I have a ATI9700TX 128mb card using cat 3.6 drivers and every screen I switch to using this card and FS2004 (which I received today from Provantage) flickers between a blank, black screen before the card settles down. This also occurs each time I press 'Alt' to use the top of screen menu. This ONLY happens with FS2004...never had a problem with FS2002. Has anyone else encountered this problem?I also have a problem with my curser rapidly blinking then disappearing with both FS02 & 04. Have tried both a serial generic Dell mouse and a USB Logitech optical with the latest drivers without success. Have not encountered these problems with any other program.Dell 4550 2.661 gig 2700 ramATI 9700tx 128mb cat 3.6WinXP60gig HD

I'm having some problems with my 9700, too. In flight when I ALT to call up the menus, the screen flickers slowly 3-6 times, then the menus come up fine. Also, the distant clouds have a "ring around them... there is a narrow band of darker hue around the edges. Close clouds (within 5 miles) look terrific.I'm sure this will be worked out in upcoming driver releases. All in all, this isn't too bad at all.

The dark hue around the edges of the clouds I think, is normal. Those are the 2D clouds and they appear on any video card. The 3D clouds don't have them though.This news is kind of discouraging to hear because I am planning on getting the 9700 in September. Does the 9800 have this problem?

Hi, "the distant clouds have a "ring around them... there is a narrow band of darker hue around the edges. Close clouds (within 5 miles) look terrific."These are called clouds impostor, they are 2d for performance, Set your cloud draw distant to 40 mile and your clouds pourcentage to 100% in your displayweather area, you won`t see them at all, they will be at far and you will only see the 3d clouds.You can increase your clouds draw distant slider also after..ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Thanks, Chris (seems like alot of us say that to you alot... and few folks deserve our gratitude more than you).Off to tweak...

This is really surprising that this ATI thing wasn't fixed in the beta - hopefully ATI has been notified and the 3.7's will fix it...Ryan

Hi!Have ATI 9700 pro P4 2.4, 1 gig DDR ram and winXP pro.. running cat 3.6, have no problems at all.. :)Ore,.. one problem I have ( just found out ) Environmental bump mapping dont work. Have checked all settings, but sea only appeared textured, with no effects at all ? no reflection, no motion, only static textures like normal land texture... any1 ???Freddy

Ditto. Same flashing issue here. Also, the learning center menus smudge as was reported by one of the testers.

I have a "temporary" (wouldn't softmod) 9500np installed with the 3.6 drivers and things aren't all that good here either. The menus are fine but the ground and buildings look a little strange at times. I just pulled my old, trusty Ti4200 and can say that there were no issues at all with that card. I have a 9800 Pro coming this afternoon and it will be interesting to see if the problems I'm encountering with the 9500 clear up any. BTW, I'm really impressed with the performance of the 9500. It's running 6X AA and 16X AF at 1024x768x32 with very little hit on framerates - simply amazing.DougNorthwood 2200 at 2728 (Intel HSF)Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Sapphire 9500np - 128MB 3.0ns 3.6's DX9a WinXP ProWD's 20GB, 20GB, 60GB, 120GB, 120GBInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU

Hi Doug,Please keep us posted on how the 9800 works out, if you don't mind. I've got my new system coming in this afternoon with a 9800 Pro (256) and am getting rather concerned about this issue. I would hope that either MS or ATI release updated drivers to fix this problem, but I also have a hard time believing that not one beta tester used the ATI cards, and if they did, they didn't run into this situation and mention it as a problem to MS. Surely with all the Radeon cards out there, MS would test it on those as well as the GeForce.Thanks for your post Doug,Glenn

Anybody having stability problems with an ATI should turn off fast writes. Makes no difference in performance.

I do also get the flashing black when i hit the alt key, and goes to the menu :(hope this will be fixed soon !i got P4 3.2ghz1024mb ramAti Radeon 9800pro 128mb320gb harddrivesCheers

I'll let you know what happens and would appreciate it if you could do the same Glenn. There were several reports from the beta team that the 9800 didn't have the problem and that it was an issue only with the 9700/9500. But there have been other posts in the past couple of days which would indicate that the 9800 has the problem also. I guess we'll know for sure by tomorrow. There also appear to be a number of "transparency issues" with, at least, the 9500 I have here. That is, from the cockpit and in spot view, I can see right through parts of the aircraft fuselage and many of the scenery buidings. It's not a major glitch and certainly not a show stopper but, again, the nVidia card didn't have that problem either. But it does make one wonder what the beta guys reported. Time to go wait for the FedEx truck.....Doug

Just wanted to chip in and say that I am having the same flickering issue. I've got a 9500 pro. What software are you guys who have this board using to softmod? What settings are you shooting for? Also, how does one turn off fast write?Thanks,Fred

I would not be surprised if ATI themselves provide a fix in a coming upadte of their drivers. Seems they often tweak their drivers to match the calls of several popular programs. Read their revision update notes to see what I mean.This is from their latest release of 3.6's. So don't be blaming MS just yet.From ATI web site.......Resolved Game Issues This section provides information on game issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST