I recently bought a new P4 3.2 MHz computer with one GB of system RAM and to go with it I purchased an XFX (nVidia) 5600 video card with 256MB of video RAM. There is no overclocking going on. I am running using the Windows XP Home operating system and DirectX 9.0b. I have used two nVidia driver sets since I got the computer - I started with nVidia driver version 56.55 and now have 56.64 installed. Both exhibit the problem described below. Overall, I would have to say the system runs FS2004 pretty well -no obvious stutters with sliders most of the way to the right - except for a perplexing video problem. It is definitely time dependent and perhaps, but not definitively, scene complexity dependent. After flying the sim for some time, my video display develops what I will describe as sudden video dropout - little widely scattered clusters of pixels that suddenly spatter across all windows in the scene like little twinkling Christmas lights. Everything else continues to function without interruption - the sim doesn't abort or anything. The video just breaks up. The corruption seems to be confined to FS2004 but persists until I exit - to include the aircraft view in the exit dialog screen. Restarting the computer clears it up - at least until the next time. I have played a bit, but not seriously with my nVidia video card parameters but I honestly don't know what I am doing except on a macro scale. Currently, I have AA set at 2Q and Anistropic filtering set at 4 (they were double that earlier with no apparent difference with respect to this problem) Can anyone suggest any tweaks, inside or outside FS2004, that might help this situation?Stan V.

There is one more clue I forgot to mention in my first post. The screen flashes two or three times after I say "Fly Now" (while the splash screen is displayed but before the chosen situation is displayed). It does it again after I tell FS2004 I want to exit. When they do finally display, however, the start-up scenes are of high quality and are not corrupted - until later.Stan V.

Sounds like a card overheating problem. Try taking the case off and flying around for a while. If the glitches don't return you'll need to add extra cooling, or move the bits in the box around a bit to aid airflow over the card. The flashing on start up is a red herring - the latest drivers do that anyway! Allcott

Allcott,I'm sure you know much more about such problems than I but if my problem were a video card overheating issue, why would the corruption occur only during MS FS2004 flights regardless of how long the computer has been used in the same session for other applications? Also, why does its onset happen only after several minutes of simulation time? And why does the corruption not persist outside of FS2004 once I exit that program? The problem often occurs after the computer has been on for a couple of hours or more but it doesn't evidence itself in FS2004 until at least fifteen minutes or more of simulation time - and sometimes not even then. Logic tells me that if the card were overheating, it would already be too hot by the time I started FS2004 - unless there are sections of video memory used only by FS2004 whose corruption is a function of how much they specifically are used.On the other hand, I do have to say that once the problem occurs, restarting FS2004 without resbooting the computer results in the problem right at the beginning of the FS2004 session. Only by rebooting can I clear the corruption.Regardless, thanks for responding ...Stan V.

Stan, Nothing this side of CAD/CAM work pushes the capacity of a video card harder than FS2004. The corruption is a sure sign that all is not well with your card. You may find that the card comes with it's own onboard temp sensor and that you can find a utility on the manufacturers site or elsewhere that will enable you to check this out and monitor what is happening. Obviously, once you exit FS the card is no longer working so hard, so it cools and the glitches disappear. Until the next time. The temperature is NOT the overall ambient temperature of the card, it's the spot temperature on the RAM and processor, and the harder the card works, the hotter it gets. If the card is new and the problem disappears after the case is left off, then you might want to remove the card and examine the fan or heatsink for signs of distress. Often the heatsink isn't seated properly, or the fan isn't working at full speed. If that is the case, then replace the card under warranty as you WILL do permanent damage if you continue to operate it in that state. Allcott

Allcott,Thanks for the advice. I will see what I can find out in that direction. Again - thak you.Stan V.