Delta Virtual Airlines
Water Cooler

Jose Bazil wrote:

i want to upgrade my video card. Can anyone recommend a good one. I finally got my new motherboard and cpu a intel 4770k and really good memory now for the video card....

#5 - Video Memory: Typical single monitor systems that run a resolution of 1920x1200 or lower do not require nor will make better use of above 1.5GB of video memory, however, higher resolutions above 2000x as well as multi-monitor setups can make use of above 2GB of video memory.

There is no 'frame rate' increase with the larger memory amount, the benefit comes in visual smoothness and panning. It can be exceptionally important to have larger video memory amounts for a large span of monitors.

Newer video cards are now coming to market with 2 and 3GB of video memory standard.

THE BUDGET VIDEO CARDS:

You probably noticed by now there are no 'GT' or "GTX Ti" or 560/660/760 cards outlined above. That is because I have created this outline to make sure you get the benefit of my extensive experience and background and if you decide to upgrade you will actually get something of value for your money with FSX instead of frustration. My advice is stay clear of those cards with FSX using the processors and the processor speeds outlined above. You can take that advice or leave it. If you leave it, good luck.

You may review the post that is linked here:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/3dmark06_topic46244_post280558.html#280558

That post clearly shows what happens when a underpowered video card is placed in a system with a fast, efficient and overclocked processor as the speed of that processor increases. The budget video card effectively ruins the advancements the CPU may provide and user simply do not know what they have done to their system. The card may score great in a benchmark but the user has no idea what they did neutered the rest of the system.

SYSTEM MEMORY

One of the most overlooked and underrated aspects of system building is proper memory speed and timing. Regardless of the nonsense you may read about memory specifications and games (or FSX) DO NOT skimp on this area! Physical memory timing and speed quality does not effect FPS 'greatly' but firmly improves scenery loading and visual flight smoothness.

FSX does not need more than 6GB - 8GB of physical memory! Be aware, adding more memory is not going to net you any better performance and if you do add more you may find that memory will run higher latency or could be unstable in a high CPU clock situation. Users who may need more memory than 8GB for engineering or A/V production work or 64bit applications, that is understandable but anyone who does not use their systems for much more than FSX would be foolish to purchase more than 8GB. Your version of Windows must support the amount of memory you intend to use as well. Windows 7 Home x64 is restricted to 8GB max.

TWO STICKS vs. FOUR: What you must understand about this is that when we use more that 2 sticks of memory the load on the CPU memory controller or IMC goes UP. Therefore what users may deal with is LOWER stability in a HIGHER CPU clock with HIGHER speed memory. Typically you wont have any issues running 4 sticks when clocking 4.3 or below, above that it can become problematical as CPU speed and memory speed increases. How much depends on the motherboard quality and the luck of the draw with the CPU.

Users who run quad channel memory CPUs will be running 4 sticks of memory. That does not mean its bad as they get the benefit of the quad memory channel operation, however users who do not run quad channel CPUs that do not require more than 2 memory slots populated should strive to run 2 sticks for maximum stability in clocking. Unless you need more memory for applications that will make use of it, in that case you will have to deal with any issues running higher CPU clock speeds.

Just as some CPUs display the ability to run high clocks on low CPU voltage, the same holds true with their stability with more than 2 sticks running at very high CPU and memory speeds.

Jose Bazil wrote:

Well I have in my system a evga 670 with 16gb of ram running fsx on a SSS drive with a intel 4770k and a asus sabertooth x87 mother board the question that perplexes me is why my sim seems to chug along. I more than often I get major shutters and the runway markings and textures flicker majorly. ... The video card I have has 4gb of gddr5 on board