i'm officially in with the fs9 boys ;-)however,i'm having a bit of trouble:i've installed fs2004 again after reading a tip about the 56.72'sthat supposedly help performance.well,they do,but,i'm getting a lot of shimmering in the distance.i have tried every combination i can think off,except one:i could not use the patchscripts with rivatuner,it doesn't work,so i cannot set a negative lod...anybody know what to do?i've searched the forums already,tried a lot of tips,like reducing mipmaps,running more aa/af etc,but to no avail.Mark,as you pointed me in the direction,you provide the fix,before this becomes my "Dark Moment" :-xxrotflmao j/ki'm running an AMD1800 with 512MB RAM and a GF4 TI4200,on winxp pro with sp1.any thoughts appreciated,as i cannot fly a normal approach now,everything shimmers :-( ...maybe i ought to buy the PMDG 737? :-lol ...cheers

<<<>>>Oh dear .... well, you get what you pay for when taking my advice, obviously!I can't begin to analyse your own particular problem, Tom, as I wouldn't know a patchscript-rivatuner-negative-lod if it hit me on the head.You can always go back to your old drivers ....I think I agree, however, that I am getting what seems to my uneducated brain to be 'more jaggies' or less anti-aliasing, or whatever, based on the same settings. But I'm so happy to have doubled my frame rates that I don't give a monkey's uncle about it really. Priorities, priorities .... ... however, if someone has comments about funny things that the 56.72s do, please say. One thing I have noticed recently (although I'm not sure when it started, and I'm not about to uninstall these drivers to find out) is that my Microsoft waves suddenly seem to be lapping the shore like poodles on heat. They seem to be going twice as fast as they were ... I'd be happy just to kill them as I think they look silly anyway, but how? I have my water effects on LOW as my card does not support DX9's water effects.MarkMark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

Tom,There are always things you can do to "tweak" the system. One thing that will cause shimmers at least in the clouds is have the sight distance and clouds go out past 120 miles on sight and cloud draw go out to the max of 80 miles. I now have my sight distance set to 80, cloud draw out to 60 and I have my visibility set to a max of 60. I have no shimmers.The other thing you may want to check out, which I did for the first time, I went to the 3D Guru site and got the new beta nVidia driver 60.72's. I had heard on the forums that it worked very well with the G4 4200 card which I have also. Until something major happens I am not changing drivers, this is the best and most stable driver I have EVER had.And Yes you should go buy the PMDG 737, I am getting 18-20fps locked at 20 with the new PMDG 737-800 almost with any type of scenery and clouds. Needless to say I am a happy camper.CheersBob

>i'm officially in with the fs9 boys ;-)>>however,i'm having a bit of trouble:>i've installed fs2004 again after reading a tip about the>56.72's>that supposedly help performance.>well,they do,but,i'm getting a lot of shimmering in the>distance.>i have tried every combination i can think off,except one:>i could not use the patchscripts with rivatuner,it doesn't>work,so i cannot set a negative lod...>anybody know what to do?>i've searched the forums already,tried a lot of tips,like>reducing mipmaps,running more aa/af etc,but to no avail.>>Mark,as you pointed me in the direction,you provide the>fix,before this becomes my "Dark Moment" :-xxrotflmao j/k>>i'm running an AMD1800 with 512MB RAM and a GF4 TI4200,on>winxp pro with sp1.>>any thoughts appreciated,as i cannot fly a normal approach>now,everything shimmers :-( ...>maybe i ought to buy the PMDG 737? :-lol ...>>cheersHmmmm, 512 eh? Not enough by half! Lookie here, ask around (search) for the memory specs for WinXP. Far's I remember the first 256meg you have is pretty well taken up by the op sys. That leaves 256 for FS and that ain't enuf. Boost yer mem up to a gig and you'll see far better performance from FS and also overall on your sys. I say this particularly from bitter experience. I bought another game last year and it wouldn't work. I had 512 at that time. I finally traded it off to a friend; has the same system as mine was but he wanted to try it out. Well, first thing HE did was boost his memory up and, "Voila!" as the French say. I went right out and bought another 512 and have had no trouble since. My Train Sim went from 17fps to 28fps and I regularly get more than 28 to 60fps in FS2004. (It varies, depending on plane and scenery in the moment.)

