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Does Nvidia GeForce GTS 240 support CFS3 specular textures?

gecko

gecko

Charter Member
I'm looking to buy a copy of windows XP so I can see the specular textures on my aircraft (and test out some ideas for water reflections), but I want to make sure my system will still support them. I think I read somewhere that some people with newer systems couldn't get specular to work in CFS3 even with XP and Nvidia graphics cards. I want to make sure mine will do it before I spend the money. Here's my specs, bought the PC in December 2010:

Dell Studio XPS 8100
Processor: Intel Core i7 CPU 870 @ 2.93GHz
RAM: 8GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTS 240 w 1GB GDDR3 Dedicated Video Memory

Thanks for any help.

Daniel
 
Good to know, I'll probably go ahead then. Anyone have any recommendations on which version?
 
Specifically, should I get the 64 bit version as I'll be using it (dual boot) on a system intended for 64 bit win7 or is the standard 32 bit just as good? Which are you using greycap?
 
Just the very old fashioned 32 bit XP Home. While it can only use 3,75 GB of RAM it's probably not a problem as I've never seen CFS3 using more than 1,5 GB and finding device drivers for XP 64 bit is something I wouldn't like to try just to see if it can be done. Your XP install won't know what the hardware is meant for, I have another hard drive in the system containing W7 Pro 64 bit and they live happily together. XP works like it always has.
 
I'm finding xp pro is half the cost, should still be fine, right? Also, I've only got one hd, will they both live happily on the same one?
 
The only difference between Home and Pro I know about is that Pro can be added to a workgroup. It doesn't make any difference in your use, I got Home because it was cheaper back then. And yes, they will behave on the same HDD but I'm not the one you should ask about dual booting the "ordinary" way, I made mine quite differently. Someone else will know better.
 
Don't waste any time on 64-bit XP, device drivers were never plentiful and modern hardware is not supported. XP Pro (32-bit) is an excellent choice and you'll need to make another partition on your HD for XP to live on, so a complete cleanup (temporary files etc) and defragment of your HD would be the first step. Then a good partition manager to create the new partition and you should be good to install XP.

Once XP is installed, use a boot management utility to set up the dual-boot. I use EasyBCD which is a free download for non-commercial purposes.

XP Pro supports a few more features than Home such as file, folder or disk encryption. Multiprocessor support might mean better support for multi-core processors but if you have to share your rig with the family you'll want to control access to features to keep fiddling fingers away from your work and only Pro lets you do that properly via Group Policies. Good luck!
 
About dual booting - I assume that you then need to install drivers for video cards, etc, etc, into both partitions? And what about programmes? Can one use a programme under W7 that one installed while running W XP? And so on and so forth...
 
Drivers for both partitions, yes. The programs are a mixed bag - some work and some don't. I haven't tried half of my programs but I can as well do that now. I'll swap from XP to W7 and return to report.

OK, over to the other side, now let's see. Don't ask why I still have some of these!

Games:

CFS1 - OK, even settings carried over
CFS2 - OK, see CFS1
CFS3 - OK with the exception that the configs will probably get messed up
Live For Speed - OK but needs unlocking
Quake 3 Arena - OK, even settings carried over
Return to Castle Wolfenstein - OK, game saves not carried over

Utilities:

AirWrench - OK
Audacity - OK
CCleaner - OK
Defraggler - OK
Frhed - OK
Media Player Classic - OK
Nero - OK but needs activating
SmartFTP - doesn't work
uTorrent - OK, old torrents not found right away
WinRAR - OK

"Serious" programs:

Firefox - OK, bookmarks and other settings not carried over
Macromedia Dreamweaver/Fireworks/Flash/Freehand - OK but needs activating
MS Office - doesn't work, needs reinstalling and no idea if it works in XP after that
Paint Shop Pro X - doesn't work, see MS Office
Thunderbird - OK, account settings not carried over

So as a general rule of thumb, the more expensive and made by a large company it is, the more likely it is that it won't work.
 
greycap.raf said:
So as a general rule of thumb, the more expensive and made by a large company it is, the more likely it is that it won't work.
Click to expand...

LOL! Why does that somehow fail to surprise me...

The thing is, CFS3 and its supporting tools needs WXP and DX9, while the latest take on SF2 (North Atlantic, which I haven't bought) needs Vista or 7 and DX10. Which leaves me a bit stuck...
 
ndicki said:
... CFS3 and its supporting tools needs WXP and DX9, while the latest take on SF2 ... needs Vista or 7 and DX10. Which leaves me a bit stuck...
Click to expand...

Spare a thought for any MS simmer with the eventual release of Windows 8 - at this time DX9 will not be supported, so CFS3, FS8, 9, X won't run in it. Not nohow. The only bright spot in that is the likely price reduction of W7 Ultimate when 8 comes out.

I haven't tried running a program installed in XP or W7 under W7 or XP (respectively): sounds like an invitation for trouble imo. Whatever I want to run in W7 is installed on the W7 HD, likewise for XP; so I have duplicate installations on the two HDs. That isn't really a problem since XP only gets fired up occasionally these days (for specular effects in CFS3...) and all my important work is done in W7.

Big software generally uses the registry a lot to store all kinds of settings so it isn't going to find its settings in the W7 registry if installed in XP. I've only found one old program to date that just wouldn't run in W7 and its updated replacement is already giving sterling service.
 
Looked up some online tutorials on this and found one with this warning:

warnsmall.png
Warning



http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

I only saw this in the one tutorial, the others didn't mention it. Is this something I need to address, or will I be fine without it? If so, how do I tell if I have a RAID or a SATA setup or something else?

Thanks,

Daniel
 
I created my XP partition, but in the disk manager it shows up as a logical partition and not a primary partition. Will this still work? Thanks

Daniel
 
gecko said:
Looked up some online tutorials on this and found one with this warning....
Click to expand...

Hmmm. If you read through that warning you'll see it's for some problem where XP doesn't recognise your hardware. I've got a motherboard (3 years old now) which uses SATA controllers for the peripherals and XP recognised and installed drivers for them without me lifting a finger. I may have installed drivers from the CD bundled with the mobo, I don't remember, but there was no convoluted process involved. XP Service Pack 2 or 3 seems to have all the necessary built in, you shouldn't have any bother and Windows Update will take care of the rest.

If you've already installed XP and then install Windows 7 to another drive or partition then Win7 will automatically set up a dual-boot system.

Starting from Windows 7 and adding XP to another drive or partition won't leave you with a dual-boot system. Setting one up using Windows tools is difficult, so use some third-party software to make this easy: I use EasyBCD which is free to non-commercial users.

Hope this helps!
 
Yes, I'll be using EasyBCD, my understanding is that after I install XP on the new partition that I install it from XP and then have the option to boot either XP or 7.
 
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