Hi Jimmi and Paul,I have read this thread with a lot of interest, as I am considering buying either a new Nvidia or ATi card in the next 6 months. But Paul, ty as I might to reproduce your alpha channel findings, I simply cannot do this. I'm running a Geforce Ti 4200 (ASUS 9280 Superfast) with the ASUS 43.45 drivers and I spent two hours this morning trying to ratify your results.The outcome is that I have not been able to. My testing results are more or les consistent with what Jimmi has explained. I was only able to achieve anti-aliasing with the following modes (which I accessed via RivaTuner):2x24xS8xS12xWhilst I also achieved "anti-aliasing" results of sorts with both Quincunx and 4x9tap, the results were so ugly that I would have to use the term anti-aliasing rather losely. I think anyone wanting to use these two modes would have to be pretty desperate or in dire need of a visit to the optometrist.I was NOT able to reproduce anti-aliasing of the alpha channels with the following modes:2x4x6x8xCertainly the alpha channels were anti-aliased at any setting in the instance where anti-aliasing checkbox within FS2004 was also checked. But so far as I can tell, this enables FS2004's own anti-aliasing which is even more ugly than Nvidia's Quincunx or 4x9tap.I have attached jpg versions of my original screenshots, taken at 800 x 600 x 32. The results are most obvious on the left most branch of the tree. I would also like to add that the results I have posted here are also reproducible in another D3D game I play - Rally Trophy by Bugbear.So on the basis of my results, I would have to agree with Jimmi that the only advantage the Nvidia cards offer over the ATi cards is where the user chooses to use the 2x2, 4xS, 8xS or 12x anti-aliasing modes.I should add that in FS2004 I can get away with the 4xS mode and in CFS2 I use the 2x2 mode. But any of these high quality modes seem to be pretty useless in any other games I have where the graphics processing requirements appear to be higher then in Microsoft FS games.The attachments in order are:1 = none2 = 2x AA3 = 4x AA4 = 2x2 AA5 = 4xS AA

>Hi Jimmi and Paul,>>I have read this thread with a lot of interest, as I am>considering buying either a new Nvidia or ATi card in the next>6 months. But Paul, ty as I might to reproduce your alpha>channel findings, I simply cannot do this. I'm running a>Geforce Ti 4200 (ASUS 9280 Superfast) with the ASUS 43.45>drivers and I spent two hours this morning trying to ratify>your results.>The outcome is that I have not been able to. My testing>results are more or les consistent with what Jimmi has>explained. I was only able to achieve anti-aliasing with the>following modes (which I accessed via RivaTuner):>>2x2>4xS>8xS>12x>>Whilst I also achieved "anti-aliasing" results of sorts with>both Quincunx and 4x9tap, the results were so ugly that I>would have to use the term anti-aliasing rather losely. I>think anyone wanting to use these two modes would have to be>pretty desperate or in dire need of a visit to the>optometrist.>>I was NOT able to reproduce anti-aliasing of the alpha>channels with the following modes:>>2x>4x>6x>8x>>Certainly the alpha channels were anti-aliased at any setting>in the instance where anti-aliasing checkbox within FS2004 was>also checked. But so far as I can tell, this enables FS2004's>own anti-aliasing which is even more ugly than Nvidia's>Quincunx or 4x9tap.>>I have attached jpg versions of my original screenshots, taken>at 800 x 600 x 32. The results are most obvious on the left>most branch of the tree. I would also like to add that the>results I have posted here are also reproducible in another>D3D game I play - Rally Trophy by Bugbear.>So on the basis of my results, I would have to agree with>Jimmi that the only advantage the Nvidia cards offer over the>ATi cards is where the user chooses to use the 2x2, 4xS, 8xS>or 12x anti-aliasing modes.>>I should add that in FS2004 I can get away with the 4xS mode>and in CFS2 I use the 2x2 mode. But any of these high quality>modes seem to be pretty useless in any other games I have>where the graphics processing requirements appear to be higher>then in Microsoft FS games.>>The attachments in order are:>>1 = none>2 = 2x AA>3 = 4x AA>4 = 2x2 AA>5 = 4xS AAJon,You are getting odd results, first looking at your results I first thought your registry is corrupted, as All AA modes accessible normally through the drivers control panel ALL will return AA on Alpha textures in FS, so I thought you might be getting some false info from rivatuner. But to be sure I just installed the 43.51s and tested all modes, and they ALL returned the same result: Full AAing of alpha textures. The following modes where just tested:None/2x/Qxa/4x/4x9tap/4xs/6x/8x/12x/8xs/2x2All AA modes returned fully antialiased alpha textures.Try checking to see if you have all settings in the drivers dx control panel set to high quality, set AF to at least 4x and make sure you have trilinear filtering selected in FS9.Silly, but did you test in full screen mode or windowed? What do you think?Other than that I would suspect a bad install which if you are running XP is not to likely...You may want to uninstall/reboot and reinstall those drivers and rerun your test just from the normal control panel first.Regardless, the fact is when accessing AA modes from the control panel An Nvidia GF4/FX56-5950 will allow you to AA alpha textures.Therefore eliminating shimmering objects such all the trees, radio towers etc. etc. As has been denied here countless times The Nvidia hardware is fully capable of Antialiasing alph textures while the ATI card will not. -Hello shimmering textures! Ughh.This is not to say that the FX cards are better than... bla bla...Fact is they both suxors! For all the money involved the user should be able to at least choose features that were designed into the APIs years ago as quality has been compromised by both manufactures as compared to the progression of what has already been achieved in the past with 3DFX and even the GF3.Nvidia has cut progress of better AA and even taken a step back with trilinear.ATI gives us AF but at select angles, and no ability to AA alphas.The point however remains that to do a good objective test of these cards in FS the lack of the ATI hardware to AA alpha textures has to be considered (see comments in previous reply).

