Microsoft has released the March update for DirectX for almost all operating systems. You can get the update here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=en.It is generally recommended everyone install the latest and greatest DirectX files for compatibility and the best performance with your sound/video hardware. I installed it on my system but it didn't fix my Nvidia video card driver problem with DX10 Preview turned on (some runway lines flicker). But I'm always hopeful a fix will arrive soon before I upgrade my 8800GTX's 2-3 years from now....Jim

Thanks Jim, but this is the March 2008 update for 9.0c. Doubtful that it would do much for your nVidia issues in DX10.Cheers,

Thanks for the info mateWith the bluring taxi lines, etc, I wonder if that is more a Video Card issues, e/g Nvida, I've noticed no knew Nvida 8800 driver since December. Others with ATI Capable DXT10 Video card claim they don't have this problem.I wonder if the fact Nvidia now has the 9600 card, they won't be updating drivers for the 8000 series?, I hope not!PhilOn further investigation.Yep it is only DX9 update, so will not do a thing for Vista and DXT10I don't expect a DXT10 update intil they bring out DXT10.1Read Phil Taylors blogs

"this is the March 2008 update for 9.0c. Doubtful that it would do much for your nVidia issues in DX10."Thanks Greg. I suppose you're right. You know more about this stuff than I do as I have seen many of your past posts. It stated it was for Vista systems too so suspected it had updates for the DX10 version too. I believe this is the first update since Nov 2007 so was hopeful it had a lot of updates. But, checking the DX10 files on my system using Everest, I see no changes in the dates but a file in the System32 folder may have been changed. I'm always looking for that "magic bullet" to fix my one DX10 Preview issue! Ha! I have the Vista RC1 installed (my system info states I have SP1 installed but know that's not correct) and believe it has all the updates that will be in Vista SP1, to be released later this month, so think my system is completely up-to-date. I'll remain patient and wait for Nvidia to post an updated driver that works for FSX.Best regards,Jim

"Yep it is only DX9 update, so will not do a thing for Vista and DXT10 I don't expect a DXT10 update intil they bring out DXT10.1Read Phil Taylors blogs"Thanks Phil for verifying this again. I don't think it hurts to install the update whether or not it includes updates for DX10. The update is for ALL operating systems, including Vista which is the only system that has DX10 installed. I DO read Phil Taylor's blogs regularly. I believe I read somewhere that DX10.1 would be in the Vista SP1 update but DX10.1 will not work in FSX as you must have a DX10.1 compliant video card, and FSX must be programmed for DX10.1. So a DX10.1 update will be useless to us. It should work in FS11 if Microsoft plans on a new version of FS. Our only hope is for a video card driver fix from Nvidia and that doesn't look good. I don't have the blurring taxi lines as you indicated you had. I just have flashing/stuttering taxiway lines at some airports, not all (the default Friday's harbor is an example). The runway intersections are flashing too as if there's another runway on top. I have the 8800GTX cards too and wonder if you need to adjust your scenery sliders to fix the blurring. Mine are crisp and clear.Best regards,Jim

The 9.0C monthly updates have proven to be very stable. While one shouldn't expect leaps of performance gain in DX apps from the updates it's still a good idea to be current. The March update without Web Installer can be downloaded here (much smaller file).Jim, hope nVidia gets the issues with DX10 in FSX sorted soon.Cheers,

Hi Jim and Co.I have Vista Sp1 RC Build 6001( Release Canidatae installed) been trialing it.Just ran a DXdiag and it says Direct X 10. Maybe 10.1 will be in final SP release.THat end time release was for Vista as well, interesting and it did intsll on my system, which surpirsed me. Anyway lets see what if any changes it made.Cannot say Sp1 RC has made much difference, although I'm not get any more situations when using FSX in full screen mode that if I load a new flight or something screen just when black with mouse pointer showing. But once again this most likely is a Nvidia Driver issue.Oh one thing I have noticed with SP1 RC, is System memory is now showing as 4gb as I have installed and not 2.83gb.On the point of Nvida driver, there is a Beta driver for the 8000 series Nvida released last week, version 169.44 ( Latest Certifed driver is 169.25)I asked Phil Taylor in a reply to one of his blogs a few weeks back if there would be FS11 this year and he said next year. I think Aces are spending most of their time now on the Train sim.I guess this gives 3rd parties like Nvidia and 3rd party devlopers of FSX add ons to update things for DX10.

Hi Phil,I installed the 169.44 beta drivers after much difficulty. I uninstall the old drivers, restart the system in safe mode, use the driver sweeper to get rid of any remnant, then use a registry cleaner to make sure all entries are gone from the registry too. This time the Guru3d Driver Sweeper didn't find everything as my registry cleaner program found a lot of entries left over. Anyway, tried to install the 169.44 drivers and they wouldn't install correctly. I ended up installing them manually by going through the Device Manager. They didn't solve my DX10 Preview problem and I got the infamous "Display driver stopped responding and has restarted again" error while using FSX. So I uninstalled and returned to the WHQL 169.25 drivers. No further problems encountered. I don't think there's any problem with the 169.44 drivers, just that I had a bad installation of the drivers and this caused the error msg. Bad installs, missing registry entries, etc., are the prime reasons for many difficulties people encounter when playing FSX or any other game. I have always found that uninstalling/reinstalling a display driver if I encounter any anomolies that I haven't seen before fixes the problem. I hope your info is correct concerning FS11. I doubt it will happen as Phil cannot say one way or the other if and when a new FS will be forthcoming. There looks like a lot of new products will be released soon by 3d party developers and most look very interesting and exciting. FEX has an update that looks great coming out soon as well as KORD from the Dream Scenery developers. So I can wait for the next version for a while longer. I CAN'T wait much longer for the Nvidia driver fix for DX10 preview though. My hair is already turning gray... ha!Best regards,Jim

