Any ideas why? I have AS6.5. The screenshots below show a little of what I mean - the small clouds to the left flicker and appear/ disappear as I pan. Probably an FS, not AS problem, but anyone know why this happens sometimes? Is there a way to stop it?? Thanks, Martin

Hi Martin,Yes this is FS-specific as you guessed. There are two things to consider here... 1) Your cloud draw distance (FS graphics settings) and 2) Your available graphics resources. FS uses a dynamic system to "cull" certain graphics items in order to keep your frame rate up (i.e. if you have it locked, it has to remove something in order to try and keep frame rate up if it starts to dip). Clouds are usually the first thing to "go". Thus, if you increase your available graphics resources by reducing other graphics settings (reduce quality to increase performance), and/or remove or lower your locked frame rate, you should see much less of this.

OK, thanks for the reply. If I unlock my frame rate (locked at 36fps) though, the frame rates increase to over 60 (in this case), so I don't think it's a graphics resource problem: surely that would only happen if the frame rates were locked higher than FS could manage, not lower? M

Actually, just because you get higher frames in a certain visual scene with unlocked does not mean that it will never dip below. Panning around with clouds for example usually causes a very big dip in frames. This all depends on the current viewpoint. For example looking at sparse undeveloped terrain with no clouds is going to be very fast, while viewing a detailed airport, add-on scenery, AI traffic and clouds all at the same time could be very slow (and if you have a high locked frame rate, clouds will be the first to be culled). Unlocking frames is not the answer to give more priority to clouds, instead you should reduce your locked framerate. For example, one of my development systems gets much better overall performance at a frame lock of 20.

Also Martin - a general rule of thumb - lock your framerate at a number that is a multiple of your refresh rate. For example, most LCD monitors have a refresh rate of 60 so you can lock your frames at 15, 20, 30 etc for best results.So 24 and 36fps are not optimal. Vic

Vic ... I can do that but to be honest I have read so many posts (well, some!) that say this is spurious (and others that swear by it) that one doesn't know who to believe! Where do you get that information? I thought it was an FS 'old wives' tale'. On the other hand, I look on you you of one of the more (most?) 'serious' posters here and will certainly consider whatever you say carefully.. But how do you back this up? I rarely get fps below 36 as locked to be honest. My rig seems to eat FS9 for breakfast, whatever the settings. Even at Heathrow (Aerosoft) with 95% traffic and cloudy skies, I get 36 fps. It's good with FSX too, but clearly that is much more testing (which hardly matters as I only fly FSX once or twice a year - FS9 every day). Thanks for the comments; will adjust my locked fps to refresh rate anyway (30) ... M

Martin - I got it from several sources but mainly in discussions with NickN. It is especially important if you have VSYNC enabled . This is not only true with FSX but many games. Vic

Well, the fps is set to 30 max, but it doesn't help here. As I say, I am sure this is not a resources problem anyway. I have tried as many combinations of settings of AS6.5 as I can (Options - changing settings for maximum number of cloud layers - one to several. for instance, or with this option disabled) but none makes any difference to this particular problem. Nor does changing any of the FS9?Display/Weather settings (draw distance etc.). The problem is really only visible on the ground and in the lowest layers: small clouds that flash partially on and off several times a second and disappear or are drawn more stably as I pan. Does no one else get this? It's sort of a bit like the problem I have with mountains on the horizon (about which I have posted before) in which the tops wobble about like jelly, as FS9 decides between sky or mountain top several times a second. When I get near enough, the wobbling stops. If I reduce sight distances, the ground textures around become blurred (and the mountains still get redrawn just the same anyway). Again, tried everything over the years - settings in FS9.cfg for instance, but to no avail. Same effect on every PC on which I ever ran FS9 (several). Short video of this, here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v68/martinlest/?action=view&current=FS.mp4 Guess I just have to live with these niggles.. Martin

Hi Martin, Please try the AVSIM FS9/hardware forums, there may be some folks who have specific solutions for this that may help you (sprites disappearing excessively). As for the mountains/horizon/tops issue and video, this appears to be normal rendering of the visibility restrictions in FS at that boundary. Have you experimented with adjusting the ASv6 maximum visibility setting perhaps to a high value such as 90sm?

Thanks Damian. I will try increasing the visibility range in AS6 - though it is at 80sm already. I made a few adjustments to other parameters too and things were fine yesterday, cloud-wise (in the skies, flying though them, the clouds are just awesome, it's just on the ground as I say I get this effect) but I don't get the disappearing/flickering clouds on every flight (it's the fact that they flicker that draws attention to the problem of course - if they just disappeared as I panned it wouldn't be so bad), so I can't say whether what I did helped or not. Will post back when I have some idea .. Martin

Still get this - actually sometimes in the air too. Have to live with it I guessM

Something else occurs to me here. The clouds that disappear and flash in and out look very different from my usual nice 3D clouds - they are flat and a slightly different colour. I think you can see on this screenshot - the lower clouds are my normal, 'nice' ones: the higher ones are the 'rogues'. I have AS6.5 but don't use the graphics - I use Flight1's Flight Environment.Does this give anyone any ideas??Martin

Hi all,My first post here and i will try to help you.I had exactly the same problem, with clouds disappearing and appearing as i move my head with track ir.I had a slolution on Simforums, deleting the shaders folders, following instructions i read on this topichttp://www.simforums.com/forums/how-to-get-rid-of-annoying-flashing-clouds_topic24830.htmlGive it a try.Good luck!

Yes, I have seen that before, but it is for FSX, not FS9. sadly ...Thanks for replying anyway. I probably did not make it clear that this is FS9..M.

Does anybody else have this problem? It really is ugly! I am sure it's not a resource problem - the fps is good and I have resource monitors which show plenty of free 'juice' - 3GBs unused physical RAM for a start. I've tried adjusting view/cloud draw distances, but that doesn't seem to be where the problem lies.Here is a short video of what happens. Grateful for more input - I am at a loss now:http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v68/martinlest/?action=view&current=Clouds.mp4Thanks,Martin