[freespacegundam]

I recently, and finally I might add, obtained my own computer to enjoy all the goodies that FSOpen has to offer.  Sadly, to my dismay, my 128MB ATI Radeon 9000 just doesn't cut the mustard with many of the more visually intensive features.  The computer has almost a gig of RAM, which helps some, but I experience significant slowdown in two situations: One being nebula missions with active lightning, which irks me to no end since those are some of my favorite missions.  Two being if too many ships are on screen at once firing all guns blazing.  Strangely enough the card has no issues with FEAR, which I find odd because it seems to be more of a graphics hog.

I beseech any who would grant me the knowledge, where might I obtain a graphics card suitable to give FS2 the love it really needs?  I don't need the latests and greatest, but something good enough to do the job and not raid my wallet too badly.

Any help is appreciated.

[CP5670]

What's your price range? Do you need an AGP or PCIE card?

[freespacegundam]

I'd prefer AGP, but PCIE isn't out of the question.  The bad part is I need something in the $70-$100 range, maybe a little higher.

[CP5670]

Your best bet for under $100 and AGP would be a used 9800 pro. You can't get those new anymore, but they are common on ebay.

If you can stretch it by a little, either of these will be pretty good for the money once the rebate is factored in:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814135186
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130220

The Aopen one is a little cheaper while EVGA is a more well known company.

If a PCIE card will work for you, this one is cheaper than either of those and somewhat faster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127176

Any of these cards would be at least four times as fast as a 9000.

[edit] fixed the first link

[freespacegundam]

Turns out I actually misread the box, the graphics card I currenty have is a 9800 Pro.  The problem is that its 128 MB, I'm hoping to get at least 256 to improve performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130262  Would there be anything wrong with this one?  Its just in my price range, maybe a little over with the shipping, but its more what I'm looking for.

[Nix]

Whaddya mean it's not good enough?  I'm running a modified 9800 Pro 128 that's been fitted with an XT BIOS, and I'm able to run just about everything just fine.  I've ran through the new Derelict with the New Lucy, and I've experienced minor slowdowns, but nothing like a year ago when I attempted to run Inferno.  Most of the time I play, my FPS is rock-solid 120FPS, and my memory usage is well within limits, never hitting below 30 FPS and I never run out of memory, according to the in-game memory usage counter. 
What exactly is it doing?  Is it just slow, or is it doing something specific?  Also, are you running the adveffects VP?  If so, you'll probably need something really really powerful in order to play FSO with this VP, as I've seen systems running nVidia 6xxx cards choke using it.

[Trivial Psychic]

I'm running with a 9600XT with 128MB, and I can fly most missions without any real slowdowns... granted, I've got a whole gig of RAM, but I used to play with 512MB.

[achtung]

I'm running with a 9600XT with 128MB, and I can fly most missions without any real slowdowns... granted, I've got a whole gig of RAM, but I used to play with 512MB.

GeForce FX 5200 128, runs fine with every scp feature turned on, and actually runs DooM 3 and Quake 4, HL2 runs excellently.  Of course I have a gig of RAM as well.

[Nix]

Post the rest of the system specs you have.  There's ovbiously something here that's insufficient, and it's NOT the videocard....

[freespacegundam]

Well here's the rough skinny on what's in this beast.

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Pentium 2.8 Ghz
896 MB DDR RAM.

The strange thing is that it just slows down or skips a little bit during FSOPEN if is going on, or if the nebula missions are in progress it begins to skip real bad.  I know I should probably have a gig of RAM to help in that department, but I can't see it making that huge a difference.  I am planning to upgrade to a gig, but the odd thing is that back with my old computer I had an NVIDIA 256MB graphics card with only 512MB of memory and it handled things just fine.  And before anyone says anything I can't trade the two cards, the Radeon won't work properly in the other comp as it needs another power connection which won't reach with the cords inside the old comp unless I get nasty with the cords, and since it isn't my computer I'm a bit wary to do that.