Hi Jim, thanks for reply and info about 169.44 drivers.All noted, I have not yet tired to install them, only found tjem yesterday.David Roch posted in my view a very useful post about settings etc for FSXsp2If you don't know it, you can read his post here. It's not the gospel of getting FSXsp2 runing the best, just some very useful tips.http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchOne thing he suggests re installing new driver is this."I point out a gold rule for the driver's update, it is long but once again you will avoid yourselves many troubles and frustrations. - install "Driver Cleaner EP 1.5" you can find here: http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/Other-DRI...sional-15.shtml. - download the driver for your graphic card - uninstall the old driver with Windows uninstall function (control panel)- reboot in SAFE MODE (F8 after POST) and launch Driver Cleaner for the 3 Nvidia entries and wait til the end of the process (the end of cleaning message) *- reboot and close your antivirus - install the new driver - reboot"I've done this everytime I have installed a new Driver version, now whether it helps I cannot say, but it doesn't seem to hurt.And yes I agree with the point we'll all have grey hairs, in my case White ( I'm sort of a blonde reddish hair)by the time Nvida fixes the drivers)Along with the flickering taxi lines, well not taxi lines more the checked lines for airport ground vehicles and this problem, most airports I don't need progressive taxi as I have flown into them a lot in FS ove the years, but one occassionaly goes to a airport they do not know and with DX10 the only way to view the Progressive taxi arrows, is from a top down view close up.Which is annoying.One thing hard to know is this just Nvidia driver issue, as I know people with ATI Rade cards some say they don't have the same issue, but without seeing it in person, how does one know.Have you done this,In the man FSX folder, there is a sub folder called setup and a subfolder under that called DX, in that sub folder, run the DXsetup and see if it updates DX, mine just did. I was wathcing it and it seemed to install DX10.02, although DXdiag doesn't say anymore than DX10. Anyway time wil tell.CiaoPhil MTime wil tell I guess.

Hi Phil,I had seen the post from David. It's an excellent post. My settings are very similar to his. As I stated earlier, I uninstalled my old drivers in the manner recommended by David and reinstalled the new ones. I have NO antivirus program so that's not an issue. In any case, I did get the new drivers installed but they didn't make FSX run any better (or worse) so uninstalled them and returned to the WHQL drivers. Vista likes WHQL drivers better than betas.In regards to the following.... "Along with the flickering taxi lines, well not taxi lines more the checked lines for airport ground vehicles and this problem, most airports I don't need progressive taxi as I have flown into them a lot in FS ove the years, but one occassionaly goes to a airport they do not know and with DX10 the only way to view the Progressive taxi arrows, is from a top down view close up. Which is annoying."I haven't seen the problem of not being able to view progressive taxi markings with DX10 Preview enabled. To be honest I haven't used progressive taxi for a long time but it has always worked for me. I will check that out the next time I have FSX running. My only issue is the flickering taxi lines. If you can remember the airport where you cannot view progressive taxi markings, let me know so I can see if it's happening on my system. Perhaps you don't have priorities set properly in the Scenery Library?There were a lot of updates to DX10 files back in Dec through Vista updates and/or through installation of Vista RC1. I doubt the setup program within FSX is up-to-date and you might want to do a restore in case any of your updated DX10 files were downgraded when you ran the setup program.Thanks for the info regarding proper installation of video card drivers and FSX settings from David Roch. Keep that hair reddish blonde!Best regards,JimEDIT: I just checked for Progressive Taxi markings at KSEA and you're right, there are none. I didn't realize this was a problem with DX10 Preview turned on but now I can see it probably is a problem. Thanks for setting me straight and letting me know!

Hi Jim, no worries,Yes the progressive taxi lines thing is strange, how one can only see the arrows froma top view.I'm not expert, but I doubt that is a driver issue, more a DX10 issue, although I've not tried it with DX10 preview turned off.Phil

"Yes the progressive taxi lines thing is strange, how one can only see the arrows froma top view. I'm not expert, but I doubt that is a driver issue, more a DX10 issue, although I've not tried it with DX10 preview turned off."Well all of the glitches/issues I have with FSX are gone when I turn off DX10 Preview so you shouldn't have a problem seeing the progressive taxi lines when DX10 Preview is turned off. At least I can see the progressive markings with DX10 turned off. I don't think it's a DX10 issue though since the ATI video card drivers work and Nvidia drivers do not. Direct X is the same for all makes of video cards.Sorry for not getting back to you sooner Phil. I had to play 18 holes of golf and there was a frost delay...Best regards,Jim

Hi JimWith DX10 preview turned off, progessive taxi arrows show as normalSo fair conclusion is as you say, a DX10 issue, which so far Aces don't appear to want to ackowledge from reading blogs of Phil Taylors, although I may be wrong about that.But there is something not finished with DX10 and FSX and I guess because it's called a preview, backs that up.Whether we see any change before FS11, who knows. Maybe Vista Sp1, but I have the RC of that installed already and that did't change DX10 from what I can see.Anyway as I said I rareley use it and being one who flys in real life, if only in GA acft, I should really go by ATC taxi instructions.Glad it warmed up enough for your golf game, here it would be the opposite, it was #### hot to be outside, although not bad today, minor cool change came through last night but next 6 or 7 days are forecast to be 33c plus. For March and Melbourne Australia that is a little unusual, We call it an Indian Summer, although I have no idea where that saying came from!CiaoPhil M