Jaap and Greg -I spent some time on the ATI site looking at the X850XT Platinum Editon and the driver downloads for Windows Media Center Edition. There is no mention of the ATI Control Panel or smartgart. They talk only about the "new" Catalyst Control Center and driver v.5.3 for which there are download options for either or both. This leads me to question whether they(ATICP&smartgart) are for older cards?? However, as I stated earlier, in Program Files I have a folder called ATI Technologies. Inside is a folder called ATI Control Panel that wont open) and inside it is a file for smartgart(that won't open). I do not have the 'Catalyst Control Center'. I tried to get a screen shot of the files in ATI Control panel, but couldn't figure out how to size it so you could read the file names.Now, going to Control Panel - Appearances&Themes - Display - Settings - Advanced I have, what would appear to be, the equivalent of the ATI Control Panel or maybe smartgart. See the 2 screen shots I have included.As far as moving the OS to the faster HD I got dizzy with all the ghosting etc. As I am happy with all but the texture lag I'll put that one on the back burner. If one of you guys lived next door I'd give it serious thought.Maybe I'll get some vallium and try downloading the 5.3 and CCC combo! As my new system is fly only and not on line I wonder if I can do any of this on a disc and transfer it. I actually tried to download the CCC to a disc and it wouldn't--- as I recall.Thanks for your continued interest and input!Brucehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/110523.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/110525.jpg

Hi Bruce,Good that you're using the Control Panel. The Catalyst Control Center (CCC) is more bloat than anything else. Way more than what is nedded to tweak drivers.Looks like your drivers are the 4.10's. Might be worthwhile to go for the 5.3's. From 4.11 onward the drivers include some nice optimizations that may or may not help your simming. Certainly won't hurt.The lack of SmatGart must be a PCI-e thing. Hopefully others with PCI-e cards will chime in here to set the record straight.I'd still get together with Dell to see if they could assist you in the texture lag issue. Your system is strong and you shouldn't have alot of lag in texture loading. It would do no harm to reinstall the MB chipset drivers to make sure all is right. Keep in mind that if you do get a SmartGart tab in your Control Panel after reinstalling the chipset drivers then you should then reinstall DirectX followed by the monitor drivers (thanks, Jaap) and video drivers.Greg

Okay Greg - I'll get Dell on the line and see about the lag thing. I know it should not be that way. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for all the help.Bruce

>>I'd still get together with Dell to see if they could assist you in the texture lag issue. Your system is strong and you shouldn't have alot of lag in texture loading. It would do no harm to reinstall the MB chipset drivers to make sure all is right. << Absolutamente, Greg. AIM, on my end ** aircraft are very good performers and they don't load much slower than the default FS ones. And thanks for the link, I saved a couple of things to my HD which now require 'digestion'! Hehe Bruce, I erred, Acronis' imaging program is called 'True Image' not 'Drive Image'. Pls excuse >>As far as moving the OS to the faster HD I got dizzy with all the ghosting etc. As I am happy with all but the texture lag I'll put that one on the back burner.<

"As Greg mentioned, it would be nice if somebody jumped in and maybe confirmed certain details with PCI-e cards. Since PCI-e is still a fairly young technology, I would appreciate if you keep us upto date a bit about your experiences and findings."Absolutely!"PS, Greg (OT here but I saw the other thread), the Unian4.7 was the driver which lastest longest on my systems. What I liked most and I wonder whether that still occurs, was, instead of trying to AF endlessly, the Unian added a destinct blur and sowith nicely surpressed shimmering. I wonder whether that's still so?"Hard to say, Jaap. But you should try anything after 4.11. I can see (in both FPS... well, slightly... and IQ. FPS isn't that important to me, IQ is smoothness is) a difference. The 4.12's are really quite good, any gains since then are minimal.Cheers, I'm off to take the family to the snow for a few days.Greg

Jaap -Actually, I determined (I think) that Dell DID make the 10,000rpm drive my 'C'Drive and that's where the OS and FS9 both reside. In checking the Properties of each I see that 'C' drive volume is about 64Gb (the 10,000rpm one was listed @ 74Gb), and 'D' Drive shows about 69Gb (the 7,200rpm drive was listed @ 80Gb). So, it would appear that the smaller capacity 'C'drive should be the faster one.The ViewSonic is a CRT monitor (don't recall what TFT is). It seems to be a really a good display and so far I am very happy with it. Would like to have one about 30" wide though!I will let you know what comes of my session with DEll. I bought their deluxe service program---so, we'll see what their view of deluxe service is! Standby!Best to you and Greg!Bruce

