I have Sony Vaio Studio 2.8GHz and tons of ram. I just installed the ati9800 pro 128MB. Although the frame rate has jumped, I still get jerky frame redraws when banking over Chicago in lousy weather at dusk. I've turned all display parameters to max thinking I finally had a system that could do it all. Do I need to get the 9800 xt to accomplish this? I was hoping to save some bucks.Thanks,Bruce

Bruce, I too have some minor pauses or non-fluid video. I am running the P-4 2.8 HT chip on a 800 MHz FSB with 1 gig of ram and the 9800 pro. I thought that going to the faster FSB would help but not that much. I have a feeling that it will take a 4-5 GHz CPU speed and or a new flight sim code to get to the fluid type of video we are all looking for.Terry

Please comment on ATI 9800 Pro vs. XT. The XT has more onboard ram. Would that help smoothness and ability to move all sliders to right? Is the XT going to make an appreciable difference in the quality of the video in FS2400 vs. the Pro ? Thanks,Bruce

Going from a 9800 Pro to an XT would probably be a waste of money. They are basically the same card, the XT having a slighter higher MHz (higher core and memory clock frequency) and more memory. The added memory would not help much, because FS2004 is not very close to the 128MB limit. In fact, it works fine with fast 64MB cards even. While the GPU and memory run at a higher clock frequency on the XT, the increase is not that significant and not noticable in actual sims or games.The clouds are the most heavy on the videocard. Most other things (AI, autogen, mesh scenery) are CPU-bound and getting a fster videocard would not help much unless you're using high resolutions with lots of FSAA and Anisotropic filtering. You can't expect to fly with every setting at the max and always get 100% smooth framerate, at least not with today's hardware. Maybe it will be possible with the next generation of videocards due for launch this spring.-Keep cloud draw distance at around 40 miles. This allows you to use 100% 3D clouds without too big a drop of fps.-Use low resolution replacement cloud textures, or manually convert and compress the cloud textures as required using Microsoft Image Tool. (http://www.projectopensky.com/files/index.php?dir=paint-resources/&file=imagetool.exe)

Thank you very much for clarifying this. I've used all of the Win XP tweaks and fs9 tweaks and even compressed and defragged the fs9 folder. I'm glad to know there isn't any further hardward solution at present. So I'll trim my expectations, use you suggestions, and settle back and fly.Thanks, again,Bruce

All I have to say wait for the NV40 or R420. They will definiatly be able to achieve max settings at awesome fps over cities believe me. Don

Don't know about cities - the dense autogen is mostly straining the CPU, not so much the videocard. It should help with the high detail water effects and clouds, as well as allowing higher resolutions with more FSAA and AF, though.

No autogen is mainly video card related. I can

Autogen's indeed about pushing polys which in theory should mean that a faster videocard (that is, one with better T&L/vertex shading units) should help. This has rarely been the case however. Nvidia's hype about the "GPU", the Geforce256 so far hasn't proved itself. CPU speed continues to be very important when dealing with high polycounts (autogen). Unless you're running a very specific benchmark or app that stresses the vertex shaders (3DMark '03 or Doom3), the CPU is more important than the videocard. HW T&L certainly helps (try turning it off in FS), but CPU speed is equally important at least.The actual "dynamic" weather is quite CPU friendly, certainly is compared to AI traffic which can eat up a lot of CPU cycles.FS2004 is not very heavy on videocard memory bandwidth at all except for the clouds and some third party aircraft. Of course, if you increase the res to 1600x1200 w/ 4xAA/16x AF, you'll get greater fillrate and bandwidth requirements.Generic scenery only contains a bunch of tiny textures. The textures are 256x256 pixels, with built-in miplevels and DXTC compressed (DXTC has a compression ratio of 1:6). In fact, each texture tile is only about 43KB and that's only for textures displayed in the highest LOD (those closest to the viewer). Compare to most action games today. They use 512x512 or even 1024x1024 or bigger textures, and they have a far greater number of textures displayed at the same time.Some aircraft textures are pretty big but most are compressed.The cloud textures are pretty big at 512x512 raw 32-bpp w/alpha blend, so in heavy weather, a better videocard might help. You get lower framerate in clouds because they are volumetric, alpha blended and contain large textures = heavy demands on fillrate and video memory bandwidth. Even though the Radeons don't slow down as much when using AA (pure multi-sampling AA, so no AA done to the clouds), they still take a major hit when lots of clouds are displayed, AA or not. The fact that cards using SSAA or SSAA+MSAA take a very big hit when displaying clouds further shows that they stress the videocard mostly, especially fillrate and memory bandwidth.CPU: Autogen, mesh, ai traffic, high detailed 3d models (scenery objects/VC's/exterior ac models)Videocard: high resolutions, fsaa/af, clouds

No autogen don

"No autogen don

Well I always thought the T&L Engine handled the lightning effects and transformation effects. And no the Radeons don

mmm. well which is it? the xt or the pro?here is my deal, i have a 2 gig amd and im only running my old geforce card 32mb vram in it and i have everything up except i have to use simple clouds, no 3d at all, and i do very well, to my amazement anywhere from 10-20 fpsi would like to get a new vid card and i was thinking of the ati 9800 xt w/256mb, now would this be money wasted?please advisethanksciao!Brian S

FS 2004 don

-FS 2004 don