I finally got a Radeon 9800 Pro card and there is quite a difference from my former GeForce 4 4600. Instantly, I noticed about a 10 fps increase from before but most importantly, it runs much smoother with most annoying stuttering gone. I got the card from Gateway, who talked me into buying it from them for the warranty with my system. Unfortunately, it came with no software or documentation, just a generic install manual for all cards. I downloaded the latest Catelyst drivers and the control panel software from the ATI website. My GeForce card had a control panel option for setting both AA and AF. I was advised to disable AA in FS04 itself and set it through the card's control panel. This seemed to help increase performance greatly for me. Likewise, I could set AF from the GeForce control panel. (I had it set to 4X and AA to 2X.) I explored the ATI control panel and opened all the tabs but could not find a way to set AA and AF on the 9800 Pro. Just a message on the "Smartgart" tab that said "Application Controlled" for AA. (For some reason, when I went into FS AA was unchecked.) Is there a way to change these settings on the card? Also, does anyone have any suggestions how to fine tune the settings for the best performance in FS? Thanks. Regards, Tom

Its on the 3D tab...It has options for both D3D and OpenGL...You then have to go to the custom settings screen from there.

Doesn't sound like the Control Panel for the ATI drivers installed correctly.Might pay to go to the ATI site and re-download the latest drivers..For best results a clean install of windows works best.. ;)

Thanks for the help guys. I see it now. Seems I somehow missed the box for "use custom settings" so the custom button was not highlighted. Why don't you think my drivers installed correctly? Regards, Tom :)

I think he was referring to "if your control panel didn't have the options". But you found em' so, you should be all set. Any of the later drivers from 3.9 forward seem to work fine with FS9. Just use the latest ones and you'll be all set. How do you like that 9800Pro card?

So far so good. I really am happy that my stuttering in 2D mode seems to have gone for good. Just a few 1 second pauses which I guess are scenery loads. Things bogged down a little in the New York area. Took off from Teterboro and got a little choppy near Manhattan. I checked the fps and I was down to about 9 or 10. I took Traffic down to 70 from 90% and that seemed to help. I'm also hoping I got everything I need software wise. I got the card from Gateway and got nothing but the card. I downloaded the drivers and control panel from the ATI site. How has the card been working for you? Thanks for the help! Regards, Tom