ATR (though likely that was a coincidence) today.

Does put the replacement of the 7600 with an 8800 on hold for a few months though, until my bank account cools down.

Jeroen, yes, I call a system that sells for 700 Euro 'modest'. It's just a fact that FS has ALWAYS needed very serious hardware. I call a Q6600 that has 4 2.3 ghz cores (that can be overclocked to 2800 without any issue in seconds) for just 250 Euro 'modest'. I don't know what CPU you are going to buy but it is real hard to beat the quad cores at this moment.

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I call a Q6600 that has 4 2.3 ghz cores (that can be overclocked to 2800 without any issue in seconds)

What happened to the post or forum that was supposed to have the overclocking tips? How do you do what you are talking about here: (overclocked to 2800 without any issue in seconds)?

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maybe I'm behind the times, Mathijs. When I built my current rig late 2005 the specs you list would have set me back 3000 or so.

I'm fitting for the moment a mid range Core 2 Duo, budget restraints won't allow more at the moment.

The rig cost me 1600 to build with a Core Duo and a GF7600 at the time...

Anyway, going from your specs I come to something like 1200 Euro (without screen, keyboard, and operating system).

Which is indeed roughly the same my rig cost 18 months ago, but still almost twice what you said it costs.

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  • Aerosoft
maybe I'm behind the times, Mathijs. When I built my current rig late 2005 the specs you list would have set me back 3000 or so.

I'm fitting for the moment a mid range Core 2 Duo, budget restraints won't allow more at the moment.

The rig cost me 1600 to build with a Core Duo and a GF7600 at the time...

Anyway, going from your specs I come to something like 1200 Euro (without screen, keyboard, and operating system).

Which is indeed roughly the same my rig cost 18 months ago, but still almost twice what you said it costs.

Perhaps you need to switch shops. Alternate.de will certainly deliver all on my list for the prices I quote. I use Alternate because they got solid prices can deliver. You can get lower if you really look around. But Alternate ships to all EEC addresses for these prices.

For the GPU, CPU, Memory and Mother Board (all that determines how many frames you get) I see a price of 671 euro (including shipping from Germany to my hill in France. That's the lowest end quad core CPU, a 8800 640 mb GTS GPU, the mobo I got and 2 mb of memory. I did not check all bits in detail but even if you pay 10% more I get nowhere close to what you quote.

We actually have one system in the price class you quote we use it for making videos of the products, but we consider it overkill for standard apps.

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I want to point out that there is a new video card on the market - the Nvidia 8800 GT. This card outperforms the 8800GTS and is close in fact to the 8800GTX, has 512 mb vram and is projected to sell here for around $200 - $250.00.

It is fully DX10 capable too :)

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  • Aerosoft
I want to point out that there is a new video card on the market - the Nvidia 8800 GT. This card outperforms the 8800GTS and is close in fact to the 8800GTX, has 512 mb vram and is projected to sell here for around $200 - $250.00.

It is fully DX10 capable too :)

Yep, good initial reports on that card, high value for your money.

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Yep only remark we should make is that the 8800GT ist currently in most shops not available (seems to be a high demand for it and it seems that nVidia can't provide the market with high numbers of it). But this is problem which I am sure will be away after christmas.

Next possible good graphics card could be the HD3870 from AMD. Card will be released end of next week and though it seems to be slower than the 8800GT initial prices for the 512MB version will be around 220€. I think if they would drop to 200€ or below this could be an interesting alternative to nVidia since they support DirectX10.1.

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For the GPU, CPU, Memory and Mother Board (all that determines how many frames you get) I see a price of 671 euro (including shipping from Germany to my hill in France. That's the lowest end quad core CPU, a 8800 640 mb GTS GPU, the mobo I got and 2 mb of memory. I did not check all bits in detail but even if you pay 10% more I get nowhere close to what you quote.

Ah, you don't include everything else in the price. Harddisk, DVD drive, case, etc.

Increases it by a few hundred.

But yes, I prefer brick and mortar shops over online. Especially for more expensive stuff I like to see what I buy and not have to bother with international shipping back and forth if something goes wrong.

