Whats a suitable Graphics Card

[meadowbishops]

Hi All,
My Radeon HD2900XT is driving me insane. I have purchased X-Plane 9 flight simulator which in my opinion is the absolute BEST ive ever played and that includes Microsoft FSX Deluxe which I already have. X-Plane makes FSX appear like a childs game.
However the game keeps locking up so i reset all my options and contacted X-Planes customer service (who are fantastic) but unfortunately the problem (randomly) occurs for no reason. My CPU is running at about 26%, Radeon at about 61C and 120M (very easy) and my frame rate is between 60 to 120 depending on where the plane is during its flight.
I researched this game on forums and discovered that this Graphics Card has trouble with 2 games, 1 is so old it doesnt matter but the 2nd one (believe it or not) is X-Plane (just my luck).
I now need to either purchase another Hd2900XT and set up cross fire, im not to sure of this option due to the trouble it has with this game (I might get double trouble!!).
I have just read the article on the newly released Radeon HD8550 which seems OK however Im getting a bit shy of Radeon.
I'm hoping that someone out there can assist me and suggest a really good Graphics Card up to approx $300 Aus (hopefully cheaper) that will work and hopefully run X-Plane.
Thankyou,
Gordon

[Adrian Wong]

The Radeon HD 2900 XT is a very hot card. It could be overheating and causing the game to lock up.

The X-Plane 9 game doesn't seem to require really serious graphics processing power, so anything from an NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT (or an ATI Radeon HD 4670) onwards should do the trick nicely. On the plus side, they are both very cool cards.

[meadowbishops]

Thanks Adrian,
While running X-Plane I have the Radeon Catalyst Centre open and I monitor the temp which only gets to about 63C. I also monitor CPU at about 25% to 30% and the frame rate of the X-Plane (depending on setup) normally runs between 45 to 80 f/s, so im really at a loss to explain my problem other than people have suggested to me that Radeon dont have very good drivers for their Cards and they severly lag behind Nvidia Cards and its not unexpected for the Radeons to "glitch" and stall.
I am looking at my computer to see if there is any "glitches" which could be occuring there.
That aside I have read your article on my type Card (HD2900XT) versus other Cards. I have noticed that the Nvidia 8800 faired pretty well in these tests. I am considering upgrading my Card and I have the GeForce 9800GTX+ 1GB in mind. I can purchase this for approx $200 Aus.
In your opinion is this Card better than the Radeon HD2900XT and does that price sound about right????
Thanks,
Gordon

[Adrian Wong]

Well, ATI has improved a lot since the old Radeon HD 2000 and 3000 days. In fact, the Radeon HD 4000 series is superior to NVIDIA's GeForce 8 and 9 series. Even their drivers have improved to roughly similar levels.

I would say that you wouldn't go wrong with either NVIDIA or ATI. So, get the best deal available where you are, no matter whether it is an NVIDIA or ATI card.

Most definitely. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ is much faster than the Radeon HD 2900 XT. It is really 2 generations ahead of the ATI card, so that is actually quite an unfair comparison.

[Lacus]

hmm, how bout the 4890 ;D..should suit you quite well (due to price drop and launch of HD5000 series )

[Dashken]

I think 4870 or 4850 should be enough?

[siddiq]

if its me.. i will choose the ati 5770.. cheap plus dx11