Maybe explains your FPS increase?

Exactly the same driver and display settings when benchmarking the drivers. Not much of an benchmark if you use different settings.

Exactly the same driver and display settings when benchmarking the drivers. Not much of an benchmark if you use different settings.

Sorry, I'll try to rephraze:Its not much of a benchmark if like you said "I got inspired by a post by David Roch and tried the new drivers without using nHancer"Since you didnt use Nhancer you did not have the same settings as before since the NV CP can't and wont give you the settings you think you selected.NV CP has been broken with regard to FSX for a long time and is the whole reason we >have to use a reg hack like Nhancer or Hardpage or Rivatuner etc to get those settings to work inside FSX, otherwise your only choice is the FSX housebrand AA and Aniso, which is not even close to 8xs or 16xaniso and therefore "explains your FPS increase" as I said before.So with 8xS that was actually being used before in nhancer when you got FPS=100%Is not the same as when you selected 8xs but in reality got FSX 2xAA (if that) because you used them as you say "without Nhancer" and got FPS=110% etc. It is highly unlikely we will ever see any more great gains in any drivers of the older cards for FSX, there is little programing done on the GPU for FSX, mainly just filtering and some shader work. So there was very little to work with from the begining and the last real optimizations made by NV for FSX were maxed out some time ago same as for the filters that FSX uses. Put Nhancer back to work for an Apples to Apples comparo, re-run your benchmarks and see. :(

With a setting of 10 it is smooth as silk.

Interesting. Mine totally starts to judder at BP 10MB. While testing, FPS limited or unlimited?

If you suffer from Dissapearing textures, corrupted textures and/or the top FSX menu dissapearing read about the shader tweak, it efectively solves that problem, however, it DOESN"T WORK with old ported FS2004 aircraft, in order to use this tweak you have to use NATIVE FSX AC.

Please boyote,where can I find this "shader tweak"Thanks,Harry

otherwise your only choice is the FSX housebrand AA and Aniso, which is not even close to 8xs or 16xaniso and therefore "explains your FPS increase" as I said before.

Hm, I tried various filtering settings last week and I really couldn't see ANY difference between setting 16x AF in nHancer or setting it to appplication controlled in nHancer and setting it to anisotropic in FSX. I do see a clear difference when I switch between trilinear and anisotropic in FSX itself when the app controls AF (I didn't test various nhancer settings, only 16x and application controlled). So on my machine they come very close, or better said, they look exactly the same.FSX FSAA isn't as good as 8xs, that's clear and obvious, but it isn't THAT bad, I have to say... When you look at the screenshots I posted, it doesn't look as if no FSAA is used: it clearly is a lot better than using no FSAA.

100% increase in FPS for changing drivers? Those are really big numbers. Did you go from 24 to 48, 12 to 24? Doubled at low end, or high end, average, or what, if you don't mind me asking?Stephen

Stephen,15 fps to 30 fps. That's a big jump. I always use high settings and nhancer.Not only that but I can raise the AG use and not utilize the trees tweak in the cfg and still get 30s fps in YWVA area.As you know ORBX tress can be a performance hog.

This thread has to be, or is close to being one of the longest threads in Avsim History.

Sometimes success is only a few 'simple' adjustments away...I have been flying for hours around with BP=0 and am so happy to report that FSX is totally stable now with this setting. Before I tell you what I adjusted (as per reading the great contributions from this thread...) I could only at best enjoy a flight at the most, around the 30 minute mark. At that mark, I'd get terrible artifacts; snow, tearing of textures, some blacked-out horizon, etc. Not good. I always had to shut down, and for the most part reboot the entire system to recover a clean video feed.Well, after reading today the latest (last few pages of this thread) where someone suggested that they had set the prerender to a setting of 1, and that also someone had said that they got a better result with cranking the water up to full out,...and finally, that someone had stated they set nHancer other than Nick's standard settings, to VSync as 'off', AND.... after having done all the preceding...I have been flying around PNW for hours without so much as a twinkle of snow, tears, and any other things that would cause a fatal fault with FSX! Also after running around for hours with the above settings, I thought to only try prerender back to the default setting of 3, rather than 1...and still had no artifacts show up at all. So basically, if you turn Vsync off in nhancer (the latest edition) and crank water up to full...you can run the BufferPools setting of 0 'till the cows come home.Success! Thank you everyone who has contributed to this thread, as in the last pages, has a truly workable solution panned out. This was achieved only through many, many, observances in this setting, or that setting. Hardware combos, system parameters, etc.So, if you have an i7-975/nvidia GTX 285 combo such as mine I suggest the following;1. Running the latest nvidia driver suite 197.132. Run Nhancer 2.5.7. and use Nicks standard settings except turning Vsync to OFF.3. Turn WATER to full on (full right on the bar)Who knows truly WHAT is going on behind the scenes within FSX or on the driver level to lock down BP=0...but with the above settings, at least for myself, BP=0 is finally locked tight, and 'flying'. :( Post Edit: Try the prerender at the standard 3, but if you DO still have artifacts, then set it to 2 and try that. If that also gives you artifacts, then merely go to the setting of 1 which is what I had started with and had total success. I did go back to 3, but if I do get artifacts again...will go back to 1 and stay there, where none were created.Post Edit 2: Well, I took a break, made some coffee, lol...and came back to fly with the prerender set to the standard 3. Guess what? ARTIFACTS showed up again! So, went back to the success story of a setting of 1 and am once again running around like a bandit. So...forget the 3...and stick to the 1. THAT WORKS!Cheers,Mitch

Hm, I tried various filtering settings last week and I really couldn't see ANY difference between setting 16x AF in nHancer or setting it to appplication controlled in nHancer and setting it to anisotropic in FSX. I do see a clear difference when I switch between trilinear and anisotropic in FSX itself when the app controls AF (I didn't test various nhancer settings, only 16x and application controlled). So on my machine they come very close, or better said, they look exactly the same.FSX FSAA isn't as good as 8xs, that's clear and obvious, but it isn't THAT bad, I have to say... When you look at the screenshots I posted, it doesn't look as if no FSAA is used: it clearly is a lot better than using no FSAA.