[Nix]

Why not buy a 3$ power splitter cord from Newegg, or even your local computer shop which will probably give you the extra reach you need?  You don't need to go modifying cables to use the external power cable on the card.  Trust me, I know exactly what you're talking about and yes, it's a pain in the ass, but you can get a splitter that'll reach. 

Yes, more framebuffer on the card will smooth things out, but I honestly think your install may be damaged, or you're using the AdvEffects VP and not knowing it or something.  If FEAR runs fine with a 9800 Pro (and Yes, I DO know how that runs as well, same card, same game, runs good) and FSO does not... perhaps it's in software.  Maybe you should do a fresh install of FS2, then apply the patch, then run whichever version of FSO you'd like, with the necessary VP's.  I've had unexplanable slowdowns, crashes, and the like, and what I've done to fix the problem is just move my mods somewhere else on my drive, uninstall FS2, axe registry entries, reinstall and put my mods back in, and it plays much smoother after that. 

Here's one other suggestion.  Turn on the Show Statistics and Show Memory Usage in the launcher.  Watch your memory usage.  If your available memory keeps falling to 0, and it skips like mad, I would say it's something in software, for I've had that exact problem for the longest time untill I switched over to OpenGL mode.  When I started using OGL, things were a LOT better, and OGL has come a long way in a year's worth of updates from the FSO crew.

I'm not trying to talk you out of buying a card, well.. maybe I am, but I say don't waste money on AGP if you're planning on upgrading your system.  If you're going to upgrade your motherboard, get into PCI-X and THEN go nuts with the videocard you need.  There's lots of people with cards just like you that can play FSO just fine.  If you're perfectly happy with keeping your system forever, and dont care about upgrading to PCI-X, then I'd say get something BETTER than the LE card.  I'd reccomend the 6800OC that BFG makes, even though it's $100 more expensive, it's worth the extra bucks.  Either that or wait a little longer till the 7800 cards drop below 250, then they'll definetly be worth the purchase.  Some are already down to 300 right now.   

[freespacegundam]

Well the main reason I haven't gone to buy a power splitter is I'm too afraid of messing things up, but if its as easy as you say I may just give it a try.

The problem with a fresh install of FS2 atm is my damaged 3rd cd, which means a lengthy pain in the ass install for me.  I have been using the AdvEffects VP, but its never really given me this sort of problem before, which makes me wonder.  I'm using the latest FSOPEN build, 3.6.8, and its been good to me so far.  Nonetheless, there is wisdom in your words, and a fresh install might do me some good.

I have one last question, does AdvEffects normally cause errors after a while?  Lately I've noticed a lot more ctds, but only every second or so mission I play.

[CP5670]

Turns out I actually misread the box, the graphics card I currenty have is a 9800 Pro.  The problem is that its 128 MB, I'm hoping to get at least 256 to improve performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130262  Would there be anything wrong with this one?  Its just in my price range, maybe a little over with the shipping, but its more what I'm looking for.

If you already have a 9800 pro, there is really nothing under $150 that would be a substantial upgrade over it, especially on AGP. The cheapest things worth considering are the $180 6800GS or X800GTO2 or the $250 7800GT, all on PCIE. That 6600LE sucks; it's way overpriced and about half as fast as what you already have.

Are you using D3D mode? That could be causing those sudden framerate drops, especially with the 3D shockwave. Try reinstalling your video card drivers as well. I think a 9800 pro should be more than sufficient for FS2 unless you want to use high resolutions or heavy levels of AA.

Unless FS2 is somehow dramatically different from just about every other game out there, the amount of onboard memory should hardly matter compared to the other specs of the card. I never found the adveffects to be that heavy on hardware. The models VP actually brought down the framerate a lot for me on my old 6800GT, although that was with D3D and OGL handles those a lot better.

[IceFire]

Turns out I actually misread the box, the graphics card I currenty have is a 9800 Pro.  The problem is that its 128 MB, I'm hoping to get at least 256 to improve performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130262  Would there be anything wrong with this one?  Its just in my price range, maybe a little over with the shipping, but its more what I'm looking for.

