RealFlight 6 on an AMD A8-3500M

[nonoitall]

EDIT: Originally this question was about RF6 but was later corrected to being about RF Basic. Sorry for the confusion!

Hey guys. My friend is looking to buy a new laptop, mainly just for basic stuff like web surfing, but he also wants to be able to run [strike]RF6[/strike] RF Basic on it. I haven't really been able to find any clear indication of just what 'tier' of graphics processor is optimal for [strike]RF6[/strike] RF Basic, and I was curious how well it would run on AMD's newer quad-core A8-3500M APUs (1.5-2.4 GHz (depending on active cores) CPU, with Radeon HD 6620G GPU)?

[jeffpn]

Integrated graphics is never a good choice for video games. I have a $300 laptop that has integrated graphics. It does a less than fair job of runnig RF. It'll do in a pich, but I'm glad I have a desktop with more horsepower.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...adeon+HD+6620G

[opjose]

Yup, that's pretty low.

Unfortunately "mainly just for basic stuff like web surfing" is the kind of thing EVERY vendor hears that their customers ask for, when people walk into Best, or other electronic/computer stores... ( second most egregious line: "I don't play games". )

That is of course mutually exclusive with "good 3D performance"... and most laptop vendors opt for HD over 3D 99% of the time.

To avoid asking for the wrong thing, you should be asking about a "gaming" laptop.

"Gaming" laptops are optimized to run 3D applications, and have the necessary GPU horsepower and DEDICATED video ram to run things well.

"Gaming" is a misnomer but it is something the sales people and customers understand.

As the OS's move toward desktop 3D support, getting a "gaming" laptop is a safe bet for the long haul...

[nonoitall]

Correction: Talked with him today and it turns out he wanted RF Basic. (He couldn't remember what it was called when I talked to him last night.) Are its requirements (aside from hard disk space) lower than RF6 or is it just a case of there being fewer planes in the Basic version? (If the specs are lower for Basic then I'd be very appreciative if a mod would move this thread to the appropriate forum section.)

Originally Posted by jeffpn

Integrated graphics is never a good choice for video games. I have a $300 laptop that has integrated graphics. It does a less than fair job of runnig RF.

This statement doesn't really cover all of the variables involved, since "integrated graphics" encompasses a broad range of GPUs, some of which are more capable than others. I know integrated GPUs generally can't compete with higher end dedicated GPUs of the same era, but I'd heard the ones in AMD's APUs were pretty decent. I apologize if I come across as argumentative; I'm not dismissing what you're saying. I just want to be certain that (1) the application, (2) the settings used and (3) the specific GPU are being taken into account. Saying "it runs badly on my laptop with integrated graphics" doesn't really convey specifics.

My question mainly stems from the lack of details given in [strike]RF6's[/strike] RF Basic's recommended specs. The closest thing I could find was recommended cards for RF G5 -- ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT -- both of which are going on four years old. It just made me wonder if the recommended specs for [strike]RF6[/strike] RF Basic were similar, and if so, if a higher end modern IGP would be sufficient, particularly at lower laptop screen resolutions (~1366x768). Perhaps it would be more productive if I asked what class of card will run the simulator well at medium-high settings at that resolution?

[Maj. Numbskully]

[strike]RF6 [/strike] ........?
what up wit dat?

[jeffpn]

I kinda liked that! Some vBulletin forums allow strikethrough on text. This one doesn't

[nonoitall]

Yeah, I figured you guys would get the reference even without the forum supporting the tag.

[Maj. Numbskully]

RF6 is good enough ........we get it ...why bother in a forum
you know does not support it ?...strange

[nonoitall]

Anywayyyy...

Originally Posted by nonoitall

...what class of card will run the simulator well at medium-high settings at that resolution?

[jeffpn]

When you go to the store, or rather, when your friend goes to the store to buy a computer, have him ask the clerk what a good video card for gaming would be. There are tons of cards out there. One recommended here might not be available there.

[nonoitall]

The store is probably going to be Amazon or NewEgg. "Gaming PC" is a rather indefinite and ever-changing term. My grandma thinks she has a gaming PC because she plays Windows Solitaire on it. Another friend of mine thinks he does not have a gaming PC because it performs sluggishly with Starcraft 2 on ultra settings. My guess is that RF falls somewhere between those two. The question is: Where?

