Video card recommendation

I currently have a Matrox G550 card with 32Mb of ram. I realize this is a "business" video card, and I bought it before I considered getting into train simming. My question is this: I'm considering upgrading to a geForce 4 Ti4200. I want to run 100-car long coal trains, but I can only get about 8 fps now (when using an external view and looking at the train; the cab view is fine, about mid-30s fps). Will the 8 fps be improved drastically? Curiously, no matter what video settings I try in the sim, i.e. smaller resolution, lower texture quality, etc., it stays at 8 fps, and never goes up. Here are the specs of the rest of my system:P4 1.7Ghz
1 Gb PC133 RAM
40 Gb 7200 rpm hard drive
Intel 845WN motherboard
Windows 2000 ProThanks for your help!Mark

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RE: Video card recommendation, Zed, Aug-05-02, 12:29 PM, (1) RE: Video card recommendation, WestSlopeRRfan, Aug-05-02, 04:05 PM, (2) RE: Video card recommendation, derekmorton, Aug-05-02, 05:04 PM, (3) RE: Video card recommendation, carlylet, Aug-05-02, 09:01 PM, (4) RE: Video card recommendation, LAHDPOP, Aug-05-02, 10:23 PM, (5) Update, markhyams, Aug-15-02, 00:03 AM, (6) RE: Update, UtilityInfielder, Aug-15-02, 00:14 AM, (7) RE: Update, ske2751, Aug-15-02, 02:13 AM, (8) RE: Update, Coonskin, Aug-15-02, 02:20 AM, (9) RE: Update, ske2751, Aug-15-02, 02:54 AM, (10) RE: Update, markhyams, Aug-15-02, 11:20 AM, (11) RE: Update, nscaler73, Aug-16-02, 10:34 AM, (12)

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You can see some benchmark info for video cards at
http://www.tomshardware.com/Tom reviewed the Matrox G550 but didn't benchmark it. He said Matrox expected it to be about 20% faster than the G450 for 3D. Benchmarks for the G450 show it to be about half the speed of a GeForce 2 MX.http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q2/010619/index.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q4/001208/index.htmlTom has a recent article benchmarking a lot of cards and a GeForce 4 Ti4200 is more than three times faster than a GeForce 2 MX.http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020418/index.htmlI think you would see a big improvement.

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I have the TI4400. It works very well!! You'd get a little bit better FPS with the 4400 verses the 4200. And still keep the price reasonable.Nick

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Mark,>P4 1.7Ghz 1 Gb PC133 RAM 40 Gb 7200 rpm hard drive
>Intel 845WN motherboard Windows 2000 ProI run 100 car coal trains here at about 14 fps @ 1280 x 1024Athlon XP 1800+ 512 DDR 2100 GeForce 3 Ti200 W2kIt is difficult to pinpoint the bottleneck with yours.
Can you borrow a GeForce card from someone?Derek

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LAST EDITED ON Aug-05-02 AT 09:02 PM (EDT)

Toms Hardware Guide tells all!! Whatever you do, do not get the nvidia "MX" cards. They are not true 3d cards. Stick with the gf3 or 4 TI series only. I learned the hard and expensive way!! Carlyle Thompson
ACL Purple and Silver

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Dude, with that rig, you're gonna see MAJOR improvement with a G4 Ti card. Lots of people upgrade to a Ti, and have an otherwise underpowered system, and are disappointed with the improvement. But with your very-capable rig, you're gonne really like the improvements if you get a Ti4200 or 4400 card. Don't hesitate....buy one today (I've got a PNY Geforce4 Ti4400. Love it) !!!
Pop

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Well, I went out and got a GeForce 4 Ti4200 with 64MB. And those dang 100-car coal trains are still gettting 7 or 8 fps in the external view. It's only when the whole train is in view; when only a few cars are in view the fps shoots way up to 30-35 fps. Also, it doesn't matter what settings I have, or resolution, its always 7 or 8 fps. The external view from the cab gets higher or lower fps depending on the display settings, but the external view is the one that kills me.I heard once that a motherboard with onboard sound can be a bottleneck. Does anyone have an opinion about that? I have an Intel D845WNL (with onboard sound).MarkMoffat Road Tabernash to Craig (35% of track laid)

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That's a good replacement card, but the same model with 128 MB would be much better.

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I have a Gforce 4 MX420 64 Meg Sdram and it works great for Train SimIt Might Be Possible to do What I do to my card.I found this neat little program for tweaking the Gforce 4 cardsCalled NVHARDPAGE.zip a 457k File that I found Somewhere on the Internet it was one of those things I did for one of my games.I can't upload it here So I don't know how your gonna get it.
More than Likely do a search for it should come up somewhere.I am getting over 15 frames in densly populated areas in MSTS and over 30 in un populated areas.
Good Luck

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Hi ske2751:As of tonight, I have that exact same card (GeForce 4 MX 420) sealed new in the box sitting beside my desk awaiting installation tomorrow evening.Mind telling me what your 'puter's specs are? Also, that frame rate... how much detail turned up at what res?Thanks.Andre Ming

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I found the Tweaking program on a sitehttp://www.guru3d.com/try there you will find the utilityMy comp it made fromIntel CA810E Boxed Motherboard
Intel Boxed Celeron 1 GHz
Maxtor 40 gig H/D
Standard Floppy
Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical
Soundblaster 128 Built In
Xtasy Gforce 4 MX 420 64 Meg
Built in 810 Graphics Card Yes I can Run two Monitor Plus a TV Screen that's three in total
384 Meg SDRam PC 100
My basic frame rate with the way the drivers come from the company is about 5 in heavly populated areas and about 15 in not so populated areasWith the tweaking utility it's about 12-15 FPS in heavly populated areas and 30-45 FPS in no so populated areasOver all the tweaking utility seems to work great with all my games including Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition.That's was really the reason I download it in the first place since I saw it work well with MSTS I can use it for that only Draw back is that you have to reswitch it back to the original standard to use the Route Editor.

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Thanks for the info, but unfortunately it didn't have any effect.I am happy with the video card, and I'm getting 25-30 fps in dense areas and 40-60 fps in unpopulated areas. But that is with the cabview. It's in that stupid external view (that we all love so much) that gets me when running 100-car coal trains. Is it possible that it doesn't have anything to do with the video card, and that the sim starts using the CPU when looking at all those cars and polygons? I imagine not, but maybe.I'm still curious if anyone has an opinion about the lack of a sound card being a bottleneck. I've heard that this could be the case.MarkMoffat Road Tabernash to Craig (35% of track laid)

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I am anxious to see what this will do:>Dell Dimension 4500
>19" flat screen
>Pentium4 2Gig
>40 Gig HD
>Sound Blaster Live Sound Card
>Ti 4600 Video Card
>512 DDR Memmory

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