Graphics Card advice please

[Tartan Giant]

Hi Guys,

I do not normally indulge in MS Flight Sim games on my PC but I was given a present of MS Combat Flight Sim 3 and of course my system spat it out as not having a good enough Graphics Card.

System at present

AMD Thunderbird 900, 384K0OD SkA
256Mb SDRAM
30 Gb HDD
Motherboard : VIA K7 ATX SCKT A
Windows XP Pro
Video Card : 32 Mb GForce2 MX SDR

My questions are,
1) What Video Card should I go for to make the Sim game 'run' ?

2) Is it just a question of pulling out the old card, and inserting the new one ?


Many thanks

TG

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Tartan Giant,

Right now the best bang for the buck is the GeForce4 Ti4200. The GeForce4 Ti4200 will beat the FX5200 and the FX5600.

As for your second question, the card is a direct replacement for your GF2. The only issue you might have would be with your Power Supply. You want to have a power supply that has 28a on the 3.3v RAIL and a Max Combined Wattage of 200W on the 3.3v + 5v RAILs. This information can be found on the sticker on your power supply.

Since you are running WinXP, you might want to bring your RAM up to 512Mb too.

Take Care,

Capt. Richard J. Gentil, Pres.
Naples Air Center, Inc.
Custom Computers of Naples, Inc.

[Tartan Giant]

Hi Richard,

Many thanks for taking time out to send me that expert advice.

I did not know my second question would lead to the technical aspects of power ratings though !

You want to have a power supply that has 28a on the 3.3v RAIL and a Max Combined Wattage of 200W on the 3.3v + 5v RAILs.

I shall have to be careful then, as I'm not that expert at where/what these 3.3v and 5v RAIL's are, never mind assessing/measuring the amperage and then the wattage !

Can I readily assume though (not a good thing in aviation, probaby the same with PC's) that a straight swop will cause NO damage ?

Cheers

TG

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Tartan Giant,

Just look on the sticker on your power supply. Here is what you are looking for:

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/17-103-906-09.JPG

As for the Video Card, it will work on your motherboard. It is a straight swap.

Take Care,

Richard

[Tartan Giant]

Many thanks Richard........... I've got the idea now.... all OK.

Very best regards.

TG

[amanoffewwords]

This one (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?LEA-FX5900) looks cool - twin propeller version..

[Tartan Giant]

AMOFW

I agree.......but look at the price ! Phew !

Cheers

TG

[Lozza2002]

Tartan

I wouldnt worry too much about the power supply as I believe this would be the least of you're problems.
Have a look at some of the CFS3 forums and see what the goss is....you will find some very useful info.
For starters I would look for at least a 64mb card as a minimum...something like a Geforce 3 TI500 or if you have money to spare go for a 128mb card as mentioned previously. CFS3 is a memory hog so 512 DDR is a good start as well as a CPU upgrade is you want to run the sim without loss of frame rates.
I run a AMD Athlon XP 1800 with 512 DDR 2700 on a Geforce 3 64 mb card and still find this to be borderline,however it runs IL2 Sturmovik and MS 2002 sim quite well.
Have a look at the link below in the forums section

http://www.netwings.org/

Lozza :ok:

[Tartan Giant]

Hi Lozza

I run a AMD Athlon XP 1800 with 512 DDR 2700 on a Geforce 3 64 mb card and still find this to be borderline,

Blimey !!

I can see that getting the hardware to make this CFS3 'run' is going to cost me mega more than the game cost !

Thanks for the advice and steers.

Cheers

TG