Hi, Bruce:I have four DELL PCs at home including an XPS with 1 gig of SDRAM and the same vid card as you. It's a 3.80Ghz. Frames are similar to your system, I guess. I run the same res and similar settings as you, except that I turned off ground scenery shadows.For what it's worth, I want to tell you, I get texture lag as you do. I continued to experience texture lag on my older DELL 8200, 2.53 Ghz system, even AFTER doing the whole FS-GS process; that process did smoooooth the sim out very much for me, along with FSAutostart, but the texture lag was still there. Frankly, I've always had texture lag on every DELL system with MSFS since 1997. You do NOT need more RAM and the vid card is perfectly fine; any other talk is nonsense.Now: I don't really believe there is a fix for this without running the risk of upsetting or destabilizing something else in our systems. I've experimented with video tweaks over the years and found that texture lag just persists with certain aircraft. For my own part--and this is NOT a criticism--I've found it to be quite bad with most POSKY a/c. Texture lag is less of an issue for me with the new XPS because it lasts a moment rather than 5 to 15 seconds as was the case on my DELL 8200. But I admit and agree, it is an irritant and a nasty surprise given our massive vid cards and PC h.p. We thought these XPS systems would be salvation, eh?!I have found that texture lag of the visual models can be attenuated by NOT going from the cockpit view directly to SPOT view, but rather, if you hit the "S" key once or twice and "cycle through" to the SPOT view, this seems to provide relief to the system so that when you reach SPOT view, there is no texture lag at all. Have you tried this approach?I would not say it is a hopeless exercise to try and fix texture lag but unless you are a PC engineer of sorts, and given that we have "boxed factory edition" PCs (!), I am not too optimistic that they can be fixed effectively. And as I say, there might be a risk of upsetting something else in the process.Last, I would advise caution in experimenting with different Radeon drivers. It seems to me from reading this forum and other forum posts and PC websites that changing Radeon drivers is not as easy and simple as nVidia drivers. I have 4.10 drivers and the frame range they yield is from 20 to at least 200 fps. The drivers seem fine to me and I don't plan to change them for now (or maybe ever).On balance, I am pretty happy with the XPS system--and the visuals on LCDs are quite dazzling to my eye--but, yes, there are still imperfections running FS9 on it. What to do? It depends on your attitude and the amount of time, energy, and expertise you have to search for a fix. For my part, I most likely will just leave the system as-is and be 95% satisfied that things work well 95% of the time. That's a pretty good quotient for me.If you want to run any comparative tests and exchange data, and maybe engage in some limited experimentation, feel free to email me at [email protected]!JS

I am surprised why folks give you here a TON of advice, probably well meaning, but fail to tell you straight and honestly that most likley you will always have texture lag no matter what you do. There is no system in this world that would run FS9 with no texture lag.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Jonathon and Michael -I was just about to call Dell when I decided to see if anyone else responded to this thread. This reply is to both of you. I think what you guys said is probably right. Although, Jaap, above says he has no texture lag on his ** planes. I get texture lag on all addon planes, but not any to speak of on the stock planes. As Jonathon states, the system seems fine with the exception of the lag in texture loading. I just downloaded IFDG's A319 with the Frontier textures. Beautiful!!! Having worked for the 'old' Frontier in Denver I especially would like to keep and fly this one, but the lag is disconcerting. POSKY planes also are slow to load textures. I have the same experience with my Gateway 2.4GHz, 512Mb ram, Nvida G Force TI-4600 VC. In fact, as I said at the beginning, this new rig is only marginally better and the texture lag is about the same.I have tried many of the less complicated tweeks mention in various forums and other sights. None resulted in improvements of any kind and a couple produced negative results. Given my limited computer knowledge/skills, and low threshold for technological pain, I think maybe I'll just bite the bullet and hope FS10 cures the problem. I know that's the wimpy way out, but it might be the most practical. On the other hand, a call to Dell wouldn't hurt and if they have a simple solution(which I doubt)---what the heck!! The FS-GS is tempting, and if they can't fix it-----no one can, eh? I would also say that Greg and Jaap are graciously trying to provide relief and I have certainly learned from, and am grateful for, their input as well. Jonathon, you have Cox as your IP are you perhaps in the Austin, TX area? My lag time is only a half second or so, and it's about the same whether I go from 3d cockpit to spot view, or use the hatswitch to look around. Actually I'd like to eliminate the Tower and VC views entirely. Like you, I have Ground Objects Cast Shadows turned off, but everything else is close to max. Mip Maps at 4. I'd be happy to exchange some info or do some comparisons so I'll send you and e-mail!Thanks to both of you for the input. It makes me feel better even though it wasn't what I wanted to hear.Bruce

