Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

I have an NVidia GeForce2MX 200 64Meg video adapter.

I get only 50-59 bps frame rate on G2.

Have tried the updated driver form NVidia, (a 13.4 Meg download), and the Elsa Gladiac driver update.

I'm running Windows 98SE

all my buddies framerates are over 100 bps,, some have up to 225bps.

THe difference is amazing, the faster framerates are great.

I have 640 Mg of SD PC133 RAM.

where can I get a better driver???? Or is this as good as it gets for my video card??

Thanks in advance for any help,,,,,,,

John
aka "Murphy"

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

I'm certainly no expert, so take this for what it's worth. I think the problem might be the GeForce2. It is purposely governed to run slower than other cards to create more demand for the GeForce3 and 4 cards. It will choke any system down to run at 800mhz.

Cody

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Doubt I can help but some info is missing from your post. How do these items compare between your system and the ones you are comparing it to?

CPU?
Screen resolution?
G2 graphics settings? (3D terrain, etc.)
Background CPU tasks?

I assume you have already checked the RealFlight knowledge base...

Rob

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Geforce 2's are NOT purposely governed to run slower than other Geforce Cards. What a load of crap, they are however entry level or lower. MX versions of any Geforce card are bad news. They are crippled by slower ram and lower core speeds.
You can get a GF4 Ti4200 for little money and it will speed along nicely and will be fine for most purposes.
The beauty with the Ti4200-4600 or Radeon 9500-9700 is that you can turn on FSAA to smooth the jagged edges and still get awesome performance. If you enable FSAA with a GF2, things will grind to a halt. Also better cards mean you can crank up the resolution which helps see the planes clearer when far away, and you can crank the Colour up to 32bit for smoother gradients in your colours.
I can run FMS etc at 1600x1200x32bit with a GF4 Ti4400 and see 100fps easily. If I enable 4x FSAA it drops to 60-70fps.
These days the video card is the main item to speed up your machine. Get a 2ghz+ CPU and a fast Video card and you'll be happy.
Regarding drivers, the latest are not the best for old cards.
Try an older driver, maybe 2 or 3 revisions after the ones your Video card came with. This can make a huge difference. Despite the drivers being all in one and supposedly suitable for all Nvidia cards, they are mainly optimised for GF4 and GFFX.

Good luck

Simon J

FSAA
 

Good Morning Simon:

What is FSAA?

Thanks!

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Simon, I'm new to computer gaming, but I said what I did because I found this on the Aerofly Professional website:

"You won’t see any performance difference between a AMD Athlon 800Mhz and an AMD Athlon XP 1600 in combination with a Nvidia GeForce2 MX 200 when using AeroFly Professional. This card will block all CPU’s faster than 800Mhz."

I was confused by the MX version; I thought it was all GF2's. Anyhoo, I read the thing about them being governed somewhere else, and it was probably speculation. Also, as I stated earlier (both in my first post and in this one), I am new to this, so calling my ignorance a "load of crap" is a little bit rude, no?

But I digress; I did not mean to add a negative tone to your thread. I have a GF4 Ti-4200 to be installed tomorrow; I'll let you know how things go should you consider this card.

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

FSAA is short for Full Screen (scene) Anti Aliasing in other words it smooths the jagged edges that graphics give. Only the latest cards do it well, some earlier ones will do it (GF2 Ultra etc) but the card slows down massively.
I think what Aerofly means is that a GF2 MX200 will be saturated by the amount of data. So will only reach a certain speed and then choke. It will still run but you won't be able to make it any faster by putting in a bigger CPU. Some video cards performance scales well with bigger CPU's. The Ati 9700 scales real well. It even gives awesome performance with lower CPU's.
Best bang for buck is a Ati 9500 or a GF4 Ti4200, you can then overclock them to 9700 and 4600 speeds respectively.

Simon J

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

There are 2 main and independent issues that slow video boards down, the geometry processing and the pixel fill. Each board has only so much capacity of either one.

Of course the geometry has to do with how many objects and how complex they are, are in the scene. If you look in a direction with say, more trees and buildings in the distance, and the scene slows down it's probably a geometry limitation. Geometry processing is split between the CPU and the GF2 board. So, a CPU can help, up to the point where the GF2 geometry pipeline is full - then you are stuck at that speed. I would be surprised if an FS could have too much geomtery in the scene.

