HiI have done a rebuild of my Pc and re-installed everything because i bought a Radeon 9800XT, Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe M/B and Athlon XP 3000+ 333FSB CPU to replace my Ti4600 and other old components, BUT i am a bit dissapointed with it's performance.......I have all the cloud fixes installed from Chris Williams, I have the PanelAsTexture=0, renamed Autogen.xml, run at 2xFSAA and 8XAF etc etc ......and most sliders arn't even open fully,...now ....FPS are not what i expected for this supposedly HIGH END Card ( I get about 9-14fps )with more than two layers of cloud, i also experience quite alot of stutters especially when i taxi and make turns on the ground. I don't know if my HDD is maybe not up to the job since it's a 80GB ATA100@7200RPM and i heard this might cause a problem if it can't keep up...... I have now even suspected the PMDG panel in 2D view because in spot view the FPS increases.The Radeon XT 256MB has the CAT 4.1 drivers installed now.I even tried the new Omega drivers but the performance was even worse.Is there anything else i can do with the RADEON to improve things with FS9I have heard MANY people saying that since they went from NVIDIA to ATI graphics FS9 improved DRAMATICALLY, but i sat last night thinking - well this looks almost exacly the same as before !Please help if you canThanks

Backup your fs9.cfg and restart FS. Should make some difference. FS is known to keep records of your former display settings and stick to them... lolHope it helps,EDIT: Spelling

HiI checked and there is only ONE entry for the display driver, so is the FS9.cfg still a problem ?Thanks

Running with the specs in my signature, I have most scenery sliders at least 3/4 of the way to max in FS2004 and I run at a locked 20 FPS. It drags down in areas of high-AI. Off the top of my head...ATI:Anti-Aliasing - 4xAnsiotropic - 8x (PERFORMANCE quality setting)FS2004:Anti-Aliasing = OFF! (Lets ATI do it)Filtering = Trilinear (Works with the ansiotropic to make good textures)MIPs = Set at "5" (no shimmers this way)Terrain Mesh = 90%Texture Size = MassiveExtended Textures = OnWater Effects = NoneAutogen and Scenery Detail = Very High (One notch below max)AI Traffic = 40% (w/ Ultimate Traffic)Clouds = 100% 3D and maximum coverage (Chris' cloudset - slowdowns decending through overcast and multi-layers - down as low as 10-15 FPS)Autogen.xml = removed--Being at work, I can't recite all of the settings--The new video cards don't to a heck of a lot to improve general framerates, but what they are sucessful in doing is improving framerates with additional features! The 9700/9800 Pro series cards allow you to run the full AA and AS Filtering with minimal impact on the system's performance. This lends itself to greatly increased image quality. Flight Simulator 2004 is, like all it's predecessors, very PROCESSOR intensive - and there isn't a processor for sale that will allow the user to max out their sliders and get any sort of usable performance yet. Your experience with the card is odd - I upgraded from a Ti4200 to a Radeon 9800 Pro and noticed an immediate improvement on the image quality.If what you are working with is a brand-new fresh install of both the OS and FS2004, your system is tweaked OK. You *may* want to try the Detonator 3.10 drivers (the ones just prior to the 4.1), as a very small number of users indicated a drop in performace with the 4.1's. The only tip I can give you is to INSURE your Anti-Aliasing is NOT TURNED ON within the simulator itself, and *IS* turned on via the ATI control panel. If you turn on the AA inside MSFS, it appears that it starts using some software to assist the AA, thus slowing down the system considerably.Otherwise, I have to welcome you to the club of users hamstrung by our processors!-Greg

Pieter,If you're still running the same Windows install with the new card that you were with the old one, don't. Reformat and reinstall XP totally clean. It is very difficult to get rid of all the remnants of the Nvidia driver and it's very possible that you're seeing a conflict between them somehow. My system is very comparable to yours (2500+ OC'ed to 3200+, 1GB PC3200, Radeon 9800 Pro) and I'm seeing FPS pinned at 25 almost the whole time using 4XAA/8XAF, AS2004 weather, and 100% UT - something isn't right with your drivers or configuration. Also make sure you're getting the full AGP 8X with fast writes by looking at the SmartGART tab in the ATI control panel - if not, you need to fiddle with the BIOS settings to get those to where they should be.

