Fellow Simmers, Need some advice on graphics settings for my new card. I really wanna pump up the settings but really not sure if there are tricks to setting the proper settings thru the options display and hardware tab. What are the best settings for mip-mapping, anti-aliasing & Lighting. System is Amd Athlon 3200+ gig of ram at 400mhz and running on a 10,000 rpm raptor. As far as the settings in the hardware tab should I set that thru the software or on the desktop thru my nvidia settings etc? And if so what should I set them at? Thanks, Josh

No personal experience with nVidia, but most people feel that you want to set the AA, etc settings in the video card settings ( i.e. via the desktop) rather than in the simulator. Setting them in the Sim, results in no demonstrable change in image quality and about a 50% drop in FPS.You can certainly try it both ways and see which works best for you, but that's my experience.Ed GreenKCLThttp://www.panelshop.com/Banners/DEV.jpg

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I just tweaked my settings a couple of weeks ago and it is a night and day difference. Set up a new profile in the nVidia control panel for FS9.exe and crank the AA, AF, and MipMap settings to the max. You will see a dramatic difference in terms of texture quality, not to mention almost total elimination of the "blurries" - I see roads stretch out to the horizon now! (using Ultimate Terrain).FS is probably not able to set the settings on more modern cards to high enough levels, so you have to override what FS wants to do in the NV control panel. That's the only way to really get max use out of cards like the 7800.

Josh, take a look at the "Hardware" forum and read the WinXP optimization guide, which also contains various tweaks for your graphic card.Most importantly, DISABLE the AA in FS9 and let your graphic card do the AA (in the nVidia Control Panel). I usually have 4xAA and 4xAF and it works very well.Good luck,Pat

EXPERIMENT!Less quality,lower detail= faster right? Well in my case WRONG.Its seems alot of the time the more I let my card do the better the sim runs. Cranking up my cards settings not only made everything look better but to my surprise, the fps did not change and in some case was better.When testing do not stick to one area but try various settings,city,rural,clear,cloudy ect.There are just so many countless variables that you just need to keep trying different settings and see what works best.

Thanks Gent's One question I have is if I setup a profile in my nvidia settings then which one's would i if any in the fs9 display/hardware settings leave set to nothing or do I pump them max. I guess what I am trying to say is if I create an application controlled profile thru nvidia on my card then is there a particular way I should set the settings in FS9? Thanks, Josh

>is there a particular way I should set the settings in FS9?In fs9.cfg try these settingsTEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=8Also visit this page http://nvtweak.laptopvideo2go.com/it doesn't matter the url has "laptop" in it, you can use it with all forceware, get the program called "NVTray" it will give you more options for the AA/AF settings, comes in handy when/if you get the problems with the black box in the AC selection screen.

Friends, Thanks for the input and help. Domo Aragato, Josh

> Domo AragatoDo Itashimashte, Josh ;)

When I turn up my AA setting to the MAX with my 7800 card, or any card I've had, I cannot SEE the plane when selecting Aircraft in FS.Anyone with this problem, and how did you fix? Stan

FIX = Lower AA/AF.. no other fix possible...Unless you want to go through the hassle of going to window mode, select airplane, and going to fullscreen again.... too much of a hassle, just lower AA/AF