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ATI Card Owners - Read This!

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Guest ozhero

As a long time flight simmer (from the very first flight sim) I am VERY fussy when it comes to graphics quality and the overall "immersion factor" when it comes to my obsession (ie hobby :-) ).In preparation for FS2004 I specially built a "bees knees" computer including what I thought (from reading FS2002 posts) would be THE best graphics card, an ATI 9800 Pro with 256Mb.I had FS2002 on this machine a few weeks before FS2004 came out and I was super happy with it compared to my earlier machine that had a Geforce 4600 card.Since installing FS2004 I have been going through the normal tweaking frenzy that happens with every new version of flightsim but have been getting increasingly despondent over the last few weeks that nothing fixed the unacceptable (to me) level of shimmering in the scenery that was ruining my "immersion" factor. There is hope that this will be fixed in a new driver release. ATI, if you read thism be aware I think that you may lose many flightsimmers back to Nvidia, including me, if you don't manage to fix it in a reasonable time frame.For the last few hours I have been running with Autogen completely off and it has been a revelation to me that not only does the scenery look much more "realistic", the shimmer is also so slight that it does not ruin the "immersion" factor for me. In fact with the AA and AF cranked up on the ATI card I would say that it looks absolutely georgeous (including the wonderful cloud filled skies of FS2004).I suggest you all give this an unbiased trial and see what you think. For now I am going to leave it off and when the fabled new driver release eventuates I will reconsider turning AutoGen on again.P.S. There is also a very nice frame rate increase with it off.

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Guest Panman

I've got a Radeon 9700 Pro, with no shimmering, no stuttering, no slideshows, no problems at all besides the full screen blinking and menus. As that does not really ruin my enjoyment of the sim, I can wait until ATI release a new driver.Oh the only thing I did was move most sliders to the right (yes even including clouds) and on my system at 1024 x 768 x 32 with 4 x AA and 16 x AF I get a constant (locked at) 20fps with only the occasional dip to 18.

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Guest ozhero

Sorry to doubt you but if you look very very closely at the autogen trees and buildings as you fly along are you telling me there is absolutely NO shimmering ?

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Guest Spilot

I get 20 with most to the right except autogen which is at normal level. Works great for me ATI radeon 9700 Pro.Adam

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Guest RSmith

Paul, with you in some respects, but I haven't (yet) lost immersion factor. I'm still in awe of MSFS Team's work on clouds, scenery, general operation of the sim. Still flying - and testing tweaks.I do have, like many others, the flickering, and distorted kneeboard "tiling" and "Script Bleeding" if I scroll too quickly, or move the kneeboard's position. I randomly - not every flight - still get hit with a "temp" black screen delay (or freeze), but greatly reduced with newer drivers I've installed. Performance outside of those issues quite good !With a new, 4 mth. old system, I too selected components targeting FS - as I always have last 6-8 years. I'll endorse your plea to ATI and/or FS for some acknowledgement or updated news on their investigation reagrding these issues.Certainly not bailing out of FS - but - I hope our simming roster is large enough to simply encourage ATI & MS to discuss and post what they know about the issues, and keep us assured the issue isn't going to be ignored..... or passed over. As then, the posts will read - "what" configuration "works"....... and I'm not too interested in a new video card at this time, to gain consistent performance. I'd likely just turn FS off for awhile......Ron2.8, P4PE, 1 meg, 9700 Pro, Audigy, XP Home

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Guest Jack172

Have a look at the suggestions in this article for ATI users:http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds/main/menuchoo.htmI found the flickering trees are solved by dropping the MIP mapping quality to 4-5 from 8, but if you run at 1600x1200 it's hard to see the issue even at 8.If you want to test your changes, install the excellent B.C. scenery, bcmesh9c.zip and the fvlc.zip landclass for the area. Use the Hope saved flight, and check rates flying over the airport area.I found best results at 1024x768x32 and mipping a 5.Post your findings...