I have a similar system and it absolutely _rocks_, with most settings set to maximum.You don't mention how much RAM you have. FS9 + PMDG is a memory _HOG_. If you don't have enough RAM, what happens is that Windows starts to swap to disk. When this happens, you get stutters. (There are many other reasons for stutters, but this is a primary one).I recommend a minimum of 512MB of RAM, but 1GB is preferred.- Bill

First yes, if you did not reformat the HD before installing the new 9800XT you must do it. If you did then make sure you have the latest bios from ASUS. There is a known issue with this motherboard and the 9800XT. Look at www.rage3d.com for many other people having your same problem. I will look for a paticular thread I read weeks back and post the link when/if I find it. I just built my system 3 months ago and it shred's FS9, no tweaking required. Jay

If you haven't already tried it and before you reinstall your whole PC, DO try to backup your FS9.CFG file first and let MSFS recreate it. Had the same problem with very poor framrates no matter how much I changed all settings and after having MSFS recreating my FS9.CFG the PFS went up from 10-15 -> 20-25.Good luck!

I see alot of statements that reformatting HD's is a requirement to get good performance from Radeon-over-nVidia install. This is simply not an option for most people and is absolutely _not_ necessary. There are other, less disruptive ways to clear old drivers from your installation. I replaced a GF4 with a 9600 Pro and have had an awesome performance increase and no glitches whatsoever. I only removed all of the old/irrelevant nVidia software later on when I had the time.I'm sure a reformant will "work" ok; but it's a bit like slicing bread with a chainsaw.

You forgot to mention what these less disruptive ways are :-)I changed a Ti4400 to a 9800 pro and had awful performance problems. I tried many things that didn't work so I re-installed. I now have all the FPS I want and smooth.I recommend a re-install wjen going from one card to anotherP4 3GHz1 Gb RamATI 9800 ProAudigy sound120Gb driveRay Keattch

I would go to driverheaven.net and download drivecleaner, also redownload the lastest ati drivers. Go to add and remove programs and uninstall you ati drivers and reboot in safe mode. Run driver clean and chose to remove ati drivers and Nvidia drivers. Driveclean removes left over files the uninstall does not remove this way you will have a fresh install of new drivers always. Reboot and reinstall your ati drivers reboot again. Next thing to do is turn off v-sync and get the refresh rate of your montior to decent level. For 1024x768 85 is proboly good enough. I run mine at 1152x864@ 120mhz. Iam not sure how ati unlocks the refresh rates in d3d the lastest nvidia drivers will do it from control panel now. I think if you do all this you will see alot of improvments. I have the same setup as you except i use a A7N8X-X. Do you have the lastest Nforce drivers and the lastest Asus bios 1007? Richard

HiI have just rebuilt my pc, and i'm in the process of installing everything again....will let u know what i discover !

Don't reformat anything. I'd like to know how your Athlon XP 3000 compares to say a P4 2.8 ghz 533 FSB system (mine). As well you don't indicate how much memory you have. Main processor and main memory are your first priorities with FS9.With this card though I'd suggest you run it at 1600x1200. The ATI 9700 forward series of cards like the high resolution. Good idea to run low AA but this you can particularly get away with if you run in high resolution. I've actually bumped up my AF to 16 and on the ATI panel main settings running quality over performance. With FSW 32 bit cloud textures looks beautiful and get nice performance.P4, 2.8 ghz, 533 fsb, 1 gig ddr ram, Radeon 9700TX 128 mb

HiI have done the rebuild, added all the cloud fixes and other tweaks i could....My specs are :Athlon XP 3000+ running at 3200+ overclocked speed @2,21Ghz512MB Corsair XMS 2700 DDR RamAsus A7N8X-E Deluxe MB - Bios 1008 (latest from asus website)Radeon 9800XT 256MB -> ATI Catalyst 3.10 installed ( 4.1 too slow )Samsung 191T 19" TFT Monitor 1280x1024@70Hz (maximum it will go)WD ATA100 80GB HDD ( This might be the guilty component i.e bottleneck)Since the re-install, it actually seems like the stutters are worse even though the FPS are relatively constant at 22FPS (locked)I don't know what else to do :( - i was so confident that this Graphics card would smooth things out for me, but to no avail ! I have to say it is better than my old GF4 Ti4600 though...What else can i do to relieve the stutters - is it down the the HARD DRIVE not being able to keep up with the Card ?? Or is it my RAM ? Or what ?Thanks !

Can't say for sure, but my guess would be that it's your CPU and amount of memory that is the problem rather than your graphics card.I have a P4 2,6 GHz @ 3,0 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a GF4 4800Ti and my FPS is locked to 25 and stays there unless I go to a very busy airport (I'm using Ultimate Traffic).All the best,