There is a clear visual and performance difference with the various types of AA, Are you sure you re-set up Nhancer correctly after the driver install?I think Nick has suggestions on how to do that in his guide. There is probably a better way but I always uninstall both the drivers and Nhancer/RVtuner + all files, and then re-install the driver and then Nhcr/RVT then set it all back up. Making sure "allow overide" is checked.

Who knows truly WHAT is going on behind the scenes within FSX or on the driver level to lock down BP=0...but with the above settings, at least for myself, BP=0 is finally locked tight, and 'flying'. :( Cheers,Mitch

Thats great Mitch,What other FSX settings, traffic, complex aircraft, screen res, AA AF, etc?My biggest problem with BP=0 or any other low numbers is that when flying at any kind of high speed above 200knts the terrain textures turn into a blurrie mess compared to BP=4mb or higher.It certainly cant keep up higher LODs of 5.5xxxxxx and up let alone Black screens still when I load up a PMDG or CS liner over at a place like FSDT Kord.

Thats great Mitch,What other FSX settings, traffic, complex aircraft, screen res, AA AF, etc?My biggest problem with BP=0 or any other low numbers is that when flying at any kind of high speed above 200knts the terrain textures turn into a blurrie mess compared to BP=4mb or higher.It certainly cant keep up higher LODs of 5.5xxxxxx and up let alone Black screens still when I load up a PMDG or CS liner over at a place like FSDT Kord.

I have the following set up:I have the graphics set to the high end of what ORBX suggests for PNW.I have Clouds set to 80 with full 3D, etc.I am running REX2 with 1024 texture cloudsets, and My Traffic X with commercial set to 40 and general aviation set to 25. I have no airport traffic running around. I have car traffic set to 25 percent. Ships and ferries at 0.I have nHancer 2.5.7. set to Nick's standards EXCEPT for Vsyc set to OFF rather than his suggestion of setting it to ON. Other than that, no other deviations. I did have prerender set to 1 with success, but thought to try out once more it set to 3 and see if I go unstable again. If so...back to 1.Actually, the only thing I did this morning to go from frustration to success was swapping out drivers 196.21 for the beta 197.13 and as stated in the above. That's it. I was thrilled to be near the two hour mark putzing around PNW with no nasties showing up whatsoever. So, at the least, give the above a try and see if that isn't your ticket to BP=0.Post Edit: After trying prerender back to the standard 3 setting, artifacts returned. Went back to the suggested setting of 1, and the artifacts ended. so, the combo needs prerender set to 1 in nHancer 2.5.7. for my rig to run artifact free at BP=0.Mitch

vsynch off? That produces bad tearing for me

vsynch off? That produces bad tearing for me

No tearing on my i7975/GTX 285/nvidia 197.13 setup.Try all of what I changed out...and see if the tearing goes away as a result of everything working as a combo adjustment. I always used to run with Vsync on as per Nick's Standard nHancer settings. I found out with my system, that I could run it as off with no down-side.Mitch

I have the following set up:I have the graphics set to the high end of what ORBX suggests for PNW.I have Clouds set to 80 with full 3D, etc.I am running REX2 with 1024 texture cloudsets, and My Traffic X with commercial set to 40 and general aviation set to 25. I have no airport traffic running around. I have car traffic set to 25 percent. Ships and ferries at 0.I have nHancer 2.5.7. set to Nick's standards EXCEPT for Vsyc set to OFF rather than his suggestion of setting it to ON. Other than that, no other deviations. I did have prerender set to 1 with success, but thought to try out once more it set to 3 and see if I go unstable again. If so...back to 1.Actually, the only thing I did this morning to go from frustration to success was swapping out drivers 196.21 for the beta 197.13 and as stated in the above. That's it. I was thrilled to be near the two hour mark putzing around PNW with no nasties showing up whatsoever. So, at the least, give the above a try and see if that isn't your ticket to BP=0.Post Edit: After trying prerender back to the standard 3 setting, artifacts returned. Went back to the suggested setting of 1, and the artifacts ended. so, the combo needs prerender set to 1 in nHancer 2.5.7. for my rig to run artifact free at BP=0.Mitch

Thanks for posting those Mitch,In FSX what LOD?What screen res and color depth and AA and Aniso are you using?Also did you reset Nhancer per Nick after driver install?

Thanks for posting those Mitch,In FSX what LOD?What screen res and color depth and AA and Aniso are you using?Also did you reset Nhancer per Nick after driver install?

Res: 1920x1200 on a 24 inch wide-view32 bit for color.LOD_RADIUS=4.500000Shockwave, if you grab a copy of Nick's suggested settings, you'd pretty well have what I am set up for except for Vsync now turned off and prerender from 3 to 1. Both settings are done via nHancer 2.5.7. I got artifacts once more when I tried to squeeze play the prerender back to 3. No joy.I always reset both PROFILE and GLOBAL within nHancer after a driver install.Hope this helps,Mitch