I'm somewhat confused about the AF and AA settings in FSX:In the FSX tuning pdf (downloadable from the forum) I read that different to FS9, AF and AA settings should be enabled in FSX and disabled in the video adapter driver, that should result in higher FPS.Since I'd like to have some more control over AF and AA settings, I thought I do it the other way round and disable everything in FSX, and enable them in the video adapter driver. So, I defined AF and AA to 4x in the NVidia control panel.What I got was not what I expected, the picture was somehow "coarse" and pixelated. I enabled "bilinear" in FSX, and it gave me a way better image.But now, having enabled bilinear in FSX and AF and AA in the video driver, I guess there's some overlap, resulting in a possible FPS loss.Is the only way to find out what gives me the best results the usual trial-and-error method, or are there some rules-of-thumb or facts I need to know which allow me to understand what FSX does in terms of image rendering and the relationship to the video driver and so to better adjust my settings?Andreas

The best thing to do is to get nHancer and use that utility to set FSAA to Combined 8xS (best FSAA method, only available with nHancer) and AF to 16x. In FSX turn off FSAA and set filtering to Trilinear. Read more about it all here. If you for some reason don't want to use nHancer (there is really no reason not to, because nHancer doesn't need to be running in the background: it makes its changes into the registry and you can close if afterwards and never run it again unless you want to), the preferred way is still the same: use the nVidia control panel to set FSAA and AF and turn off FSAA and set filtering to Trilinear in FSX.

I found that on my rig I get consistently better images and higher frame rates by setting AA and AF in FSX and NOT using nHancer. For AA, Anything outside FSX (nvidia control panel or nhancer) applies AA to the clouds = lower performance. As for AF, I am hard pressed to see ANY difference between AF in the driver or AF in FSX. Mine are not casual observations, I tested this thoroughly over months and ended up using "Let the 3D application decide" in the Nvidia driver and AA+AF in FSX.

I found that on my rig I get consistently better images and higher frame rates by setting AA and AF in FSX and NOT using nHancer. For AA, Anything outside FSX (nvidia control panel or nhancer) applies AA to the clouds = lower performance. As for AF, I am hard pressed to see ANY difference between AF in the driver or AF in FSX. Mine are not casual observations, I tested this thoroughly over months and ended up using "Let the 3D application decide" in the Nvidia driver and AA+AF in FSX.

Letting FS decide what FSAA levels to use, I believe, limits it to 4x. I could be wrong here, but that is probably why you see better performance...you are using lower FSAA levels.

Letting FS decide what FSAA levels to use, I believe, limits it to 4x. I could be wrong here, but that is probably why you see better performance...you are using lower FSAA levels.

That's correct. I don't see much improvement in image quality with AA set to 8 though (vs AA 4). And the difference with heavy cloud depiction is quite noticeable.There is an fps difference between AA in-game and AA in driver, both at level 4. AA in driver results in worse performance and doesn't offer any visual improvement. Also, AF 16 set in the driver (with nhancer, or default nvidia driver panel) produces much more shimmering for me than in-game default, while offering no improvement in visuals. I am using a 9800 GT by the way.

That's correct. I don't see much improvement in image quality with AA set to 8 though (vs AA 4). And the difference with heavy cloud depiction is quite noticeable.There is an fps difference between AA in-game and AA in driver, both at level 4. AA in driver results in worse performance and doesn't offer any visual improvement. Also, AF 16 set in the driver (with nhancer, or default nvidia driver panel) produces much more shimmering for me than in-game default, while offering no improvement in visuals. I am using a 9800 GT by the way.

Hi there, first time poster long time reader :( I just wanted to say that I have the same card and I noticed the same. I used to have two 7600GT and I used to see a difference over FSX settings.

The best thing to do is to get nHancer and use that utility to set FSAA to Combined 8xS (best FSAA method, only available with nHancer) and AF to 16x. In FSX turn off FSAA and set filtering to Trilinear. Read more about it all here. If you for some reason don't want to use nHancer (there is really no reason not to, because nHancer doesn't need to be running in the background: it makes its changes into the registry and you can close if afterwards and never run it again unless you want to), the preferred way is still the same: use the nVidia control panel to set FSAA and AF and turn off FSAA and set filtering to Trilinear in FSX.

I might be wong here but, does nHancer only work with Nvidia cards? If so, what would you suggest for an ATI user like myself?