I hope this doesn't get dumped into the hardware section, well for at least a day or two...Guys and Gals,If you have an ATI vid card in the X800 or X850 (or probably for most recent ATI cards) product range or near there, you'll be interested in this.It seems that for XP users, Cat 7.1 was the last FULL XP oriented driver set. Past that release, Vista was incorporated more and more into the driver packages. Read the release notes to see what past Cat 7.1 is addressed and for what operating system. Now, I'm not saying that there might not be a mention of Vista showing up in 7.1 release notes, but by reading the optimizations, they were very low-level at this release and most optimizations were tuned still predominantly for XPI have been running CAT 7.1 since it came out with stellar FPS performance, and blurry-free graphics. No stutters on turns, etc.I have tried all the Cat series past 7.1 with poor, decreased performance in FPS as well as depicted graphics. I'd then remove the poor performer and reapply 7.1 after a reboot.I am running XP Pro.I have the ATI X800XT 256 meg vid card and if you are in that product category or near there, give the CAT 7.1 package a try boosting all the 3D sliders to the right and marking every feature to 'on'.I'll bet you that your FPS and anti-aliasing will be much better than any CAT release past that.Past 7.1, the Cat releases were starting to be tuned more for Vista, if not truly, exclusively for Vista.Just my personal opinion, but I think that the Cat 7.1's were the last fully unadulterated XP dominant suite.The 7.1 suite is rock solid and was used to run FS9, FSX, and X-Plane 8.6 with great results on my P4 3.4/ATI 800XT 256 combo.Hey, what do you have to lose? Go back to 7.1 and give it a try on your system. Those having CTD's and other issues with ATI cards and running XP and FS9/FSX might be happy that I posted this...:) Your CTD's and other problems...could just be caused by what has been done to the drivers post Cat 7.1You can download the Cat 7.1 suite from the ATI site and look in the past release section. You'll find it there. If you decide to check this out, make sure that you TOTALLY remove your present Cat drivers by un-installing them and then rebooting your XP version. Then apply the 7.1's. I hope this tip might be of use for one, or many!Cheers!Mitch R.

Hi Mitch,I'm sure you are correct. I've been using the WHQL 7.1 Cats for quite a while and now, for the first time in years, see no reason to change again. This is from someone who has changed religiously from the days of Win98 as each new driver version appeared.I have been an Omega devotee for many a year but experienced all manner of stability problems with his 6.9's (almost certainly not his fault). In the end I decided to give ATI's 7.1's a shot and have never looked back since. They are, in my experience, the most stable drivers to date and my system has remained rock solid since they were installed. It's such a relief to be able to come to your PC, switch on, fool around (or whatever!) for hours on end and know that you are not going to be faced with an unexpected STOP error, Blue screen or an unrecoverable software crash, all of which were in my case, now with the benefit of hindsight, caused by unstable graphics drivers. It's such a pain to be wasting time tracking down issues like these, but at least the experience has been valuable and I now KNOW and can confirm that my current hardware is 100% healthy.Like you, I am pretty sure that this was the last driver set to be optimized for XP. Believe you me when you find a great set like these you hang on to them tooth and nail..LOL!I installed just the drivers and Ray Adams' ATI Tray Tools (v1.2.6.964) - an unbeatable combo IMHO.Cheers!Mike :-beerchug ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, AMD Athlon 64X2 4800+ (2400MHz)(Toledo), 2GB Crucial PC3200 DDR400 Ram 3-3-3-8 (2T)(Dual Channel), (PCI-E)Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB (Catalyst 7.1 WHQL), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Digital Monitor (1280x1024x32), SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum (Drivers version 5.12.0001.1196 WHQL), WD Caviar SE16 250GB (WD2500KS) SATAII + Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 ATA133 UDMA-6 (320 GB), ASUS DRW-1608P2S Optical Drive, Antec P150 case with NeoHE 430W PSU, CH Products USB Yoke, Pedals and Fighterstick, Plantronics Headset and Mike combo, TrackIR Pro ver. 4.1 (build 29), Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse, Windows XP Home Edition (SP2), DirectX 9.0c

Hi Mike,Yeah...same here! This suite is so good, that I just had to tap the keys and let the cat outta the bag, so to speak, lolBelieve me, I have ended my curiosity streak by trying each new Cat package beyond 7.1 as of today.I just got rid of Cat 7.4 not ten minutes before I typed that post. My FPS went down almost 10!!!! Anti-aliasing was terrible. I uninstalled, booted, applied 7.1 again, and oh...so good!I'm finished with 'testing' beyond it. As you, am most happy with visuals and performance.Cheers!Mitch'er

I agree with you. I uaed to be an Omega devotee, but the 7.1 is better. It took ATI along time to get it right, but they did.Thanks for the heads up.

I think I was running the 7.1's on my x1800xt up until last week when I became an Nvidia gimp once again. They were good drivers yes.

Well, darn it's in the hardware section even though it's a software problem! :-)I moved back from the 7.3 to 7.1(had no issues with 7.3 - just followed the above thoughts from Mitch, and immediately got the mips-induced "shimmering" in FS9, but no problems or changes in FS10: I played with the mip setting, but it didn't help any, so I uninstalled (deleteing in safe mode, etc..) and reinstalled the newer 7.3 version.It works fine once again, so there is some difference in the later driver, for sure. Maybe it's with the X1950XTX card only, but it was a good experiment, Mitch, because we have SO many variables, addons, hardware builds, etc., nobody would make any headway in perfecting the sims if we didn't play.I'm happy it's back, and will stick with 7.3. (But will NOT be moving to Vista, though). :-) :-beerchugCheers,

I'm running the latest Omega version which is written from ATI version 7.1 Why would this be inferior to the ATI version? My understanding is that Omega simply cleans up ATI drivers.I'm hesitant to uninstall my Omegas just to install the same version ATI. Can you give me some insight as to why the catalyst version would be better than the Omegas of the same version?Thanks

I have fewer blurries with the 7.1's. I have fewer "flashes" with buildings with the Omegas, but it goes away quickly with the 7.1's. Overall, there is a little more sharpness with the 7.1's.

I went back to the Omegas after some very minute tweaking. At least on my 9800 Pro, they work a little smoother than the 7.1 or 7.5. I had mip mapping issues with the ATI drivers.

Hi,I see you guys give the 7.1's the vote for XP.Anyone got any experience with Vista (x64) as to which are best?My instinct is telling me that i should have the latest (7.5) as they should be learning and improving for Vista all the time. But.. this may not be the case.Any opinions?Cheers,Paul