________________________________________________________________As to anti-aliasing, the Radeons do not support anti-aliasing of alpha textures, which in turn could explain the performance difference between ATI and nVidia. The GF FX 5900 Ultra 128 MB is definitely a good card, but there have been some issues with nVidia and FS2004 as well. I can't remember, what exactly, and if they've been fixed, but if you do a search on the forums, you'll find it_________________________________________________________________Wrong. ATI cards would alais alpha textures if ATI chose to do so with their drivers. They do not. For good reason. ATI's AA is way way way better than Nvidia's AA. ATI 2xAA = Nvidia Maxed AA is what I've been reading by users who've used both. Also, just for your information, Nvidia has chosen to do away with trilinear AF filtering in their 5xxx drivers. Apparently to get better benchmark scores. They don't even give the user a choice. Doesn't make any sense to me. So, ATI has Nvidia beat in both AA & AF now. Not to mention the DX9 2.0 Shader speeds which are about double anything Nvidia has come up with.But then; this thread is about the 3.8 Cats so lets not turn it into an ATI vs Nvidia vs ATI thing.

>Wrong. ATI cards would alais alpha textures if ATI chose to do so with their drivers. They do not.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

It is to bad this did not fix the ATI problems. I was waiting to see what was going to happen with the new driver and was then going to purchase a 9800 Pro. I guess I will have to stick with my Ti 4200 or possibly consider a 5900.

>>How can I save the driver that is presently on my system?<>>If you haven't saved it after you downloaded it, you can go to>the archive on the ATI site, and download older drivers.Hi -TY for the info. I did not download the driver that is on my computer at the present time. It came with the computer. I guess that means I can't go in and save it, huh?Regards,DonaldS

Hi Donald,You can see what drivers you are now using by RIGHT clicking anywhere on your desktop. When the "Display Properties" window comes up click on the "Settings" tab, and then the "Advanced" tab. Click on the "Adapter" tab, and it will show what drivers are now on your machine. Right that down in case you want to go back. You'll have to go to the ATI site http://www2.ati.com to replace your old drivers but you'll probably be happy with the new drivers.If you don't have the menu flickering and screen smearing problems, you might want to stay with your current drivers.Hope this helps,

Hi Donald,If you have WinXP, then you can roll back to your last driver.However, like someone else said, if it ain't flickerin', then don't be tinkerin' :). You may have an OEM driver set that somehow doesn't have this issue, and those can be hard to get again if you can't roll back.Bruce.

HiI see that the problems is not fixed in this driver, but I have been using the OEM Dell driver, and the flickering menues is fixed, use them, they are great. Why couldnt ATI fix this annoying bug, when Dell could?

Hi,What version of the ATI drivers is this Dell OEM driver based on? It is a known fact that if you don't want to experience the Flashing menus and Text/Image smearing when scrolling a 2D window that is on top of a 3D window, then use ATI Catalyst 3.2's. Somehow I imagine that this Dell OEM driver you are using which does not exhibit this problem is based on the ATI Catalyst 3.2 driver version. Just a guess though.Jim

Based on 6.14.10.6396, and files is newer than 3.8

Based on 6.14.10.6396, and files is newer than 3.8

Hi Gosta,I think something isn't clear to you and many other here. The MSAA (Multi Sampling Antialiasing) ATI used didn't anti-alias ANY textures! The didn't do anything with normal or alpha textures!The MSAA is for Antialiasing only the edges of a polygon not the textures.The Antialiasing of textures is done by the filtering (Biliniear, Triliniear or Anisotropig). To verify this please start FS2004 without Antialiasing and check if the textures loock different. You will see that only the edges of the polygons are look different, no change in the textures self.Only a Supersampling Antialiasing (SSAA) will do any filtering for textures.NVIDIA use combined Antialiasing techniques, where they do MSAA and SSAA on the image, but they lose much performance and the combined antialiasing (Quincy (?)) didn't look very good. So they can antialias alpha textures. The only card that do SSAA only, which look good or better than the MSAA of ATI card, was the Voodoo 4500/5500. They have still the best antialiasing but are very outdated now.ATI said that they can SSAA too, but didn't do this because it is to slow.If you wish I can do a full explanaition of the two Antialiasing algorithm, but this wouldn't be an easy reading.Youre right with youre statement that ATI didn't anti-alias the alpha-textures, but it is a very good decision of ATI to no use SSAA. The performance drop of doing this, esp. the clouds use much alpha-textures, would be so high that the AA itself wouldn't be very usefull. The best solution for the anoying alpha-textures I saw in FS2004, would be higher resolution textures used by Microsoft. The worst alpha-textures I know in FS2004 are the one for the light tower they used on airports. But those one I accept for the greater performance the MSAA give over the SSAA.If you have other alpha-textures you found which look bad, pleas post ascreenshot.I wouldn't attack you or any other person with this statement, I only would clarrify a big misunderstandment I saw several times on this forum.ByeMarkus>>Wrong. ATI cards would alais alpha textures if ATI chose to>do so with their drivers. They do not.<>>So, obviously I'm right, then. They do not support>anti-aliasing of alpha textures. Whether they could or not, is>irrelevant - fact is they don't.>>Cheers,>>Gosta.>>http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg> >

Hi Henrik,Interesting. I don't know what to say about that other than it sounds like a good deal for you!I am now using the 3.8's myself and I do still have the flickering. But it's only a slight annoyance. To me, they fixed the biggest problem, text and image smearing/corruption when scrolling a 2D window that is on top of a 3D window in Full Screen mode. I only like to play in Full Screen at 1600x1200 resolution and can now scroll the 2D windows. So now I can read what Lane Wallace has written, read stuff in the learning center and do the pilot lessons if I want. And I should now be able to use the VPN available on Avsim, I'm installing it now. Yeah! :)Jim

Any ideas where to find that Dell release Driver for XP that seems newer than 3.8? I searched a bunch of sites, but didn't find 'em.Thank!

Jim, you said it!! I completely agree with you that ATI did a GREAT job with 3.8. I wish people would stop bashing them. I can understand how the flicker bothers some people but when flying, actually flying, which is what this sim does!, it's not an issue. However, trying to read a chart or a lesson while flying is valuable without having to go back to windowed mode.Thank you, ATI!! I'm very very happy to have made the switch from nVidia when I got a new pc a couple of months ago. I'm finally, with 3.8, seeing the performance I was hoping for. Locked at 35, I'm seeing a constant 35 at default KSEA with the c172 in clear weather, with the gps on. And for heavens sake, that's with Norton anti-virus, ghost, and Yahoo messenger all running in the backround!! Mid-20's in heavy thunderstorms at KLGA flying over manhatten. That's all at 1280x960 resolution, and all sliders maxed out to the right. Mipmap at 4 and h/w lights at 6. When I bumped it to 1600x1200 at 85hz, I got in the high 20's with all the backround tasks still running. Oh, AA and AF are a 6 and 16, from ATI's control panel. Holy smoothness, Batman!!Thanks, ATI.sjKEWRP4 3.2 GHz, Intel 875P-based Mobo w/800FSB, HT and dual-channel RAM bus1Gb PC3200 RAM (512x2)ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256mbMits. 21" CRT monitorMS FF2 joysticketc.

Here's what I have -- apparently. Old ones, eh?Thanks,DonaldShttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/42155.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/42156.jpg