If you guys recommend a card, I'm confident I can compare it with others that are available.

[Leyline]

I don't have g6 yet, it will be here in 3-5 days I hope...
But, I will try to install it on my Athlon XP 3200, with a Nvidia Geforce 7800.

I can play Far Cry, Doom3, and RealFlight G3.5...

I will let you know how horribly it does with g6, I really can't imagine it would have too much trouble, unless they really got SLOPPY with the coding...

But if it fails I have a quadCore 9650 with a geforce 250 I will have to pull out of the box... which I know is also old, but do to some horrible RL issues, I build it 2 years ago, and never used it.

Anyway send me a forum message a week from now, if that's not too late, or someone else hasn't said "Hey I got a crap system, and it runs if I turn off clouds!" or something :P

[opjose]

Originally Posted by nonoitall

This statement doesn't really cover all of the variables involved, since "integrated graphics" encompasses a broad range of GPUs, some of which are more capable than others. I know integrated GPUs generally can't compete with higher end dedicated GPUs of the same era, but I'd heard the ones in AMD's APUs were pretty decent. I apologize if I come across as argumentative; I'm not dismissing what you're saying. I just want to be certain that (1) the application, (2) the settings used and (3) the specific GPU are being taken into account. Saying "it runs badly on my laptop with integrated graphics" doesn't really convey specifics.

I have yet to see any Integrated GPU with GOOD 3D performance including the Intel GMA series.

Even most of the Mobility GPU's leave a lot to be desired, but may do if nothing else is available.

Last year the KE staff commented on how graphics performance had on average DECREASED for most typical computers, thanks largely to the inclusion of Integrated chipsets .


I built a brand spanking new iCore7 Multimedia machine last week, to hook up to a family room HD TV.

This machine has 16 gigs of RAM, SDD drives, etc... but due to the size of the case I was limited to lower power draw video cards.

I first installed an Nvidia 8400 w/256Megs of Vram I had and found that with EVERYTHING at medium and particle effects, normals and bloom turned off, and foliage at 5, RF ran OK. But I was disappointed with how things looked.

I also installed Aerofly 5.7 on the same machine only to find it would NOT run at more than 2-FPS even with everything dialed down.

I re-enabled the on board Intel GMA X5400 and tried things this way with similiar results in Aerofly and about the same results in RF6.

So this week I moved everything over to a larger unit, and I'm back to loving life with an Nvidia 560ti installed.

[nonoitall]

Originally Posted by opjose

I have yet to see any Integrated GPU with GOOD 3D performance including the Intel GMA series.

I don't think I'd touch an Intel IGP with a 10-foot pole for anything more sophisticated than Aero and maybe old N64 titles. I guess they're slowly improving, but quite slowly.

AMD's 6620G is significantly better than Intel's offerings though. Graphics cards aren't my strongest area of expertise in computers, but if I read this chart correctly, it also would be a higher tier of GPU than a Geforce 8400. Hence my wondering if it'd be suitable for RF.

[opjose]

Originally Posted by nonoitall

AMD's 6620G is significantly better than Intel's offerings though. Graphics cards aren't my strongest area of expertise in computers, but if I read this chart correctly, it also would be a higher tier of GPU than a Geforce 8400. Hence my wondering if it'd be suitable for RF.

Take this with a grain of salt since I have not tried that specific adapter...

Going by the scale at Tom's ( which tends to be fairly reliable... ).

An Nvidia 8600 GTS ( which I have tried along with the 7800 GT ) will run RF acceptably with most things turned up, but a few minor items scaled back a bit.

Given that Tom's equates that to the 6620G, then you would see respectable performance.

Certainly NO problems for most photofields, and 3D fields will do fine.

You'll want to avoid bloom, focus, ultra high textures, and uber-high foliage levels, but otherwise performance will be good, and MUCH much better than my first go at my iCore7 Multimedia system.

A lot will depend upon how the system deals with textures... lowering texture sizes may increase available ram, letting RF run more smoothly.

With IGP processors that's the tradeoff, so if you have 4Gigs of RAM available, this may not be a big deal.