>The FS-GS is>tempting, and if they can't fix it-----no one can, eh? Bruce,It is indeed tempting. If you go for it please report back your results. If they could fix for me the "blurry terrain and textures lag" plus "microstutters" while turning then it would be money well spent.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

You may have tried this (I didn't go back and reread all of the replies to this post, but if not, here goes. I fixed virtually all of the texture loading lags with add-on aircraft by converting the 32-bit textures to DTX-3. R-

Ah, yes, the micro stutters too....!I have them on the XPS. I used to have them on the 8200 system, but the FS-GS process fixed them and they truly vanished.I may do FS-GS on the XPS and just repeat everything and finished.JS

Wooohah, action! Hello Gentleman @ Ron, yeah, DXT3 has been mentioned. @ JSACKS, Greg and I are both AGP boyz and we were looking for info on Ati PCI-e cards. Maybe you can help? Specifically, what does your SmartGart report? It would be great if you and Bruce could exchange some specifics in this area. @ Michael, IMHO, the nForce3 250Gb or nForce4 chipset is much better than the Via800(pro). Because it has a higher southbridge bandwidth (S-ATA and your soundcard both connect to it). Possible solutions could be; either swappping the mainboard or using a fast P-ATA HD. @ Bruce, a TFT is a flat screen. Thanks for the reply. Indeed, if your 'C' HD is smaller, it could be the 10000rpm drive and that would be good news. On the other hand, the 10000rpm 74GB WD Raptor does read 69GB normally. Hmmm..? As for BIG-SIZE screening, my next or overnext purchase will be a beamer. Right now, I've saved up enough for my favourite 'cheap' option (a Panasonic PT-AE700E @1280x720) but I'm equally determined to not rush things. @ all, AIM, my ** textures load without noticeable lagging and I'm pretty much certain -looking at Bruce's awkward SmartGart readings and the effect of some of the proposed tweaks- there's something fundamentally wrong with his driver/hardware setup. What's also noticable, more Ati users seem to complain about lags, mini stutters or 'real' stutters than Nvidia operators. I.e. the majority of complaints about AEU7 stuttering came from Ati users. This said pls note, I do realize this could also be nothing but a statistical probability (or Ati users being more outspoken?). IMHO, certain (rare) stutters are unavoidable with FS9. Beyond that, ministutters are a result of various factors including certain FS add-ons, other sofware or hardware/driver shortcomings. My biggest lessons with FS9 have been, to stick everything in one big partition and the positive influence of activating V-sync. Finally -and whatever Bruce does- I believe our pragmatic approach was starting to show results and I appreciate his will to hang in and eagerness to learn. After all, FS is a pretty complicated app, isn't it? Good luck and kind regards Jaap

I just uninstalled all of the McAfee antivirus, firewall and anti spam protection that came with my PC from DELL and the micro stutters have all but vanished. Since the PC is not connected to the internet, I don't need that stuff. If I ever do connect this PC to the internet, I shall use PANDA AV and firewall since that works great and has very little impact on the system. JS

Michal - Ron - Jaap - JonathanIf I could get off these forums long enough to call Dell, check their forum, and maybe do the FS-GS thing maybe I could get somewhere! :-) Whatever transpires, though, be assured I'll report back!I asked if there was a simple way to convert textures to DXT3, but don't remember if any was offered. Jaap said he hasn't had to convert and that he doesn't have a problem with texture loading.Jonathan and I are just now starting to exchage FS9 setting info and VC settings via e-mail. I'll report any variances/changes/results etc. on this thread.Will get back shortly on the settings comparison. Thanks all!Bruce