OK thanks, but I still think there is clearly something wrong here. May GPU does simply not perform as it should. I used nickn's inspector settings now, with 8xSQ and forced 16x AF, These settings cause exactly the same stutters in bad weather as the Super-VCAA Setting, setting AF to app controlled again does ease it up a bit, but according to Tabs from PMDG Support AF is virtually for free on modern cards.During my test i had GPU-Z running and despite the major stutters I got the GPU load and memory usage never went above 75% and 375MB of VRAM.

If you keep up with Ryan's (Tabs) post, you'll see that he went back on his settings and now suggest 4xS. I had asked Ryan a few times to stress how xQS can stress lower end cards. Your 550Ti especially. No AA comes for free. Especially higher AA like xQS methods. AF doesn't come for free, either (since you mentioned it!)To see the correlation between performance and AA, try and understand how the different methods work. Imagine the card having to redraw the image you see over and over with some complicated math to get rid of jaggies. Of course this is accomplished in different ways per method.

Edited January 29, 201214 yr by ZachLW

I got your point, but speaking of low-end: I had a GTS250 with 512MB of RAM before, I could run FSX with forced 16x AF and 8xSQ AA (exactly nickn's settings) at little FPS cost, especially the AF setting had almost no impact on performance, with a difference of maybe 2 FPS if any, I latereven used the SuperVCAA-Setting with that card. On my GTX550Ti now, forced 16x renders the sim unflyable, which is odd because its still FSX, I still use REX clouds and textures and FSX is more of a CPU-eater than GPU.I later replaced that card because of the lack of VRAM and a loud fan. I still have that one here and will give it a test soon....

I got your point, but speaking of low-end: I had a GTS250 with 512MB of RAM before, I could run FSX with forced 16x AF and 8xSQ AA (exactly nickn's settings) at little FPS cost, especially the AF setting had almost no impact on performance, with a difference of maybe 2 FPS if any, I latereven used the SuperVCAA-Setting with that card. On my GTX550Ti now, forced 16x renders the sim unflyable, which is odd because its still FSX, I still use REX clouds and textures and FSX is more of a CPU-eater than GPU.I later replaced that card because of the lack of VRAM and a loud fan. I still have that one here and will give it a test soon....

That's very odd. Do you still have the old card? I would stick it back in and confirm. In the mean time, try rolling back to the 275.xx driver. A lot of people are swearing by them.Keep us posted!

I replaced my card with my old one today and it is as I suspected: since I hace higher settings in FSX, AA performance is not much changed from what I have seen with my 550Ti, with dense clouds and Super-VCAA Setting I get about 7 FPS which is low, and also the stutters occur for some reason. However, they do not at 4xS, and in this mode the GTS250 Performance is way higher than with my 550Ti, and as I said, AF forced at x16 has virtually no impact with my old card.The worse Performance of the newer card is also evident in furmark, where xtreme burning mode runs with 8 FPS at the GTS250 and 5 with the other one.....I think I will return the 550Ti to the seller now as the problem with AF is easily reproducable with any games...

Edited February 1, 201214 yr by Soulflight