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Ah, you don't include everything else in the price. Harddisk, DVD drive, case, etc.

Increases it by a few hundred.

But yes, I prefer brick and mortar shops over online. Especially for more expensive stuff I like to see what I buy and not have to bother with international shipping back and forth if something goes wrong.

Actually he did. Earlier in the thread he mentions that you reuse your old components.

CPU: Quad Core (under 250 euro)

Memory: 2 Gb mem (under 80 euro)

Mobo: we like Asus (under 100)

GPU: no real alternative for the 8800 range right now (under 250)

Use your old box, keyboard and mouse and you are looking at 700 euro in Europe, 750 us$ in the states.)

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  • Aerosoft

Actually he did. Earlier in the thread he mentions that you reuse your old components.

Exactly, the case and dvd drive do not affect the framerates you get. For a game like FS the speed of the hard disk is also not so vital. If you check the load on the hard disk, even while starting FSX, you see it is still the rest of the system and not disk speed that is the real limit.

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Exactly, the case and dvd drive do not affect the framerates you get. For a game like FS the speed of the hard disk is also not so vital. If you check the load on the hard disk, even while starting FSX, you see it is still the rest of the system and not disk speed that is the real limit.

True. In general, the CPU affects frames the most. I recently overclocked my CPU (q6600) from 2.4 to 3.4 ghz, this gave me a big performance boost. I have all sliders to the right, and on 2.4 ghz I would get framedrops to even below 12fps using addon aircraft in busy areas. With the overclock I get a rock-steady 20 fps (locked at 20).

Of course, without a nice graphic card you wouldn't want to set the sliders to the right. All water effects etc are calculated by the GPU. As mentioned before, you can get a kick-ass graphicscard (8800GT) for arround €250. If you, like me, buy a pre-overclocked version (overclocked with waranty) you can get results similar or even better than a 8800GTX ...

Also, as I am running windows vista 32bit and have 4 GB of ram, I setup my windows with a fix that allows it to allocate almost 3GB of ram to any application. FSX SP2 supports this fix by default so no further action has to be taken. Thanks to this fix I have NO out-of-memory errors left.

Conclusion: with a relatively cheap quadcore (q6600, with an easy overclock of 1GHZ) and 4GB of (nowadays) cheap RAM, I have a rock-stable FSX on vista 32, with all the nice dx10 effects (and bugs :/).

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Actually the 8800GT is selling for 210 euros now only the stock is a problem :lol::lol:

indeed, if you search well you can find it quite cheap (mostly online). However I would advice to spend a _little_ bit extra (arround 280 or so) and buy a pre-overclocked model. EVGA, MSI or BFG for example have such cards. Advantage is 1) you keep the warranty in contradiction with when you overclock yourself 2) you get a card for nearly the price of a GT but with the prestations/results of a GTX

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True. In general, the CPU affects frames the most. I recently overclocked my CPU (q6600) from 2.4 to 3.4 ghz, this gave me a big performance boost. I have all sliders to the right, and on 2.4 ghz I would get framedrops to even below 12fps using addon aircraft in busy areas. With the overclock I get a rock-steady 20 fps (locked at 20).

Of course, without a nice graphic card you wouldn't want to set the sliders to the right. All water effects etc are calculated by the GPU. As mentioned before, you can get a kick-ass graphicscard (8800GT) for arround €250. If you, like me, buy a pre-overclocked version (overclocked with waranty) you can get results similar or even better than a 8800GTX ...

Also, as I am running windows vista 32bit and have 4 GB of ram, I setup my windows with a fix that allows it to allocate almost 3GB of ram to any application. FSX SP2 supports this fix by default so no further action has to be taken. Thanks to this fix I have NO out-of-memory errors left.

Conclusion: with a relatively cheap quadcore (q6600, with an easy overclock of 1GHZ) and 4GB of (nowadays) cheap RAM, I have a rock-stable FSX on vista 32, with all the nice dx10 effects (and bugs :/).

How did you over-clock yours?

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