I finally bought Phoenix and......

[GhostlyRock]

There is an empty PCI-e slot(PCIE2).....and a PCI slot(empty)

Also a PCIe express graphics slot(PCIE1) which is empty

[robgt]

Buy a PCI-E graphics card - you should be able to pick up a decent one for around £50 I would think.

Cheers,
Rob

[Bug]

NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nFORCE 405

It should work fine,
My PC has a built in "NVIDIA GeForce 6150" on the motherboard and phoenix runs on top settings and 60 fps.
I dont think a 6100 would be that much slower.

Bug

[GhostlyRock]

I think its sorted, the problem was the GeForce card was an onboard card, whatever that is, and wasn't compatible.
So bought a new graphics card:-

ATI RADEON (PCI Express)

Just put it in, and hey...wait a minute, I've seen the Phoenix!

Not got time to set it up yet, but hopefully, hopefully.....


Guess who's been to the local computer shop this morning.

[jboweruk]

Have fun mate, and happy crashing ...

Y happy crashing? Simple, because you'll crash and think... "Oh no!! hey wait a minute, that won't cost me anything..."

[GhostlyRock]

Can already do that on the FMS Sim, but I found that easy to fly. If you set the 3d heli up, all you need to do is spool her up to speed, she lifts off, and stays there. You dont need anymore inputs, if you do nothing she wont move! How real is that?

[svein]

Just for the hell of it, I tried a windows-install on a rather similarly specced machine as the one you had problems with (it has a builtin shared-memory nvidia 6150, but since this machine runs in 80x24 textmode, it doesn't really matter). Confed it for 256mb vram (of the 8gb ram), inserted a new hdd (didn't want to ruin my FreeBSD install), and tossed in Vista Ultimate/64 and the newest forceware + phoenix. No errors whatsoever. 60fps while I left the vsync locked. Disabling vsync gave me some 200fps. Not shabby for a single core Athlon64 at 2.2GHz, on an ASRock AliveNF6G-DVI (Nforce 430 + Geforce 6150).

Now, this tells me that your errors were most likely caused by something "your end" softwarewise. The graphics-chip should (atleast in theory) be more than adequate for Phoenix. This worries me, because there is nothing stopping whatever gave you the errors from acting up with your new ATI card eighter.

Can you save a dxdiag log somewhere world reachable? (windows-key + r, in this dialog enter "dxdiag", then from the dialog that opens select the "Save All information" button. If you haven't got a webserver to store it on, and give us the url, privmsg me regarding mailing it here). Not that I deny that phoenix might work now, but I'd like a little more information on your hardware before I accept that "replacing the video card" is the "correct solution". (read: I'd rather spend some time reading your hardware report needlessly, than spend time trying to debug your problems, should they reappear on the new card).


(and before I get any sleasy comments on the 8GB of ram bit, this machine normally runs FreeBSD7/amd64 with ZFS/raidZ. ZFS eats ram for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and nightsnack)

//Svein

[GhostlyRock]

I have absolutely no idea what you are saying. Or how to do it.

However, since I put the new card in Phoenix works fine, although the graphics dont seem as sharp, and colours seem a bit washy, in general on the PC. Phoenix have just asked for the phoenix-sim log, and are still working on it.

But, hey Phoenix is up and running with this new card.

I found out since I had the PC rebuilt, and from experience not to deal with this particular shop.

If it helps I just found the receipt for the work they did;-

1-ASROCK MOTHERBOARD SOCKET 754 K8NF6G-VSTA
2-SEMPRON 280+SOCKET 754 CPU
3-450W PSU
4-80 GIG SATA HARD DRIVE
+ RE-INSTALL WINDOWS, UPDATES & DRIVERS

I could have and probably should have, spent a few hundred pound more and bought a completely new system, but at the time we were in the process of moving house so funds were short, and I didn't have this hobby!

Ever since they did this I have had an audio that you can only just hear on full volume, they cant or wont sort it.

[Rat]

My uncle had the audio problem. Took it to a computer shop who told him it was buggered and needed to by a new laptop, check out our specials, etc.

Handily he said he'd think about it, asked me and it was just the software volume was turned right down and the windows taskbar volume icon hidden so he hadn't known where to check.. Was an old laptop with physical volume control in the side so had always just used that until some app had decded to turn the volume down.

Quite handy as he bet me £20 I couldnt fix it in 30minutes. £20 in 20 seconds.. If only I got paid that normally.

Anway, amazingly the shop is no more..