If you already have a 9800 pro, there is really nothing under $150 that would be a substantial upgrade over it, especially on AGP. The cheapest things worth considering are the $180 6800GS or X800GTO2 or the $250 7800GT, all on PCIE. That 6600LE sucks; it's way overpriced and about half as fast as what you already have.

Are you using D3D mode? That could be causing those sudden framerate drops, especially with the 3D shockwave. Try reinstalling your video card drivers as well. I think a 9800 pro should be more than sufficient for FS2 unless you want to use high resolutions or heavy levels of AA.

Unless FS2 is somehow dramatically different from just about every other game out there, the amount of onboard memory should hardly matter compared to the other specs of the card. I never found the adveffects to be that heavy on hardware. The models VP actually brought down the framerate a lot for me on my old 6800GT, although that was with D3D and OGL handles those a lot better.

This is true.  The 9800Pro is still a decent card even with todays latest and greatest games.  I know this because I have the one down...the 9700Pro. Its long in the tooth now but its not bad.  I was looking about at a replacement card if it fails (I've been having some problems) and there is really nothing at all.  Not in that pricerange...and that was my pricerange.  The closest you could get is a X1300 from Saphire using an AGP bridge on the card itself.  Just recently announced...

AGP is effectively dead mind you..

[Nix]

A $3 power splitter basically has a male end, which you plug on the existing end of a female 4 pin Molex connector, and it splits it into two females.  Usually, you'd use these to split ends to run fans, low power devices, etc, but in this case, it actually extends the length of the plug you're using, so you don't need to use a power splitter.  No cutting, no muss, no fuss.  It may not be much, but it might give you the extra few inches you need.  If you're worried about the other end though, you don't need to plug it in to anything.  You could even put a piece of tape around the end to remind yourself to "dont plug this into anything"  If you're powering the videocard with that specific rail from the PSU, make sure that you have little or no other devices hooked on it, as to even out the load on your PSU.  Here's what I'm talking about. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812101203

Well, unless you absolutely need the eye-candy, AdvEffects VP is not needed.  I personally play without it because it looks good enough with the regular stuff, it's not worth the slowdowns I've seen here and there with it.  If you are using it, rename it to something else and try again. 
Also, try OpenGL, as suggested by me and CP5670.

BTW, icefire, what are these magical AGP Bridges you mentioned?

[Grey Wolf]

It's a chip they put onto the PCB that converts the PCIe signal to AGP. They had them earlier on, as well, but those converted from AGP to PCIe (see: NV45, a.k.a. the original PCIe variants of the the 6800 series)

[CP5670]

At this point I wouldn't recommend buying any AGP card that's more than about $150 to anyone. You're better off saving up some more and getting a PCIE card and motherboard (there some great cheap ones), given how much better the PCIE prices are at this point. There was one very good deal on AGP recently, the $200 X850XTs that Microcenter was selling last month, but they sold out of those a while ago and won't be getting any new stock. The recently released 7800GS is a pointless card for the price and the AGP 6800GTs go for extremely high prices on ebay, which is in stark contrast to the rapidly falling 7800GT and X1800XT prices on PCIE.

[Grey Wolf]

Heh. Glad I got my AGP 6800GT last summer. Prevents the temptation of upgrading while in college.

[Descenterace]

Turns out I actually misread the box, the graphics card I currenty have is a 9800 Pro.  The problem is that its 128 MB, I'm hoping to get at least 256 to improve performance.

The amount of RAM on the card makes approximately zero difference. 128MB is adequate for most games these days. It should definitely be enough to run FSOpen; it surely doesn't use that much texture RAM.

[Fineus]

I wouldn't go that far.. I have 2GB of ram and a Radeon 9800 and right now I'm finding I have to tune down my graphics for games like Need For Speed Most Wanted and FEAR to be able to play them at a smooth rate.

Unfortunately I don't have the cash to make the leap to PCIE so I'm stuck with it for the moment.