Buying a graphics card, is it worth it?

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willemvdm

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I recently got myself FSX. But now I would like to better its performance. I have a Pentium D 3Ghz procesor and I'm using the mother board's on board graphic card. I ran this test and got the following result on video card.

You Have: SiS Mirage Graphics (SiS 662)
Video Card Features -
Required - 32 MB , You have - 128 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0 , You have - 0.0 - Fail

I looked at 3 PCI-E cards at a local shop:
inno 3D 8500 GT 512MB DDR 2
inno 3D 9400GT 512MB DDR2
Inno 3D 256DDR3 9500GT

My question to you guys (the experts;)) is by how much would the above 3 cards improve performance respectively.

At the moment, with all settings set to max I'm getting a frame rate of 3 to 6 and sometimes it drop below 3 and all aircraft controls freezes. What sort of frame rates can I expect with each of the cards above, assuming same settings. Reason why I'm asking this is because above mentioned test already show 3d acceleration on my system. That make me worry that adding a graphics card wont make that much of a difference. I don't want to buy a card and end up with a frame rate of 4 to 8. On the other hand I also don't want to go for the top of the range, if I can get away with a lower end card.

Any suggestions on websites with good comparison tables on performance of systems with and without graphics cards.
 
Don't even bother looking at the other cards. The ATI Radeon HD4670 is the only way to go. It's the best low to middle end card by a fairly big margin. And at just over 900 bucks it's a steal:
http://www.prophecy.co.za/force3d-hd4670-512mb-p-31156.html

I don't know how it'll perform with that MS test but if you look here you'll see that it easily out performs those Nvidia cards:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/26.html
At 1280X1024 the 9500GT only has 59% of the performance of the HD4670. This is a true upgrade unlike the Nvidia's which perform only slighty better than the previous generation of cards which they were meant to replace.
 
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The increase in performance will be like moving from an Uno to a Lambo ;)

Onboard gfx are useless to say the least, they are not really designed to play games on. You will find you will be pleasantly surprised by the up in performance.
 
Yes OEW that's a good choice for a low end up to date gaming card. I would also consider going second hand. You will definitely gain a performance increase with a card, it's not even a question. Onboard graphics just don't cut it. But out of your three choices, the 9500gt will be your best bet.

But for the same amount or less you could get a second hand 7900gt or 8600gt for instance - I'll even sell you my 7900gt if you want it lol. There usually won't be problems with second hand cards from my experience. You can't really go too cheap on graphics cards, the lower numbers will have severely restricted capabilities.
 
Grimspoon said:
The increase in performance will be like moving from an Uno to a Lambo ;)

Onboard gfx are useless to say the least, they are not really designed to play games on. You will find you will be pleasantly surprised by the up in performance.
Click to expand...

Agree with the first one its really a good Idea to get a GPU.

That sis onboard card can't handle games. Next time go for a nvidia onboard GPU if u are low on cash.
 
Grimspoon said:
Geforce 4 Fx 6200 256MB DDR TV-Out,8x DVI, AGP8x (XFX) - R399 Ex


It would still be better :D
Click to expand...

Agreed!
Any of the cards will be LEAPS better than onboard!

willemvdm - What model Mobo do you have, so we can google it and see what your slot is like :D
 
Ok, thanks for all the replies.

I'm still as confused as ever.

I had a ATI card long ago on a P1 system running win95. Can't remember the details, but I recall that it was a real pain to get the thing working properly. Those little yellow exclamation marks appeared in the device manager next to drivers saying that the device is not working properly. Took me ages to get it all sorted out and I dreaded the thought of re-installing 95. So I'm not that keen on ATI, though I don't have any experience with GeForce. I also came across a couple of web pages where people reckon that nvidia have better software support.
I also came accros this nice comparison cart. It show the FPS for several cards running FSX on ultra quality. Considering that I got 3 to 6 FPS without any card, 18 FPS sound really good for the 8500GT. Unfortunately they don't have the 9400GT or 9500GT on the list. Neither do they have the ATI 4670 mentioned here. So it still leaves me clueless as to how much better these cards would be for the extra bucks spend.

Interesting however, on the list most nvidia cards (Green lines) seem to float to the top and most ATI cards (Red lines) is floating around at the bottom.

scotty777 - Yes my mobo do have PCI-E 16x

Model - Not sure if this is the model. On the box it say EliteGroup 662/1066T-M2 Sis 662 FSB 1066(OC) Not a clue really what all that mean.
 
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willemvdm said:
I also came accros this nice comparison cart. It show the FPS for several cards running FSX on ultra quality. Considering that I got 3 to 6 FPS without any card, 18 FPS sound really good for the 8500GT. Unfortunately they don't have the 9400GT or 9500GT on the list. Neither do they have the ATI 4670 mentioned here. So it still leaves me clueless as to how much better these cards would be for the extra bucks spend.
Click to expand...

That's an outdated chart with previous gen technology. It's not relevant with the new cards that are out now.

By all means go for Nvidia, but do you really think that ATI cards haven't changed from your last experience with them 10 years ago?
 
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