[Eric Lahti]

so... I have a mac
I've been told the default video card is okay ( Im guessing this isnt my problem)
I have 1 gb of RAM
Im going to update to 4g
will this increase my fps? I would like to run peter hages A380 or the K7 smoothly or atleast so I can actualy fly the plane, not watch a slideshow

[madjason12]

Well we couldn't determine if the graphics card is the problem if we didn't know what kind of Card it is.
Start by completely filling out your system specifications.

Upgrading 1GB of RAM to 4GB should give you higher FPS, but only if the rest of your hardware was up to par.
If I had a computer with a 1GB ATI Radeon 4800 card, but only 256mb of ram, and a 600mhz processor, my games wont run fast, no matter the graphics card.

-Jason

[Eric Lahti]

madjason12, on 07 February 2010 - 08:06 PM, said:

Well we couldn't determine if the graphics card is the problem if we didn't know what kind of Card it is.
Start by completely filling out your system specifications.

Upgrading 1GB of RAM to 4GB should give you higher FPS, but only if the rest of your hardware was up to par.
If I had a computer with a 1GB ATI Radeon 4800 card, but only 256mb of ram, and a 600mhz processor, my games wont run fast, no matter the graphics card.

-Jason

its a radeon hd2400 I own a 2007 iMAc , 20 inch

[namaui]

Eric Lahti, on 08 February 2010 - 04:07 PM, said:

its a radeon hd2400 I own a 2007 iMAc , 20 inch

That should be enough for the A380 so long as you have 4 gigs of RAM and a Core Duo of at least 2 Ghz

[Eric Lahti]

namaui, on 08 February 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

That should be enough for the A380 so long as you have 4 gigs of RAM and a Core Duo of at least 2 Ghz

I should be fine after i update to 4gb thanks to all

[madjason12]

Hmm, how much VRam on your GPU? I have an ATI 2600 PCI and it doesn't run X-Plane very well.
If you have at least 256mb, you should be able to run the A380 with the sim on medium to moderate settings.

[namaui]

madjason12, on 08 February 2010 - 09:36 PM, said:

Hmm, how much VRam on your GPU? I have an ATI 2600 PCI and it doesn't run X-Plane very well.
If you have at least 256mb, you should be able to run the A380 with the sim on medium to moderate settings.

Well running a modern video card on a PCI slot might be your problem. PCI is only 33mhz (and has to share its bandwidth with other PCI devices on the same bus) and very slow for modern graphics requirements.

[madjason12]

Hmm, never knew that. I guess I left out the fact that its PCIe (Express) Does that make a huge difference?

[Setanta]

madjason12, on 09 February 2010 - 07:27 PM, said:

Hmm, never knew that. I guess I left out the fact that its PCIe (Express) Does that make a huge difference?

Yep - a huge one. 2600 should support 16x PCIe IIRC, which is pretty quick for data transfer.

Setanta

[namaui]

madjason12, on 09 February 2010 - 07:27 PM, said:

Hmm, never knew that. I guess I left out the fact that its PCIe (Express) Does that make a huge difference?

Then thats kind of a surprise, a 2600 is relatively powerful. Theres probably some other bottleneck causing lame performance, possibly a slow cpu or ram?

[Eric Lahti]

namaui, on 10 February 2010 - 03:11 PM, said:

Then thats kind of a surprise, a 2600 is relatively powerful. Theres probably some other bottleneck causing lame performance, possibly a slow cpu or ram?

its RAM Im running on 1gb btw :ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT:

Chipset Model: ATI,RadeonHD2400
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x94c8
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B2250A-207
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.207
Displays:
iMac:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Depth: 32-Bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Built-In: Yes
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
is this ok?

[madjason12]

Thats what I wanted!

So I would say your graphics card is what is holding you back. You are running a GPU with only 128mb of vram. That's enough to get by, but it's recommended to at least have 256mb. To play any modern game at moderate settings, you need at least 512mb of vram.

Your ram could also do with an upgrade.
It shouldn't be too difficult to find two 2gb ram chips out there for cheap. My system has 4gb of ram, and I only payed $29 for both chips.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to enhance the performance of your graphics card. Apple has blocked out over clocking in every way, and macs don't have a BIOS either.

So yes, you could run the A380, but not with X-Plane running at the highest settings.

-Jason

[Eric Lahti]

madjason12, on 10 February 2010 - 05:05 PM, said:

Thats what I wanted!

So I would say your graphics card is what is holding you back. You are running a GPU with only 128mb of vram. That's enough to get by, but it's recommended to at least have 256mb. To play any modern game at moderate settings, you need at least 512mb of vram.

Your ram could also do with an upgrade.
It shouldn't be too difficult to find two 2gb ram chips out there for cheap. My system has 4gb of ram, and I only payed $29 for both chips.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to enhance the performance of your graphics card. Apple has blocked out over clocking in every way, and macs don't have a BIOS either.

So yes, you could run the A380, but not with X-Plane running at the highest settings.

-Jason

could I run with high textures and very low world detailing? and yes im looking to upgrade to 4g ram
Ive heard of ways to open your mac... BUT im not gonna try them its too risky xD

[madjason12]

You will just have to try it won't you?

[Baber20]

More RAM + Nvidia GPU. Believe me, Ati have issues with OpenGl

[dpny]

Baber20, on 19 May 2010 - 05:16 PM, said:

More RAM + Nvidia GPU. Believe me, Ati have issues with OpenGl

Stay away from nVidia cards on OS X: their drivers aren't nearly as good as ATi's.

[Baber20]

dpny, on 23 May 2010 - 11:49 AM, said:

Stay away from nVidia cards on OS X: their drivers aren't nearly as good as ATi's.

I don't know about OS X. but ATI sucks in opengl on Windows. I have an ATI 5970 and I don't see a significant improvement over my 8800gtx in X-Plane. Games that are using directx-10 / 11 runs at 100+ FPS though. It even completely destroyed FSX ( one of the most FPS hungry game ) and my FPS never went below 60, mainly because FSX is using DirectX . But in X-Plane I seeing a lot of stuttering and FPS are not what they should be. Just to let you know that I am using latest Catalyst 10.4 drivers.

[namaui]

dpny, on 23 May 2010 - 11:49 AM, said:

Stay away from nVidia cards on OS X: their drivers aren't nearly as good as ATi's.

Actually, its the other way around. Nvidia cards on OS X have always been very compatible and stable (especially with opengl), whereas Ati has the potential to be more powerful at the cost of overall driver and opengl stability.

[XDave]

Pretty sure he was regurchitating Ben Supnik's spin on OSX drivers: http://forums.x-plan...41