Nvidia GT280
 

The new top graphic card of Nvidia is the GTX280. I can say it is the best card ever up to now. Even if the driver I have is the first one and so future optimization and performance improvements will come, allready now Il2 runs flawlessly and with stellar performance.

I had the 8800 Ultra before (an excellent card) but this card beats it hands down. I tried the 8800GX2 but that one was a desillusion. It was an SLI card and with IL2 it was not up to the task. Shadows were blinking, reflections on water were blinking, and there was strong stuttering when flying over and near the ground. That card did boast 1GB video memory but it was a cheat. In reality each processor had 500MB that is less then my 8800 Ultra with 768MB.

The GTX280 is mono GPU with 1BG fast DDR3 video memory.

My Nvidia settings are:

Screen 1900X1200
Anisotropy forced to 8X
Antialiasing forced to 8X
Transparency Antialiasing -On and set as Multisampling
Image in Quality mode
Vsync is set to ON
Triple buffering is set to ON

The IL2 settings are

All to the max and in perfect mode (Open GL)
Landgeom=3
Effects=2
TypeClouds=1
Water=3
Forest=3
3dgunners=1

The hardware is

Mainboard: Asus Rampage Intel X48 chipset. FSB set at 1600MHZ
Processor: Intel Extreme Quadcore QX9770 at 3.2 GHZ with FSB at 1600MHZ
Memory: 4GB of DDR2 Patriot 9600 running at 1200 MHZ
Display: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24"
Power Supply: Thermaltake 1200Watt
Graphic Card: Asus GeForce GTX280
Hard Disks: 2X 150GB Raptors at 10'000 rpm and 1X 500MB at 7200rpm


The Black Death test track runs mostly between 50 and 60 fps with all the settings above.
Due to Vsync it is limited to 60 but I prefer the triple buffering with Vsync set to on. The image flow is much smoother and without glitches.

So even if a little expensive the best card for IL2.

Gold

Congrats on the new card, good to hear it runs this sim smooth as new hardware are sometimes not compatible with previous gen games. I've been thinking about this lately concering BoBSOW and hardware. Kind of wondering what others may think.

With the decent increase in performance in the CPU and GPU's that have come out in at least the last year let alone when the sim was supposed to be released I'm thinking that we will probably be able to play BOBSOW on higher settings than people think. Of course this could be thrown out the window if Oleg screws up the optimization but I'm not betting on that.

Can I just clarify: are you saying that by running practically the toppermost uber-system available in mid-2008, that the gtx280 is the card to have when running something from 2001?

Frankly, I'd be very surprised if your average il2 player could tell the difference if you plonked any 8 series or above into that rig instead.

Running an 8400 c2d at 3.8 here - with an 8800GT - and i can report ridiculously great performance too. My card's 100 squid.

Interestingly, most analysts report Nvidia as losing the performance lead over the next few weeks with the release of the new ATI cards. (Note: have nvidia card, last one was ati, not a fanboi). Check Anandtech etc

This will make NO DIFFERENCE to il2 players, as any card from the last two years can frankly eat our lovely old game.

Should be worth watching for BOB though.

Frankly, I'll always go with best bangs for bucks nevermind who makes the super-fastest card/cpu/wooly jumper. If money is no object, then reviews/thinking are not needed. Just always buy the most expensive stuff. Sorted. Remember to post everywhere about it.

In sum total: mate, not surprised it runs so well. Personally, can settle, for spending half as much for 90% of your performance and what still looks perfect to me, a ridiculously picky person when it comes to gfx.

Couldn't agree more, Novotny! :cool:

Besides, what brandnew-generation-graphics-card that doesn't deserve the label

"I can say it is the best card ever up to now."

? ;)

Ok Novotny, you made a point but only partly.

First as I am let's say a passionate about computer graphics and flight simulation I buy all the top cards when they come out since more then 15 years. I build from scratch my computers. I had probably all of them from Matrox, 3DFX in SLI mode, ATI, Nvidia etc.
I must say that I do not buy ATI cards any more as I had too much problems with the drivers. I settled down now with Nvidia (where I had also problems but much less, and generally solved by the next driver release, the overall personal conclusion being in favor of Nvidia) so I will not debate performance between ATI and Nvidia.
The only satisfactory SLI solution that worked flawlessly with a real (nearly doubling which is excellent) of performance at that time was the 3DFX SLI for which I have still much respect. I think that Nvidia did an excellent strategical move when they bought this company and its know-how. The other Nvidia SLI double, triple our quadruple that came up up to and included the integrated 8800GX2 are if not a failure not justified as per cost/performance driver issues and the little real increase in performance at least for the use I have. It could be that the ATI crossfire solution worked better but I did not test it so I will not comment it and anyway I stay with single board solutions.

Now regarding your comment there have been evolutions on IL2 in 7 years. The IL2 of today is not exactly the same as the stock IL2 from 2001. There has been improvements in the graphical quality of the images (reflections, perfect mode, water quality, shaders) and over time the screen resolutions have become larger and larger. Take a graphic board of 2001 and try to play the Il2 1946 in 1900X1200 with all the the max, perfect mode, water at 3 or 4, landegeom at 3 and effects at 2, anisotropy at 8 and antialiasing at 8 with a cluttered environment, many airplanes dogfighting with land and water and many smoke and explosions, ships firing, and you will perfectly see my point. The board of 2001 will make a slide show and very probably will not be able to handle some of the mentioned parameters. The boards at that time simply did not have enough memory to handle large resolutions with high anistropy and antialiasing factors.