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Guest SoarPics

Sorry, Paul, I have to agree with the others here.My 9700 Pro has brought much more immersion and performance enhancement than any of the nVidia cards I've owned the past few years. Yes, the ATI's don't do AA on alpha textures, so tree and building shimmering can be a problem. But the higher levels of AA and AF capable with the ATI cards, as well as the ability to offer higher screen resolutions without a major performance hit, makes it easy to "mask" any shimmering. And because the ATI's don't AA alphas, processing power is not wasted doing AA on clouds.Hopefully you can find the sweet spot for yourself by tweaking the drivers (easy to do using ATI's Control Panel) and mipmap level in the sim. Like others, I look forward to a driver rev that will eliminate the screen flickering when pressing the "Alt" key as well as the menu smearing.My only real complaint about the ATI's is that I can't tune the drivers using RivaTuner. Anyone who knows how to get that tweaker to recognize the ATI drivers would be helping alot of us by explaining how to make it work on these cards. In the meantime I'll continue to enjoy the great graphics and performance of the ATI. There simply is no comparison between it and the 4600 I used previously.Good luck,

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Hi,I can confirm evrything you reported here. I'm using 1280x1024 and the shimmering is easily noted in my projector, screen size about 50 inches. FS2002 was ok in my 9800pro.Now I'm using autogen OFF, because no shimmering and I got a smoother simulation (no stutters in fast movements), so I guess there is a serious driver problem in 90800pro working with FS2004.My settings:AA 4xAF 8x QualityTexture Quality MaxMipMap Quality MaxInside FS:T&L ONMIP MAP 4Global Texture HIGHUlisses

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Guest stevehow

hi ulissesi use the ATI9800 pro.and to get rid of the shimmering effect, all i did was drop the mipmapping slider to 4(default setting)..hey presto ......no shimmers.i run in 1600x1200,so that would help. also with that resolution i can disable AA in Fs2004.on my winxp desktop i set AA 2X.try setting your fs2004 res to 1600x1200.you wont go back. best wishes steveathlon 3000xpgigabyte kt400 mobogigabyte 9800 pro1gb 333 memorysblive

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Hi,The settings Cap suggests in his review is if you have a high end system like his. Most users don't have 1gig of RAM and/or an ultra-fast 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading Technology, 800 MHz front side bus and the Intel

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When you all talk of Mip-Mapping levels, do you mean the settings in FS9, or the ones in the ATI control panel? I have the 8500Pro, and have noted so far that the MM settings in FS9 have a large effect (even in Windowed mode, where I thought perhaps that desktop settings might be translated to the sim from the ATI control panel). The MM settings in the ATI control panel do not seem to have such a substantial effect (if at all).It would be good to know which settings you all refer to with MM'ing. :) Thanks- and I assume that everyone has the FS9 AA to "off" and are using the ATI cp settings for AA.Bruce.

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Guest ozhero

Hi,I have a High-End system and I can't believe that setting MipMap level to 8 as Cap has suggested would leave his system shimmer free. His suggested settings go against all the suggested settings and tweaks I have been reading for the past 3 weeks and also fail miserably when tested by myself.As always YMMV (your mileage may vary)

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Guest ozhero

Hi Bruce,Yes, we are talking about the MipMap slider in the "Hardware Tab" in the "Display" Option in FS2004, not the settings in the ATI control Panel.I have noticed anything above 4 results in some shimmer, even on the static buildings with Autogen off.I think in the thread some people are not really looking VERY closely when they say there is no shimmer and perhaps have a higher acceptance level of visual artifacts.I have invested a LOT of money and time in my setup and have very high expectations.It is like the people saying that they can turn off AA because they run at 1600x1200x32. If they look out along the wing of the plane in full screen mode in the Virtual Cockpit there will STILL be enough of the jaggies to annoy me. I like the fact that I can crank up the AA (and AF) on my 9800 Pro without a performance hit (impossible on my Geforce 4600) and have ABSOLUTELY no jaggies that I can detect. Also cranking up the MipMap slider to 8 produces absolutely stunning scenery on my system but the shimmer effect at this mipmap level means I can't enjoy it.Visual quality is obviously in the eyes of the beholder.

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Guest ozhero

Hi,Please understand that I enjoy all the wonderful qualities of the ATI card but in FS2002 I could enjoy this without a rise in the "shimmer level" that has occurred in FS2004.Being a real life pilot, when I look out the plane windows I don't see any shimmering or flickering AT ALL in the scenery below so hence ANY flickering or shimmering AT ALL in the virtual world annoys me. The same applies to "jaggies".As I have mentioned in this thread I think some people have different expections and acceptance of quality levels but when I invest my dollars in obtaining "the best" and have been immersed in this hobby for over 20 years then I find visual artifacts such as flickering, shimmering or jaggies very distracting.Hopefully the new ATI driver will eliminate the shimmering and allow me to raise the MipMap slider and then I will really be a very happy camper.Otherwise I suppose I will just have to get used to it.

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