I know this may be a bit out of topic here, but the hardware forum isnot that active as this one.I replaced my old (old? I only had it for 1 year!) nVidia Ti4200 with an ASUS VGA with the ATI Radeon 9600XT.My first impression was : WOW! FS is smooth as silk now, the fps doubled and stutters almost dissapeared! And it's much more quite! The fan on the Ti4200 was like a small turboprop (was a Creative board). This one is quite!Anyway, I have a rather strange problem. I had it before with the Ti4200 and I tend to believe that it's DirectX 9 or FS to blame but I was to be sure.I'm always flying full sreen and at the same resolution as I have my desktop (1024x768x32). When I switch back to desktop to work with SB or similar FS utils, when I go back into the sim, the outside view is black. Nothing shown. I have to press ALT twice to bring up and hide the menu bar so that the view is refreshed. In the meantime the panel continues to work normally! I'm using the latest Catalyst drivers from ATI.The same thing was happening with the Detonator 53.xx series of drivers on the Ti4200, only then it was worse. Not even the panel was 'live'. With those I had to revert to windowed mode and back to full screen to get the panel and view working again. However, this did not occur with the Detonator 41.09.I tend to think that it's Direct3D to blaim because the 53.xx are DirectX 9 certified and use the Dx9 interface, while the 41.09 are not and were using the Dx8 interface.The Catalyst drivers are also Dx9 certified.Anyone else flying full screen and has the same problem? Is there any solution?I'm using DirectX9.0b. A friend that has a 9700 with DirectX9.0a does not have this problem. Also note I'm using the driver's option for x4 FSAA and x4 Antialising. Antiallising and mip mapping are OFF inside FS.Thanks!George DorkofikisAthens, Greece

Hi George,While I've never experienced that problem myself, if you've experienced it with two entirely different video cards, then the source of the problem probably resides elsewhere, perhaps in your BIOS settings. You might check out FlightSim's dedicated Audio/Video forum.http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/cgi/dcforu...&conf=DCConfID1Be prepared to provide more detailed info about your system.Good luck.-- WaltRunning FS2004 at 1280x1024x32Intel Pentium 4, 2.0 GHzWindows XP Pro512MB PC800 RDRAM,8100128MB ATI Radeon 9600 ProCATALYST Windows XP 3.10 video driverDirectX 9.0bViewSonic A90f+ 19 inch CRT MonitorSound Blaster Audigy2 ZSCreative I-Trigue 2.1 3300 SpeakersMS ForceFeedback 2 joystick

George,If you hit the "windows" key on your keyboard it will take you back to your desktop and you will not have this problem. Don't try to ALT+TAB.This is a common problem. I was frustrated by it when I first loaded FS9. Finally somone found this very simple solution. It works every time.

Yes, two different cards, different drivers, same bios settings, and one commong thing. DirectX9.0b.But the behaviour of the cards was quite different.On the Ti4200 the whole screen froze and nothing could make it come alive again except going into windowed mode and back to full screen.On the Radeon9600XT, only the outside view is black while the panelis updated normally. Great opportunity for real IFR if you fly at night and don't notice it! I was flying about 1hr with no outside view and didn't even notice it!My system specs are as follows:PIV 2.4Ghz/533FSB, 512Mb DDR 533 RAM, ASUS Radeon 9600XT/128MbWindows XP Pro, ATI Catalyst 4.1, DirectX 9.0b, SB Audigy.Haven't tried FS2004 yet. I noticed this problem in FS2002. I will also try FS2004.Thanks for the forum link, I will check it out.FYI, I have already filed a report to ATI to see what they say.Maybe they can fix it as they fixed so many other things.George DorkofikisAthens, Greece

I'll try that as well...ThanksGeorge DorkofikisAthens, Greece

Yes.. The little trick worked!I also found what is causing this behaviour. But I don't know the source. I'll leave this to ATI to sort out.If I set SmoothVision to x4, no matter what I have for the AntiAlliasing, the black screen occurs when returning to the sim.If I turn it off, everything is ok!!!I tent to think that this is indeed a DirectX problem, because on my previous Ti4200 I got the almost the same problem and I remember I also had the similar option to x4 !!!Thanks for the Tip! It will take some time to change the ALT-TAB habit but since it works...! George DorkofikisAthens, Greece