Fathers Day was good to me

[Bubbleboy]

Ian....Fathers Day was good to me! My good wife really excelled and I got the Saitek Joystick and FSX today. She had already ordered the joy stick before they were available in Clear Prop....bugger!! Still dreaming of a set of those pedals though. Im loving the joystick! FSX is nice. I recently bought a new PC with a Quad core 2 processor so I have set the graphics to the best and it runs it well. Just a little bit of screen freeze (is that what you call it?). Just need to work out which setting to adjust to smooth it up a fraction.

 

Scotty :big_grin:

 

 

[Admin]

Scotty, what graphics card and how much ram do you have?

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Ian...I have an Acer Aspire M5630

 

Q6600 @ 2.40Ghz

 

2.00GB RAM

 

Im no PC expert. How do I find what Card I have? I know it is an upgraded Card.

 

Scotty

 

 

[Admin]

Scotty

 

Go to "Device Manager" and expand by clicking on the + sign of the "Display Adaptor" and see what it says there.

 

Running your sim with all sliders up full will tax your PC a lot especially if you want to have realistic 3rd party sceneries and proper traffic which is why you are possibly getting that freeze.

 

I will have a look at my video card settings tomorrow and see what we could try with your video card

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Ok...had a look.

 

ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO

 

Does that make sense?

 

Scotty

 

 

[slartibartfast]

Your system sounds pretty good Scotty - except the video card.

 

They were low end when they came out 12 months ago, and they now go for $60.

 

The good news is that your computer has the right slot to upgrade to a better card. The best value for money at the moment IMHO is the Radeon HD4870. I have been researching and that's what I bought yesterday. It's about $330-$350.

 

You can go any amount up to that (and well over - eg. you can get 2 of them on the same card for about $650) and it will vastly improve you FSX experience.

 

I built myself a new system yesterday and it rocks. Time to flight sim again.

 

Cheers,

 

Ross

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Hi Ross.....hhhmmmm, when I bought the computer a few months ago, The salesman said it was fitted with an upgraded card. Apparently it was custom built for a customer then the order canceled. There is a seperate graphics card the monitor plugs in to in the bottom of the back of the tower (sorry not a PC whizz). It seems the one that came with the PC originally is now redundant? so would that be the one that comes up under device manager?

 

Scotty

 

 

[slartibartfast]

Yep. The 2400 plugs into the PCI-E slot. If the monitor cable leads to the expansion slot in the back, then that's what its using. Windows reports it as the 2400. Get a PC literate friend to come around and check, but it sounds like he took the good card out and used it himself - although it probably was a step up from the onboard video if there was any. The 2400 is pretty ordinary.

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Damn! Dont you hate that. Educate me. What improvements would I notice if I upgraded to the card you have?

 

 

[slartibartfast]

No "screen freeze". If you have the graphics set to best already and it nearly runs great, you probably don't need much better. I'm surprised really.

 

I don't have FSX, but I thought it was graphics hungry. That's one reason I upgraded - I'm going to get FSX today (I can only find FS 2002, but I have 2004 somewhere) and desk fly until I finish fixing the Cheetah.

 

A better card will display bigger, faster and smoother graphics.

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Ross...you are right, I am being picky but that is me...lol

 

It runs almost perfect, good enough anyway. That is the only thing I can fault so far. Other than when flying the Trike, the control inputs are the same direction as a 3 axis. As you know, Trike inputs are the opposite. This may just be a matter of playing with the settings or turning the joystick up side down

 

Scotty