I got a new 9800 Pro card (replacing a 9700 that bit the dust), so I thought I might as well upgrade my drivers at the same time. Bumping up from Catalyst 4.3's. But I am experience one heck of a lot of CTD's!It's very repeatable for me, always in the first minute or so. Usually the screen goes black or just freezes, sometimes the sound starts looping.The error message I get when I am forced to reboot is:"The driver for the display device was unable to complete a drawing operationError Signature:szAppName: Drivers.Display szAppVer: 10024E480000021002szModName: ati2dvag.dll szModVer: 6.14.10.6525 Offset: B43C06EAError reportC:WindowsLogfilesWatchdog050412_1905_01.wdl"Thought maybe it was the Render To Texture issue but it has crashed with it checked and unchecked. Tried it once with clear skies and didn't crash. Need to try that more. Using FSW cloud just can't remember if they are DXT's or the other (been reading up on that).I'm not a big tweaker, I don't overclock and I haven't change/added any scenery since I dropped those in. Please don't tell me I am the ONLY person out here having some issues. :(

Did you install the drivers correctly?What version of DirectX are you running?.Dan.

Chances are when your 9700 went legs up you didn't have a chance to properly remove it. See my post #12 for the proper removal of unused devices from your OS. Follow this up with uninstalling the 9800 from Device Manager as well (might just as well play it safe with a complete reinstall of the new VC). Then use [link:www.drivercleaner.net/]Drivercleaner to scrub your system of past driver installs. Follow DC's Readme to the letter. Then reinstall your chipset drivers, reboot, DirectX, reboot, and finally the video drivers with another reboot. This process should rid your registry of any remnants of the 9700.Good luck,Greg

Hey guys... thanks for the input. Did lots of reading of catalyst installs in general on the web and searched around here for CTD issues. I think I might have found it.Reviewing my FS9.cfg file I found 2 DisplayDevice listings for my old ATI 9700 Pro, found one for my All-In-Wonder (which I used while my 9700 went in to repair), and then found two more for my new 9800 Pro. No wonder I was having problems. FS9 was probably screamin' "which one am I supposed to use!?!"So I cleaned it all out. Ran for three hours straight sitting at KSFO, 100% traffic, sliders maxed, real weather, and not a single hick-up let alone a CTD. :)I was even able to take off at KSFO with 50% AI getting a 16FPS after 3 hours... very good for my rig. So maybe I am on to something. I think the 5.4's have improved my performance and sharpness a tad too. But I need to fly more ;) just to make sure.Now all I gotta do is add that 2nd card without screwing everything up again!

Well it just crashed after 3 1/2 hours. Took off from KSFO did a nice sweeping loop for about a half hour, coming into a nice 33FPS approach, clear skies then WHAM!!! CTD. Freeze frame with looping sound. Render ToTexture was off. Guess I'll try it with it on to see any difference.Just when I thought I had it solved. :(

I have also had problems with these new drivers. My panel and aircraft are drawn in a very distored fashion. When I go back to the old drivers, it works fine. I will try and clean up my system and reinstall the newest drivers again.RH

Do you have Fast Writes set to on in your BIOS and display driver?This has been known to cause CTD'sGlenn

Yea, I have Fast Writes off. But now I'm thinking it wasn't just the drivers... guess what blew up this morning?! That's right my brand new one week old 9800 Pro! Booted up this moring and started to taste that lovely smell of electronics melting in the morning. So it's back to ATI. Hopefully I'll have better luck with card #3.the saga continues...

I don't have any problems with 5.4 drivers.

"the saga continues..."Hey pony, you might want to look at the cooling in your case. Curious that you've blown 2 VC's in the past few weeks. Make certain you have plenty of cool air blowing in (and then exiting) your case.The Arctic Cooling VC coolers are worth their weight (well, actually ten times their weight :-) ) in gold. Very good coolers.Cheers,Greg

Hi Greg,"The Arctic Cooling VC coolers are worth their weight in gold"....I'm sure you are correct. Im my bid to cut down further on noise levels I was tempted until I realised that this cooler vents via an adjacent slot and I ain't got one free (currently occupied by a twin USB adapter):( However, the theory is good in that, if I remember correctly, this cooler vents heat from the GPU directly and by so doing helps in the battle to lower the case temperature.Frustrating as I have just fitted a Nexus PHT 3600 heatsink and fan using Arctic Silver 5 to my trusty P4 and that has reduced idling/general use temps on a warm day by 2-3 degrees. This may not sound much until you take into account the fact that this is being achieved with fan rpms of around 1900-2160 (when FS9 is running) using the NRC-1000 Noise / Speed Reduction Cable as compared to 3,500+ with the default P4 heatsink and fan. Noise Level: 19 dB(A)I'm running FS9 while I type and a quick check indicates a CPU temp of 50-51 degrees C and CPU fan rpm of 2109.Regards,MikeP4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.6.05a), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP2), DirectX 9.0c, AGP Aperture = 128MB

Hi Pony, I could imagine your power supply (PSU) is playing tricks with you. You have a lot of HDs... What are the specs of your PSU? Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

Yea, from the way I see it, it does sound like it coulda been a heat issue. And it was probably the 9800 board itself though. You see, when I got it from ATI I noticed one of the mounts for the fan and heatsick would not properly fasten to the board. So one side had a gap of around 1/8th inch between the fan and the main chips that they cool. But I didn't think ATI would think much of it if I was to call in and say.."my fan is loose".But after aweek of round the clock testing I think it just fried. But that's ok. Rather have it happen now and get it over with.As for the other board, the 9700, don't think it was a heating issue. You see I have 12 fans in my main pc (that's right I said 12). Each hard disk is seperately cooled, plus I have two input fans and two exhast fans. Needless to say I get quite a flow of air going and the HD's are nice & cool. Noise is not an issue as the PC base is not near me.For my Power I have an Antec 480 watts.

Hi Pony, wow, I thought I was extreme with my 5 coolers! Hehe Do you have an equal amount of fans blowing (in) and sucking (out)? If there are too many suckers, there's a risk of creating an underpressure in the case which causes a backward airflow or a stall in the PSU. But I'm sure you're aware of this. Will Ati offer another replacement? I hope they do! Good luck and kind regards Jaap