That my friends is why I'm spending the big bucks this Christmas on a 9800 XT 256MB, well not me my parents! Hehe

LoL!!!Eat Grits Dummy!!!!Ok, My apologies to Both JimmiG and JonPo1! The difference in our results must be found in the way FS9 interacts with Nvidia driver as it will return fully antialiased alpha textures in all modes when AA is selected in the sim, which is not recommended as it is selecting some AA mode that is apparently not optimizes for performance nor quality.What a brain Flatulence! I thought it was off to begin with. Doh!!!Retesting, AA un-selected in the sim.However the results still differ:AAmode -alpha texture AA?NoAA -no2xAA -noQxAA -yes4xAA -no4x9tap -yes4xs -yes6xAA -yes8xAA -yes12xAA -yes8xs -yes2x2 -yesOk Guys, you can take me out back and tar and feather....But yer gonna have to catch me first! :-lolhttp://www.frontiernet.net/~pleatzaw/images/46517a.jpg

Hi,So, I don

Now we finally know what you look like :-lol As for corelating with your results, I also did see a very small difference with the 6xAA and 8xAA, but just not enough for me to go "wow, that's great". If you look at my 8x shot in particular, there is a very slight softer toning of the leaf edge. But I couldn't be sure precisely what was happening in those 6x and 8x modes as I felt the card might have been attempting to AA the sky texture next to the tree branch and not the tree branch itself.I do agree that Nvidia still has the advantage as regards alpha textures, because 4xS is useable in FS9 with a Ti 4600 or faster card. And that is why I stopped short last week of plumming for a Radeon 9600XT card. I would have been all set to go if it weren't for that issue.But the comment made about these high quality AA modes not being available in the latest Nvidia drivers is a concern. I haven't tried any 50 series drivers on my Ti 4200 yet and I don't own a 5600FX or later card to test this out.If Nvidia don't make these modes (2x2, 4xS) available in future drivers then we are stuck using either Geforce 4 or FX5600 - FX5800 cards.Can someone who has a current model Nvidia FX card and is using the latest drivers confirm what AA modes are actually available (using Rivatuner?)

All your base are belong to us!(just deleting this post as it isn't needed anymore):-beerchug