The pixel fill rate of the card is basically fixed - and that's exactly what it sounds like - the rate that the card can compute and output pixels. What uses more pixels? Higher resolutions use more pixels, FSAA uses more pixels, alot of things stacked up one in front of the other on-screen use alot of pixels. The way to test if it is a pixel-fill limiting your speed is to make sure FSAA is turned off, then compare speed at 2 different resolutions. If the lower resolution gets faster - its a pixel-fill limit. The only thing you can do to help this is to increase the rate of the on-board clock, which genereally isn't a good idea. Or, just run at the lower resolution. Upgrading CPU will do nothing if your problem is pixel fill.

What's a GF4 board going for these days?? $50 bucks off the shelf? That's the real solution.

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Looks like you are using a relatively slow RAM for a start.

PC133 is a tad bit slow because it running at a bus speed of 133Mhz. The newer DDR RAM are much faster and some clocks in excess of 333Mhz depending upon the type of motherboard you have.

With regards to your video card, the Elsa GE Force 2MX should be fine but you may have to overclock it a bit. In fact Elsa makes great video cards and there is little noticible difference between the Elsa GE Force 2 to another branded GE Force 3 card. I have changed mine and there was no real difference except a hole in my pocket!

In fact you may also try to overclock your CPU and run your OS clean of unnecessary TSRs to max your machine out. Every bit of TSRs running in the background such as antivirus, ICQ, etc robs the performance of your CPU.

You may also browse to Toms hardware page on the net to learn about overclocking your PC. This helps you get the max out of your PC in more ways than one.

One way to max your CPU for G2 is to use a multi-boot application to allow multiple copies of OSs to be installed on one machine. Acronis OS Selector is an example of pretty good multi-boot software where you can load multiple copies of your OS and select one just dedicated for G2 assuming that you have enough harddisk space and keep it clean of any unnecessary programs except perhaps internet connection for updates.


By the way Windows 98SE is a great platform for games so keep it for as long as you can. By the way G2 also works on Windows 2000 and XP too.

So far I have used the following PC configurations quite successfully to run G2 silky smooth. This PC is purpose built for flight sims.

Intel P4 2.4Mhz
Apacer 512Mb PC2700 DDR RAM
Maxtor 80Gb , 7500 RPM, IDE ATA 33 HDD
Asus GE Force 3 Deluxe Video card
Creative Labs Sound blaster live value
Chaintech 333Mhz motherboard.
Windows XP

This machine is a tad dated by today's standard but seems to run pertty much ok for all of my present flight sim programs. In fact the most demanding flight sim that I have is the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 and 2002. Boy this sim sucks CPU juice and usually dictates my PC upgrade path.

Hope this helps. Just email me if you have any problems with PC hardware.

G2 Frame Rates
 

I have been collecting data on various combinations of Graphics cards and CPU's run with RealFlight G2.

Here is a link to part of the data...

http://www.rcuniverse.com/gallery/sh...hp?photo=10831


Note that the FPS is very dependant on which airport you choose and the visible scenery. I have been very consistent with the data I have taken.


It can be seen that it is the Graphics Card that makes all the difference; the CPU has helped very little on each upgrade.

Although it may appear that the high frame rates are meaningless, it means that Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering maybe used to improve visual quality. I use 6XAA and 16AF on the latest card and still get a playable 50-60 FPS.


Nigel

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Maybe an MX version, but that's the one you do not want. A standard GeForce 3 is better than a GeForce 4 MX.

For GOOD video cards, you still pay $100+ - $300 (or more, if you want really, really good....)

What's the Best Non-Fan Card ?
 

What's the best graphics card that doesn't use a fan for cooling? I am willing to give up some performance to keep the noise down. I still have to live with this machine when i'm not running G2, and I've got enough fans in my computer already. Don't want another, not even if it's small and supposedly quiet. Also, those fans eventually go, and so does the card, I suppose. I got a Full Tower and a fan the size of a softball trying to keep that AMD Athlon 1600+ cool, and still have to take the cover off to keep from overheating when running G2. So, I need a quiet graphics card. My Nvidia Riva TNT ain't cutting it. ... :mad:

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

There is a 9700pro with passive cooling...

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/Sapphire/sapphire9700pue/


At the lower end of the scale there are Geforce FX5200's with no fan..

http://www.techseekers.net/modules.p...t&id=49&page=2

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

I was looking through the specifications of my computer after my recent video card upgrade (Ti-4200) and I noticed the RAM is a tad small/slow; PC133 256mb. Can anyone point me to some information concerning RAM upgrades?

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Cody,

Just click on this link:

http://www6.tomshardware.com

This is one of the best places to learn about PC hardware and also overclocking procedures.

Hope this helps.

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Cool. Thanks a lot.

Video Drivers/FrameRates
 

Great site ! Thx pappy..........