Hi all,after thoughtfull considerations i finally bought a Radeon 9600 to replace my rusty Gf2 MX400. Installing it wasn't too hard but after firing up Fs2002 i'm very disappointed. Performance isn't better than before (same settings as before) and the impact of AA and AF settings on the 9600 control panel just isn't visable. Neither in the view, nor in the frames.I installed the catalyst 3.4 drivers (on CD) and DX9, which i upgraded to 9.0a.Is this your typical example of FS being CPU-dependant ? At least i expected some increase ! Any thoughts ?Thanx,Cas(specs: Athlon XP 1600+, 512 MB, Radeon 9600 AGP (21"), Elsa Gloria PCI (17"))

Sounds like you're seeing something similar to what I saw with the 9200... I have two working theories:1) The card simply needs a fast cpu to perform well. and/or2) Tne Nvidia drivers may be more efficient for working with slower machines.As for AA and Aniso, the 9600 is a fairly new card, and may require a DriverValidate entry in the display.cfg of FS2002. My test with the 9200 did show AA and Aniso, but I had to uncheck "application preference" and let the card manage it. I have a GeForce 4200 coming in the mail. I am going to compare it with my 9200 results. I don't expect much faster than my current GeF 2/TI, but I don't expect a repeat of my 9200 experience either. When I compare the mfrs raw numbers between the cards, I found that in certain respects, even my TI was faster than the 9200. The raw numbers of the 4200 are also faster than the 9200--and I'm strictly speaking in poly fill rates. That's where I think driver support and cpu speed come into play. Benchmarks don't lie, but I don't see many benchmarks done on slower machines. I'd love to see someone benchmark the last year's crop of cards on a slow machine.

Hi John,thanx for calling my great rig a slower machine ;-)In all honesty, i bought the 9600 for it's trade off between

You don't mention which O/S you're using. With Windows 98 only, and DirectX 9, you can type this command "dxdiag /ghost". It will locate any ghost drivers, and back them up in a new registry key.When I tried the Radeon, I uninstalled the Nvidia files, used Det. Destroyer, then verified vis sysinfo that all the vxd's and dll's associated with nvidia were absent. And they were. That's why I really have to wonder if the ATI drivers are a bit harder on sub 2 GHZ systems than Nvidia's. If the drivers were optimized around a fast system, any oddities introduced by slower ones might come to the forefront.I always have a backup of my running vid driver, so if I have to swap out hardware, I'm "good to go." With the Radeon, it was easy to reinstall the Nvidia card--maybe a five minute process. I'd completely nuke the Nvidia drivers in your case--rule it out entirely so you feel satisified that it's the card, and not some ghost VXD or DLL.

An 8500 outperforms a GF2 MX.A 9600 (non pro?) should outperform it by a huge difference..I wonder, is it your agp chipset drivers?Tey getting new ones.. Instructions below.1.)Right click My computer and choose properties2.)Click the (hardware tab in windows 2000/windows xp) device manager tab and then scroll to the bottom of the device list.3.)CLick system devices4.)Scroll through the list of system devices until you find a listing for the agp controller5.)The chipset manufacturer's name will appear as the device name.VIA technologies www.viaarena.comAcer Laboratories(ALI) www.ali.com.twSilicon Intergreated Sistems (sis) www.sis.comAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) www.amd.comIntel technologies support.intel.com

He may well be running into the same issue I did--but anything should outperform the MX. It's interesting--his system is AMD based. Completely different chipset. I know you'd suggested that with mine the other day, and I had the last chipset driver ever produced for the BX boards. I hope he hits the jackpot and finds out what's causing it to lag.There's enough positive press on the Radeons--all those happy campers can't be wrong. I will know tomorrow evening--I'm trying an OEM 4200 I managed to get. If it performs better than the GEF/2 TI (as I expect it should), then there's def. something the theory with the Radeons and the older chipsets and/or drivers. If the 4200 doesn't perform so well, then I give up--time for a new cpu :)

Well, I hope he hit's the jackpot.But you know Windows anything below xp, they hate new hardware and drivers :(

MrZig,Paul,a quick update: I d/l new VIA drivers for the AGP interface. Same results as before. No improvement in frames.Furthermore i found a tool on a driversite for cleaning files of old driversoftware. Oeps, not at home right now, so can't recall wherefrom. ANyway, it cleaned my disk, some 4-5 files from Nvidia where found and deleted. Great.Alas, again no speeddiff. But i'm prety sure that my system is clean now.What i find the strangest thing of all is that changing the AA and AF values in ATi control panel doesn't influence anything in FS2002, quality and speed remain the same. Paul, i understand your suspicion of older systems combined with the new Radeons, but do you have the same experience with changing AA and AF ?Also tried to re-install FS2002 but no changes there, except for a lot of lost time....What's next ? Re-installing XP ? That will keep me busy for a week or so ;-)Thanx,Cas

Try another game vs your GF2.FS2002/04 is very cpu dependent.

I am a little surprised that you have not seen any noticeable performance improvement. It may very well be that your CPU is not currently able to fill the video "pipeline"I recently added a Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB to replace my aging Geforce 4 Ti4200 64 mb card and I saw a dramatic difference in FS2002.With the Ti4200, performance was not bad if you were not using AA or high levels of AS. However, once AA or AS were activated, the sim would slow greatly, as much as 30-40% slower than without.I now run 1280 X 960 with all options on full with the exception of Autogen at Normal and distance at 100. If I leave the frame rater limiter on "unlimited" I see an average range of 33-40 in cruise. These figures are 20% higher than the Ti4200 was able to do, even if I was using no AA or AS! If the Ti4200 had AA and AS turned on to similar levels, the performance difference is closer to 50%. This while using 4X AA and 6X AS. The difference in image quality vs the Ti4200 is amazing.If there is heavy weather and I am operating on or near a large airport, I will see low to mid 20's.Operating out of Paris or LAX will drop it to the high teens (as usual)All things considered, I found it to be a good investment for $179 and have been very pleased with the results.Chris Buff