PCI cards especially the VE AIW

[sparky191]

Anyone runing any sims on a PCI card, especially a VE AIW. I was wondering how they perform? I was thinking of getting the VE for my 2nd PC. Only benchies I saw it was as good as a GF4MX PCI, since the VE is essentially a Radeon PCI 7500 with the AIW functionality.

[Allen]

I'm running IL-2 on my 'Legacy' setup (1GHz Athlon, 256MB PC133 RAM, GeForce 2 MX400) and it runs pretty well. I can't remember for sure but I think I have it running at 800x600 with no Anti-Aliasing or crap like that.

I get 3DMark 2001 SE scores of around 2500. Get all the fog and stuff like that, but the redraw only shows airfields pretty close (annoying for coming into land as I have to flyby first to line up).

[sparky191]

Its very slow on my GF2MXPCI with a 1Ghz Athlon and 256mb of ram. Thats not an AGP card is it. I was hoping I get a decent speedout of IL2 so I'be able to bring it around to a friends house and we could hook the machines together. He has a P3/933 so they would be evenly matched roughly.

Actually I'm running IL2FB not IL2 I wonder does that make a difference.

[Allen]

Nope, PCI. Mine runs beautifully(ish)! In fact, sometimes I see screenies from players with 9800 PRO's and the detail looks very similar (obviously I know there will be a lot of differences like Anti Aliasing and higher frame rates!).

It still doesn't stop me wanting a new card though! Current one is a PNY Verto, what you got?

[sparky191]

Mines an old creative one. Fanless too. Very handy to have when testing motherboards and old PC's etc.

[Allen]

Do you use Detonator drivers? If so, download a little program called DetonatorUnlocker (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) and attach a little fan to the GPU's heatsink and also heatsinks to the RAM chips then play about with the chip and ram core speeds.

Apparantly you can get upto 20% more from Geforce2 MX cards, making them run like GTS models.

I got that info from PCGHW June issue I think...

[sparky191]

Originally posted by Big_Al
Nope, PCI. Mine runs beautifully(ish)! In fact, sometimes I see screenies from players with 9800 PRO's and the detail looks very similar (obviously I know there will be a lot of differences like Anti Aliasing and higher frame rates!).

It still doesn't stop me wanting a new card though! Current one is a PNY Verto, what you got?

Very few PCI cards these days. I've heard that a fx5200 is a bit quicker than a gf4mx. Myself I'm looking at the ATI VE AIW card. Its the same as a Radeon 7500 speedwise, which is about the same a GF4MX or GF2ti but the main attraction is that it has the TV tuner and all the video functionality of the AIW cards.

I'm really more interested in a quieter card without a fan than overclocking it to be honest. Its not my main PC.