Video card does make a difference! - P166 does well with NVIDIA 32mb card

[ehart]

I have a Pentium/166. With the 2mb original video card, I was able to get FMS to run, barely. 1 FPS at lower-res with no graphical goodies turned on (really ugly).

Last night I put in an off-brand (Jaton) NVIDIA GEforce MX200 32mb video card. Cost was about $55.00.

What a difference! With all the graphical goodies turned on (very nice looking!) I get 6-8 frames-per-second, at the highest res my monitor will support (1024x768). I know this doesn't seem fast to you guys that are pushing for over 20FPS, but it seems plenty responsive, and more than adequate for training.

Interestingly, the frame rates actually got higher as I enabled more graphical goodies. Clearly all that graphics stuff is being off-loaded to the card, so the amount of it doesn't affect operation anymore.

So if you are wondering whether an upgrade will let you run FMS without buying a new computer, the answer may be "yes".

- Eric

[solo]

Dear Eric,
I am extremely pleased that you can now use FMS for training purposes. My only comment would be that, at a frame rate of less than 10 per second the speed of the simulator can be too slow to help you to improve, once you have gone through the very initial stages of training.

You could try increasing your frame rates by reducing the size of the window till you get nearly 20 frames per second and perhaps then you would be able to appreciate the difference.

In any case best of luck and happy virtual flying!

[ehart]

Solo,

Even better news, I updated to the new "Detonator" video drivers at www.nvidia.com, and now FPS is 10-20, mostly staying 13-18. This looks very nice.

I "windowed" FMS as you described and found that FPS stayed the same, and perhaps even dropped slightly, so still full-screen for now.

I also notice that when the transmitter isn't turned on, FPS drops considerably -- if using in keyboard mode, it's best to tell FMS that no controller is connected.

- Eric

[Pooky]

Im still using a 4 year old 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 and im getting rates of about 40 - 50 fps no probs, im running a Duron 800, 128MB ram and have downloaded the latest custom built drivers. One only prob though is that the trees have a black frame round them, any ideas??
???

[Pooky]

Ooops no i lied, im getting between 50 and 86 fps max

[ehart]

50 FPS? One of these days I'm going to get a new machine! Sounds great!

[encan]

what about 260 -300 frames with fullscreen 1024x768 resolution?? you should really get a new machine and see the difference. if you buy a new computer just for a suggestion dont get ati graphics card. i got ati9700. most of the ati crads have this problem: cont run FMS. but this might be a temporary problem. they are trying to fix this problem right now.