NEW ATI card tool

[Guest Shep]

I design Autogen scenery for use with the VFR Photographic scenery UK and just tried a tool for use with ATI cards (I use an X800 Pro) The tool takes away any hint of shimmer in Autogen and makes a big improvement all round in FS9 and other games. The link to the original poster of this tool is:-http://www.visualflight.co.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4455and the link to the discussion forum and download of the tool can be found here:-http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33821061No drop of fps in FS9 and the improvement in Autogen display is staggering - no more shimmer!Shep

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi Shep, very interesting discovery and thanks for posting. I tried it on one of my machines running win2000 and it generates the following error message: >FS cannot run because the version of MS DX installed on your computer is incompatible. Please reinstall DX9.0 by running FS setup etc. etc.< Here are a couple of settings: Double filtering (triple didn't change this behaviour), AA=4x, AF=8x. Catalyst v.5.7 w/ a X800pro. Any ideas? Thanks and kind regards Jaap

[Guest Shep]

Sorry to hear that Jaap.I just dropped the DirectX default .dll and .ini into the root FS9 directory and fired up FS9 - result - instant improvement. It may be something to do with Win2000 causing the problem but I'm not qualified to answer that. Humus, the author is very helpful and posting a question at the following forum would, I'm sure, provide the answer. http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33821061I know a few folk using WinXP and FS9 with positive results so I would check on Win2000 as the possible culprit. I run the same card as you with DX9.0c but with WinXPsp2 installed.Shep

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi Shep, thanks for the quick reply. I fully agree it could be related to win2k. Moreover, the machine it was tried upon is my TestTendo and believe me, it's full of junk! :-) Unfortunately, my XP machinery is 'in transition' and I've had little time to complete the necessary changes. I'll give it a go asap (and maybe be able to install a test XP on a spare drive tonight?). This is a very interesting find and again, thanks for sharing. Kind regards Jaap PS, I dearly hope others will chime in and report their results

[captainXP 2]

Great! Thanx very much for this info Shep. Works like a charm with my X800SE (WinXP). All others: see this after & before picture and take a look at the difference at the horizon too. Overall appearance is much smoother.Bye Volker

[Guest camilo]

Great tweak, it really works !!!Check my screenshots to see the difference:Before:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/127443.jpgAfter:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/127444.jpgBest regards,

[Guest Robscho]

Its not Win 2000 - I get the same problem with XP and a similar rig and drivers to you (X850XT vid card).Can't find a fix in the rage 3D forums or anyone else reporting the problem.Let me know if you find anything.RegardsRob Schofield

[Guest Adeym]

HOLY MOLY!I've tried this with my 9800 Pro and I simply can't believe how much improvement I have. No shimmer at all!:):):)GREAT FIND!

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi Rob, Shep. By now, I tend to believe it's related to whether the drivers are properly installed or not. And on my win2000 TestTendo a proper driver install definitely isn't the case. Since a couple of people have been trying it on winXP(32), I decided to give it a go at winXP64 --> works great. IMHO (and perhaps after a couple of other reports?), you (Shep) should go ahead and publish this find on the MSFS main page. I'm sure the mods will leave it there for a while. This seems an important discovery for Ati GPU owners and it would be a pity if doesn't get the bandwidth it deserves. I even believe there's some room for further improvements (or experiments), because most of us will have only used it with the default values of the 'ini'. Cheers, good luck and kind regards Jaap PS, Rob, I'll see whether I can fix it on the win2k machine (although being a bit short on time). I'm certain it's only a tiny detail which provokes the previoulsy mentioned error message.

[W2DR 1,860]

I agree. This has to get to the main page Shep. I think if you link a short message to this thread the mods will leave it there. If not maybe a few of us can appeal to their sense of judgement and somehow get this info into the mainstream forum. It's just too important to just leave it buried here.Doug

[Guest camilo]

Yes, this is too significant to stay here. Shep, hope you can email the forum admin asking to relocate this post.Good luck,

[Guest Shep]

>Yes, this is too significant to stay here. Shep, hope you can>email the forum admin asking to relocate this post.>>Good luck,>>I will see what I can do. It certainly works well on my system* and it's a shame a couple of folk have problems. As I said earlier, I just dropped the Direct3D version (.ini untouched) into the FS9 root folder and it was staggering to see the improvement when I started the sim. I use the ATITool 0.24 and with extra cooling, O/C to 510/520 with no hint of trouble.I can't fault this ATI 'gizmo' in any way and from what Humus, the author, says he will develop it further if enough interest is shown.Many thanks to everybody for reporting the results they experienced and I hope a few more will try it out and report back. I'm being a bit harsh when I call it a 'gizmo' - the full name of this excellent ATI Graphics Card software addon is an Alpha-test override tool (for D3D and OGL) Shep*AMD3200@3300,A7v880,1gig TwinMos D/C,Raptor 74gig,ATI X800Pro WinXPsp2

[Guest Shep]

Good news over your success when using it with WinXP64 Jaap. I agree with you, it probably is a driver issue but at least it works for the majority of folk. I always update the ATI drivers as they arrive but I'm inclined to leave the 5.8's in now. I'm not brave enough to try any experiments - yet - my FS9 is working perfectly, better than I have ever seen before and it's hard to see me improving on it. After saying that I'm a 'tinkerer' by nature and it's difficult for me to stop. If Humus brings his update out, with the new features he mentioned, then I expect I will jump in with both feet.Thanks again for trying it with '64.Shep

[Guest cseidel]

DougI put this on the front page last night and ask the mods to please leave it their,which they did. I put it with the link under a heading of ATI Shimmer, but unfortunately it only got about 60 hits and no comments.Chuck

[Vulcan 14]

Nice find Shep looking at the screenshots, however it won't work here :-(Athlon 2500+, Radeon 9800Pro (128MB) 1GB RAM.When I start FS9 I get 'Insufficient memeory to run hardware acceleration, using software acceleration'. Then the FS9 'send msg' box and FS9 will not run.I am using Omegadriver 2.6.61, maybe that is causing the problem. Anyone else able to run this tweak with Omega's drivers on the 9800Pro?