Maybe some people can help out with this theory. We all know FS2k4 has an issue with ATI cards. I for one have more than enough PC horsepower to run FS2k4 (Dell 8300 2.6gig 800FSB). Chris Willis has standed firm is his support of FS2k4 and others have posted screenshots of reasonable overcast in FS2k4. Mackenson informed me that FS2k4's weather system displays clouds based on what your system can handle. Now what I'm wondering, is my ATI Radeon9700pro the bottleneck??? Seeing that this card already has a problem with FS2k4, is it the culprit behind why so many of us can't get an overcast...Feedback is welcome......

What settings are you using for anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering?What resolution are you running at?I have found that these things have a huge impact on performance when there is complex clouds. It seems that clouds are video card dependent rather than CPU dependent. This is the first time, in fact, I have ever seen anisotropic filtering have much of an effect on the performance of any game.Perhaps this is a Radeon issue (we'll have to see what others say), or perhaps it's simply a fact of life with 3d clouds that 3d effects and filtering will be applied to the clouds. For me, it's hard looking at the scenery without 4:1 anisotropic, but 2:1 is the best I can muster with clouds.Tons of folks will have it starting tommorow, and we will get a better sense of things.

I can't wait to see what most others are getting as far as cloud performance. Maybe we all can come up with something based on the numbers of people haveing problems... I'll give you my display setting later today. One thing is for sure anything lower than what I'm using now seems unacceptable. Another thing that boggles me is why FS2k4 performs so well at lower altitued with full weather effects but soon as you get some altitude things go south. You would think the 3D clouds and detailed Autogen and Scenery would kill things more so down low...

I have a 9800 Pro, Cat 3.6 drivers. I leave AF at 6* and AA at 4* in the control panel, and am not having the trouble that you appear to be having. Is it strictly frame rate, or are there graphics issues as well? My CPU is a P4-1.8G, with 1G of PC-2700.I do see a frame-rate hit with clouds when I'm in them, but nothing that stops the sim. I also believe that ATI will address these issues in a later driver release, so some patience may also be required for all of us ATI card owners :) .Bruce.