Might be wrong about this, but I think shimmers are caused by running high mips with high AF. Your best results (in terms of shimmers) should be with highest mip setting, lowest (or off) AF. If you like the visual appearance with AF enable, then shimmers can be improved by turning on (or up) AA, and reducing mip level.It's been a while since I've fiddled with these, so I may be gray on a detail or two, but my memory tells me this is what I had experienced...someone jump in if i've swapped my AA and AFs or something like that...Best,sg

hi guys,thanks for the comments,i'll test 'm all out tomorrow(just so i don't kill the queens birthday here in holland,i'll stay home and fiddle with fs :-lol )i dunno,i do not have any stuttering trouble or annoying hangs,it stays at 20fps,no matter what plane i fly,it only drops in thunderstorms to 15 or so.i'm not frantically trying to get fps,i have it off,as i only want a smooth sim,nothing more,so instead of cranking everything to max,i am quite conservative.then again,i'm not going for the highest detail possible.i've got sight at 60mls,clouds at 40mls,and 3d clouds at max.also i currently have af at 2 and aa at 2,but increasing or decreasing didn't work.i'll get the omega's,to see if i can apply a negative lod with those,as with nvidia's driver it does not work.and Mark,i sincerely hope you will not be hit by a rivatuner-negativelod in the head...they're quite heavy,and would surely make for a "Dark Moment" ;-)cheers guys,and thanks for sharing,

Hi Tom,I have the same card, the same drivers, and all is well with the following settings:InFS9:MipMap = 4AA = OffTrilinear = yesIn the card properties:AA = 2AF = 4Have fun on Koninginnedag!Groet

thanks Bert,i'll give that a shot ;-)don't you go near Amsterdam,as i'll kick a party there ;-)cheers

(Quote) -- Hmmmm, 512 eh? Not enough by half! Lookie here, ask around (search) for the memory specs for WinXP. Far's I remember the first 256meg you have is pretty well taken up by the op sys. That leaves 256 for FS and that ain't enuf. Boost yer mem up to a gig and you'll see far better performance from FS (END QUOTE)-------------Maybe - but I am running much lower spec than the initial one posted - PIII 1Ghz, 384mb RAM, Radeon 9600Pro and WinXP Pro. The performance I get in FS is fairly good - I must have it tweaked just right, because for a lot of people who complain about their performance with a high end system - I think the performance I am getting with no stutters in FS9 is great. I don't have any shimmering textures either.

Tom, I only fly through Schiphol when I go to visit my mother who lives in Oldenzaal.. :-)

>Tom, I only fly through Schiphol when I go to visit my mother>who lives in Oldenzaal.. :-) well...not to brag...but you are one lucky dude then ;-)afa the 512 thingy:i could put in a new stick,but i won't.i have smooth simming,only the flickering drives me nuts,andi firmly believe it has to do with the mipmap-lod thingy,or something like that,and not my 512mb ram.it runs great,no stutters,no lags,so i really don't see the need.cheers guys

Quote: ""Maybe - but I am running much lower spec than the initial one posted - PIII 1Ghz, 384mb RAM, Radeon 9600Pro and WinXP Pro. The performance I get in FS is fairly good - I must have it tweaked just right, because for a lot of people who complain about their performance with a high end system - I think the performance I am getting with no stutters in FS9 is great. I don't have any shimmering textures either.""Yes, but you're running an ATI card. Just plug it in; load the drivers, max out most of the cards settings and go! Result, nice framerates, smooth performance, great pic quality with no jaggies or alaising. No tweaking necessary. Unlike those other cards that are optimized to run benchmarks fast rather than perform well when running games. BTW; I'm running 512mb ram and it's just fine as soon as I change the textures back to standard flightsim DXT3wMips textures. I'm running FS9 "the way it way meant to be played".