[castor]

But what's everyones opinion on the ATI Radeon 9250 (256mb) as a card.

Ok for desktop use.
Ok for older games on 1024*768, no AA, no AF.

[jr2]

Hmm, I just checked my settings...
I have a BFG 6200OC 256, 1GB system memory (soon 2GB), 3GHz P4
Could someone suggest settings for these?  Also, when AF and AA are set to app-controlled, what does FSO set them at?
Anisotropic filtering.......................=....app-controlled
Anisotropic mip filter optimization=.....off
Anisotropic sample optimization...=....on
Antialiasing settings....................=.....app-controlled
Conformant texture clamp...........=.....use hardware
Extension limit.............................=.....off
Force mipmaps............................=.....none
Hardware acceleration................=....multiple display performance mode
Negative LOD bias......................=....allow
Texture filtering..........................=....Performance
Transparency antialiasing..........=....off
Triliniear optimization.................=....on
Triple buffering...........................=....off
V-Sync........................................=....force on

[S-99]

You're AF is good as most of the time you control AF from the game.
Anistropic Mip filter optimization you want on - it says optimization why don't you want it on?
Anistropic sample optimization - it's on yay
Antialaliasing app-controlled (looking good so far)
Conformant texture clamp - i've got mine set to off, idk what it's for really, it doesn't seem as precedent and important as the other stuff though
Extension limit - pretty much don't touch that, it makes fs2 unplayable, until your smart enough to not mess with this setting
Force mip maps - you should set that to trilinear if you want extra visual quality
Hardware acceleration - i've got one monitor so it's set to single display mode if you have one monitor as well then you should change it to single
Negative LOD bias - mines set to clamp (don't know what this is...i left it default)
Texture filtering performance yes
Transparency antialiasing  off yes
Trilinear optimization on yes
Triple buffering - you should have that to on, triple buffering is faster than double buffering...this is a speed increasing setting
Vsync - i've got mine to force on, good to have on for those games that don't let you turn it on in their settings, i really didn't notice any downside to having this setting on at all.

And also those with lcd monitors, you have fun with your ghosting and less sharp picture...lol, actually lcd monitors have gotten way better, i've seen the widescreen one my dad bought and actually the ghosting on that lcd monitor was low i barely couldn't notice it, and it was a had a sharp picture. Those who have crt's well don't use 60hertz.

[jr2]

Thx... BTW, those settings have an explanation at the bottom... IDK what half of it means, maybe it would help you though.

[S-99]

I already do know what all that **** means except for these ones...

Conformant texture clamp is to help prevent 3d artifacting, maybe i'll try this when i overclock my card by a serious amount or something, doesn't really seem to be a necessity
Extension limit is for older opengl apps that have long extension strings and can't deal with unlimited extension strings, like what the settings says, leave it disable if you're not using old opengl ****
Negative LOD appears to be an extra "nicety" when using antialiasing, might as well leave it disabled as well it doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

Oh yes absolutely knowing what these meant that i will drastically change my settings...no, just going to leave them the way they were since after further review there good the way i left them.

[jr2]

Oh yes absolutely knowing what these meant that i will drastically change my settings...no, just going to leave them the way they were since after further review there good the way i left them.

Ah, so you do have grey matter between the ears.  (Which was why I asked.)  I was simply asking if it would help, (since you said you didn't know what they mean) that's all.  No need to get all snippy. 

[CP5670]

All of the various "optimizations" should definitely be disabled. They all reduce image quality for negligible speed improvements. The only one you may want to keep is quality mode, since HQ mode has a sizeable performance hit.

Negative LOD bias should be set to clamp. That significantly reduces the AF shimmering effect. Conformant texture clamp and Extension limit are for old game compatibility and can be enabled in a game's profile if needed, but should not be turned on globally.

[fsphiladelphia]

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html

That gives more detailed explanations of all the settings.  However, it seems everyone here knows most of this stuff (and thanks to the wonder of google, probably already has seen this webpage).  Nonetheless, that may be of some use for some.

Just for fun, I think I'm going to see what happens with HQ mode.   

(i'll probably be back in here in a few minutes saying how bad the framerate hit was).

EDIT:

Certainly, it looked nice, but I did notice a performance hit by going from 'quality' to 'high quality'.  At one point, the framerate dropped to 25, and at a couple of other times, it was in the mid 30's.  That's not horrible, but when it starts jumping from 120 down to 25, the experience comes off slightly ... uneven, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it.  I'll note that this didn't slow me down, per se.  I mean, when I started with no video card, I was probably averaging around 25 fps, and I was still able to play through the entire retail campaign, but I'm not sure whether it's worth it to stay at the 'high quality' setting.

I guess my question is, what exactly is the difference between 'quality' and 'high quality' in the actual game?  While I had the vague sense that it looked better, I couldn't really tell exactly what I was looking for.

[CP5670]

On the 7 series cards, it mainly affects the trilinear and AF optimizations. AF looks far better with it turned on, although the framerate drops you're describing seem rather extreme. It tends to have more of a performance impact in OpenGL games than D3D ones, but I've never seen it fall by more than 30%. You may want to leave it on quality mode if it's that bad.

[fsphiladelphia]

On the 7 series cards, it mainly affects the trilinear and AF optimizations. AF looks far better with it turned on, although the framerate drops you're describing seem rather extreme. It tends to have more of a performance impact in OpenGL games than D3D ones, but I've never seen it fall by more than 30%. You may want to leave it on quality mode if it's that bad.

I agree with you that it is pretty extreme, especially when my lowest framerates in 'quality' mode are around 45 fps even in the most intense moments.  So, because the change was not ridiculously worthwhile, and the framerate hit was pretty big, I think I'm toning it down.

Really I just wanted to see what would happen.  While it was playable, I think the experience is better with it one notch lower.  Which is a shame -- I am _this_ close to getting away with literally every setting in nvidia and fso set to their maximums    Oh well.   

[jr2]

Do you have two PCI-e ports?  If you do, you could eventually go to SLI, then you'd be back here laughing your butt off at your ridiculous quality settings... Oh well.  I have a BFG 6200, there's no way I could do anything close to what you've got.
...But I do have 2GB of RAM! 

[fsphiladelphia]

I can read that bit there about the RAM 

Unfortunately, I only have one PCI-E slot.  It's not possible to go SLI with a PCI-E card and and AGP card, is it?  If so, what sort of benefits am I looking at?

Wait -- I live on student loans.  This is about as good as it gets for me

[jr2]

Unfortunately, I only have one PCI-E slot.  It's not possible to go SLI with a PCI-E card and and AGP card, is it?  If so, what sort of benefits am I looking at?

No; the benefits are basically two GPUs doing your work, and your Video RAM would of course be doubled.
EDIT: Of course you could always return your Graphics card and get the BFG version.