Just curious - I have a high level ATI card but still have trouble with clouds - lots of stuttering and low frames. Have a good rig, i7 920 ocd to 3,8, good MOBO, 6 gigs of memory, Win 7 64. Have read that NVIDIA cards perform better. Any thoughts? Thanks!

What is a "high level" ATi card? If you don't have an HD 5850 or higher, the problem you described is to be expected.

I found out the hard way :( and bought a ATI dual GPU's. As far as having 2 GPU'S ,that is a no, no :(:( for fs. I can not tell which brand :( is better in the single gpu department, I just can tell you don't buy a card that uses two gpu's.

What is a "high level" ATi card? If you don't have an HD 5850 or higher, the problem you described is to be expected.

No, it's a 4850 card (or 48XX - don't know the exact number)

Don't use the 4850. I bought one and dropped it within a week. BAD framerates with clouds (but nice image quality apart from that).

You'll want a 58xx series card or better to enjoy FSX.... I've read mostly good things from 5870 users in FSXOr just go with a GTX285 ;)

I just broke down and put an ATI 5870 into my FS machine, and it's performance in FSX is at par with the GTX285 it replaced, except I'm not getting black screen crashes with the ATI like I was with the 285 after a couple hours of flight. From reading the eVGA forums, the black-screen issue is continuing to plague many GTX285 owners, and nVidia has been talking about a fix for months. ATI's Catalyst 10.2 drivers finally fixed the problem of not being able to use adaptive AA in FS, which for me was the big showstopper. My only (minor) beef with ATI now is I haven't found a way to make program-specific settings like I did with nHancer.The 5870 has put a smile back on my face after months of wrestling with the 285 as well as with numerous nVidia driver issues. Fortunately, I had already swapped in the 5870 when nVidia released the now infamous GPU-melting driver that wrecked who knows how many 285 boards by buggering the cooling fan control.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

I just broke down and put an ATI 5870 into my FS machine, and it's performance in FSX is at par with the GTX285 it replaced, except I'm not getting black screen crashes with the ATI like I was with the 285 after a couple hours of flight. From reading the eVGA forums, the black-screen issue is continuing to plague many GTX285 owners, and nVidia has been talking about a fix for months. ATI's Catalyst 10.2 drivers finally fixed the problem of not being able to use adaptive AA in FS, which for me was the big showstopper. My only (minor) beef with ATI now is I haven't found a way to make program-specific settings like I did with nHancer.The 5870 has put a smile back on my face after months of wrestling with the 285 as well as with numerous nVidia driver issues. Fortunately, I had already swapped in the 5870 when nVidia released the now infamous GPU-melting driver that wrecked who knows how many 285 boards by buggering the cooling fan control.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

hi Bob,i have an eVGA GTX285 (o/c version) as well. the "black screen" crashes that you were having with the GTX285 did your monitor go into low-power mode within a split second or two after the screen went blank? because this has been an ongoing problem for me with FSX for as long as i've had the card. the "black screen" (for me) has occurred at times b4 i can get the engines started (on the PMDG 747X) to as much as 6-8 hrs. or less into the flight. could my "black screen" probs. be the result of a different kind, ie...bad video card? i've had the black screens with FSX using the GTX285 under WinXPx64 and Win7x64. also, is the black screen crashes a FSX ony issue or with other games as well?thanks in advance for the help.happy flyin, fm