You have to be careful though. The most powerful board is nothing if you do not match it with an adequate processor AND enough fast memory as well as as fast as possible links between these objects.

So the way I play scenarios or campaigns that I have built are not the same from the beginning. By the way I have all the IL2 versions start from the very first shturmovik. I have easily between 6'000 and 10'000 (yes Ten Thousand) objects in my missions with many many fighters bombers, vehicles, ships etc. etc.

So your comment is correct if you keep yourself to simple missions and moderate settings. Then you will not see much performance difference in terms of smoothness between a top board of today and and average one. And even if instead of 50 FPS you get 100 it brings nothing. Generally over 30 you are fine. I then would agree with your comment for an average player.

But the positive thing with top boards and CPU's is that you can have have more and more the capability to simulate realistic events. A typical example, take the attack of a major us fleet in the pacific (all graphical and game settings as abovementioned) with 3 to 4 aircraft carriers (launching their fighter squadrons), cruisers, battleships, destroyers. This fleet is attacked by tens of japanese fighters, kamikaze attacks, torpedo bombers, and all this cross firing like hell (firing rate for all ships at 1.0), then you will start to feel that the most powerful board and CPU is never enough for IL2. Just see films taken during the pacific war were the sky around the carriers and ships was just filled with explosions and tracing bullets, real iron walls were the japanese airplanes just disintegrated and exploded before reaching the ships and falling to the see. With Il2 you can be at the pilot seat or anywere else and feel the heat.

Now you can understand why when a more powerful CPU and a new graphic board will be available I will simply buy it as it will allow me to add more objects and actions.

Il2 is an absolute success simply because it allows you to go very far in terms of simulation and gives you a lot of freedom (unfortunately the FMB is primitive and to build such scenarios it takes a hell of time) like probably no other game did at least to my knowledge, and through patches and new releases was continuously improved over time.
If only Oleg had agreed to improve the sounds of Il2 through a patch......

I can only pray that Oleg will not screw up BoB SoW or whatever name it will have because to do better then Il2 is the challenge and the mark is set very high.

Gold

I don't want to rain on your parade and I too am in a similar situation. I build a new, cutting-edge pc every 18 months or so and am on my 6th pc since starting that. I've been tempted to go ahead and grab the X48 + GTX280 but have a really hard time justifying it to myself.

My current pc isn't as strong as the one you've described in your first post, but I run IL2 at higher settings than you've listed and get close to the same performance figures. Some of my system specs are moderate by today's standards, but still scream through most anything I've thrown at it:

E6700 @ 3.2
2GB corsair pc6400 @ stock
8800GTS 512
Raptor 74gb (boot sector(
WD 300GB 7200 16mb cache (data)
X-Fi Platinum

I run usually at 1680x1050 with 8xAA, 16XAF as my global setting and have occassionally bumped it up to 1920X1200 on my 27" Dell, but I like the performance/IQ median of the slightly lower resolution setting. With Vsync on, I run UT3 and COD4 pegged at 60fps under almost all circumstances.

Unless you absolutely HAVE to have 50+ frames in Crysis (I don't even have Crysis), I just don't see the benefit to building again anytime soon. Personally, I'll wait until the fall for all the hardware refreshes and the actual release of some pending titles.

But I am happy for you. That's a nice rig.

Thanks for posting that info Golden Eagle, its good to know that the GTX280 can handle this sim well. I have 2 X 8800GTX cards in SLI and although i have an average score of 57FPS on the Black Death Track with everything ramped up at 1920X1200 i still get a big drop in FPS when things get busy. Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves. I build custom gaming rigs for a living i build at least 2 PC's a week on average and i always advise my customers to opt for Nvidia cards not because they are necessarily better but because the drivers are more inclined to work well with many more games than ATI have been known to.

Anyway thanks for the info mate and enjoy your new rig!

Actually Golden_Eagle_FM posted that it is not the SLI that makes this sim run fast :)

I couldn't put it any better than he did. It's not the Twin 8800GTX that makes your rig fast (or not), but the combination of the parts in your PC. As it was stated in the recent weeks a lot of times, Crysis runs on a 600$ PC with perfect settings. I just depends on what you spend your money and that you configure your PC right.

So "Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves." is as wrong as wrong can be, especially for this sim. If I run IL2 with my C2D 6600 & 2400 and at 3600MHz, it's a difference of about 5-9 AVG FPS gain in BlackDeath.

@ Eagle:
Do you play LockOn? I'd really like to know what FPS you get, when setting clipping-distances to max. 8-)

You missed my point entirely, i was saying that i do get a big drop in fps when it gets busy with my cards in SLI. I have already posted before that the best upgrade for this game would be a better CPU, that is a given. However, if you are trying to tell me that if we had identical rigs other than your 6600 against my 8800GTX's in SLI that our FPS would be the same or similar then you are very much mistaken.

A C2D 6600 is a processor ;)

Anyway, with my single 8800GTS I get 53FPS AVG in TBD-track, when overclocked, about 46 when running with 2.4GHz, all maxed out 16x/16x @ 1600x1200.

So, I'm not saying that your whole point in this thread is wrong, but as I posted before, "Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves." is.

Infact when I ran the game with my old trusty 9800pro while I had to send my old nVidia back, there was barely any drop in FPS at all, because I was playing with 32-35 FPS all the time and my CPU only awoke, when cruising over a city. ;)