Wow, what a revelation, I wonder why no one else knows this but the great "TechMaxGuy". Should we file this information with the rest of the B.S. you've spouted out in this forum in the past?

Actually, you seem to be the only one that doesn't know this. Do you have anything to add to the discussion, or did you want to keep trying to come up with clever ways or rephrasing my alias? You've only done it about 10 times now, perhaps you need a few more chances to find one that fits.

Wow, what a revelation, I wonder why no one else knows this but the great

Actually, you seem to be the only one that doesn't know this. Do you have anything to add to the discussion, or did you want to keep trying to come up with clever ways or rephrasing my alias? You've only done it about 10 times now, perhaps you need a few more chances to find one that fits.

I guess myself; NickN and a host of others in many hardware forums just don

Enough guys, this is getting rediculous. Just uninstall the drivers using the control panel. Reboot, then use Driver Sweeper from Guru3D.com which removes all registry keys, folders, etc automatically, and even shows you the files being deleted. It has never failed anyone. BTW People need to read the posts. ATi does not need extraneous "driver tweaks" to get the same results as NV, and ATi certinaly does care about FSX, that is why I have seen FPS and smoothness increase with each driver (TechMaxGuy), people need to stop making stupid assumptions and look at the facts/results, use your brain once in a while...I have said countless times that you can use ATiTools which is like nHancer, and even the default driver Control Panel (Catalyst Control Center) is sufficent, IF you know how to use a card and setup image quality property and not just set it too 8xAA and quality super sampling and expect it to be sharper than ever and fast...http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?s=&...t&p=1694202

The subject of ATI Tray Tools was brought up months ago in this thread -http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtop...63062&st=25The last time I had it installed it did nothing to cure the shimmering textures in FSX.

I guess Nick is this kids big brother or something. LOL!

I guess Nick is this kids big brother or something. LOL!

No ,NickN is just a hell of a lot more reputable source of information then the

No ,NickN is just a hell of a lot more reputable source of information then the

On the principle that people learn best by trying things themselves, may I offer a suggestion to those who believe that a complete OS installation is a pre-requisite to changing video cards?Why not try the in-place update first? After all, you'll have backed everything up anyway, because you were planning to reinstall the whole OS. So if it doesn't work or you don't like it, you won't have lost anything - and you'll have confirmed your expectations. If it works and you do like it, you'll have saved yourself a bit of time and hassle - and you just might have learned something you weren't expecting.Just to be clear about what my own experience tells me: Windows has for many years been able to handle a change of video cards without needing an OS reinstallation, but if you're swapping from ATI to Nvidia or vice versa, it can pay dividends to run Driversweeper a few times before plugging in the new card.Tim

The subject of ATI Tray Tools was brought up months ago in this thread -http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtop...63062&st=25The last time I had it installed it did nothing to cure the shimmering textures in FSX.

That's kind of where I'm now (still struggling with the 5870). I've tried getting it to work as I want on 3 different rigs using XP (32bit), Vista (64-bit) and 7 (64-bit), with several recent beta versions of Ati Tray Tools. I think I'm having the issue discussed at http://www.rage3d.com/BOARD/showthread.php?t=33932796. Without repeating the details, I can basically choose if I want the trees to shimmer or if I want everything else to shimmer. Specifying a mipbias in the FSX config is not even to think of, but even without it I still get some shimmering. Some settings help but it's still not even close. There are also other picture quality issues but the worst part is still the lack of smoothness, even when running at a high and constant FPS. Again, this is only in FSX, not in any other game I've tried.

tolip I feel your pain. I've heard about the issue you describe and it is a driver problem which manifests itself in some titles and not others. Unfortunately since FSX appears to be one of these titles, it is unlikely to ever be fixed. :(

So you're saying you would rather re-install the OS after you have installed hundreds of GBs of add-ons as well as perhaps some scenery design tools and all the supporting software, like Photoshop, 3DSMAX, and ProTools what ever etc.?You would rather re-install your OS and re-install everything have to re-tweak your OS, all your settings and everything, even though it is a known fact there ARE ways of installing not only a different GPU chipset but even a motherboard chipset without re-installing an OS? OMG! Really?

We are talking

There are also other picture quality issues but the worst part is still the lack of smoothness, even when running at a high and constant FPS. Again, this is only in FSX, not in any other game I've tried.

Actually the smoothness is where I found the 5870 to shine the most with FSX. It has been able to maintain a more consistent frame rate at higher scenery settings then what I can get out of the GTX 285. Getting back to the image quality issues, with multi-sample,

Why not try the in-place update first? After all, you'll have backed everything up anyway, because you were planning to reinstall the whole OS. So if it doesn't work or you don't like it, you won't have lost anything - and you'll have confirmed your expectations. If it works and you do like it, you'll have saved yourself a bit of time and hassle - and you just might have learned something you weren't expecting.

Thanks Tim.I have tried the

How would you know if it worked? You test it! If performance goes up after a hardware change, you know it worked! It's not nearly as difficult or as non-determinate as you make it seem.And you're wrong about hardware review sites reformatting when changing cards. Most don't do this and the ones that do only do so to save time and eliminate *possible* headaches. You describe this process as though it is a certainty that changing from one IHV to another causes problems. It is actually the exception, rather than the rule.

How would you know if it worked? You test it! If performance goes up after a hardware change, you know it worked! It's not nearly as difficult or as non-determinate as you make it seem.

Really, how would you determine if the performance went