Does everyone see taxiway line shimmering and movement? I always have and wondered if there is a way to make the lines appear straight and still.I just installed nvidia 61.11 drivers for XP from guru3d.com but that did not help either.Thanks,Richard

Hi,I use an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro video card. I run my FS2004 sim at a resolution of 1600x1200 and I set my video card driver to 4x AA(Anti-Aliasing, or FSAA, Full Screen Anti-Aliasing). It cuts down on the 'jaggies' a lot. In other words it makes the lines appear a lot more straight, and still. AA does this by smoothing out the edges of lines that are being drawn at a diagonal angle. On a somewhat rare occasion, I lose AA while flying or taxiing in the sim(there are ways to get it to come back without restarting the sim). When this happens the taxiways lines get the 'jaggies'(or stair stepping) and appear to shimmer when I'm moving around.If you are wondering what I mean by 'set my video card driver to 4x AA' here is how I do it(for an ATI card).Uncheck Anti-Alising in the sim(Hardare Tab). Right click on my desktop --> Properties --> Settings Tab --> Advanced button --> 3D Tab --> Check 'Use custom settings' --> Custom button --> Uncheck 'Application Preference' for Anti-Aliasing --> Move slider to 4x.So no, you're probably not the only one experiencing what you describe. Using a high resolution and/or some AA helps aleviate this. If using a high resolution in conjuction with AA then you get better results. The lower your resolution and amount of AA then the more you will see the jaggie lines and their appearance of shimmering. In other words the higher your resolution and the higher your AA setting is the less you will see what you have described.A line in a 3D space that is being drawn on screen perfectly vertical or horizontal will not have any jagged edges and appear perfectly straight. But once that line begins to be drawn at a diagonal angle then jaggies(or stair stepping) will appear on the lines edges.Hope that helps,Jim

Jim,One question. Why not using 6x AA, instead of 4x? Other question: How should anisotropic fits into this equation? Thanks in advance.... (btw, I am also suffering this 'jaggies').Regards,GabrielATI Radeon 9800 PRO, 128 MB, latest cat.

Hi Gabriel,The reason I'm not using 6x AA is for performance reasons. Enabling AA takes resources by your video card in the form of multisampling(by virtually all modern video cards) the lines. The higher you turn up the AA, the more multisampling that is done and the slower your video processing/rendering gets done at. You get a higher quality look at the cost of rendering performance. If you turn your resolution down then you video card doesn't work as hard, so you could turn your AA up, thereby slowing the video card back down again. It's all about trade-offs and personal preference. I have settled on 1600x1200 res with 4X AA. If I were to turn my AA up to 6x I would lose some FPS. My FPS is already as low as it can go and still be acceptable, for my taste.I have never researched nor understood Anisotropic Filtering(AF) like I have AA. It may come into play here, especially if the taxiway lines have a texture on them, as AF sharpens textures(less blurry). Anyway, I'm not sure if AF would help in regards to the topic of this thread. Perhaps someone else can explain whether using AF would help the taxiway lines shimmer less. Any takers? I really think the most important feature available to help aleviate this effect is AA though as I doubt that AF would help lessen the jaggies on the edges of lines.Gabriel, I can't help but wonder a little about why you are suffering from the 'jaggies'? You have a 9800 Pro. I have 9700 Pro and don't really suffer from the jaggies much using the settings I have already mentioned. Are you not using any AA? Btw, I use 16x Quality AF(you can select between 'Quality' and 'Performance').Now, when the newer video cards come around, the Nvidia 6800 and the ATI X800, users of those cards will probably be able to turn up their AA to 6x or 8x or whatever and still enjoy extremely good performance. The reason I say this is I have read that the ATI X800 is capable of high amounts of AA with much less impact on performance compared to current video cards. And I would imagine the same is true of the Nvidia 6800.I have been waiting to see what folks have to say about using these new cards for FS2004 and I see that we have one person on this forum that has gotten one and posted about it, btacon. The post is pretty short and from a quick first impression. It can be viewed here...http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=192383Hopefully the performance and image quality of these newer cards will improve over time as the manufacturer's update the drivers for them. I don't know about you but I am definitely interested in getting one of these newfangled cards! ;-) I don't think I'll be one of the early adopters though, meaning I will probably wait a few months before getting one. Hmmmm, my birthday is almost exactly 3 months away. What might I be asking for my birthday eh!? Hehe.Cheers,JimMy System Specs:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB Muskin '222' Special PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard with v4.2 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 120 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HD, WinXP Pro SP1

Hello Again Gabriel,I just found this in a review on www.guru3d.com on the 9800 XT. The part I'm pasting in seems to mostly talk about the 9800 Pro, which is what you have. And of course it also pertains to the 9800 XT. From what it says perhaps folks with a 9800 Pro or 9800 XT could use 6x AA with less of a performance hit than what I would experience on my 9700 Pro.I want to end by saying that I have had my 9700 Pro for almost a year and a half and it has served me very well. It was pretty expensive when I got it but it has been worth every penny. Smoothvision 2.1----------------Next to the Radeon 9700 pro, the 9800 Pro and XT have a small upgrade in it's Smoothvision technology. Smoothvision is a driver setting that allows you to handle Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering techniques. The Radeon 9800 Pro can handle up-to 6x Anti Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering which is really nice.

Hi Jim,Thank you so much ! Your explanations are, as always, very clear and helpful. Ok, what i see from reading your post is that you have a monitor capable of a high resolution. Mine only goes up to 1280x1024 / 32 (viewsonic E70F, 17"). That is why I'm always using 6xAA, but of course at the cost of some performance. I'm gone turn it down to 4x and see what happens, but this time at the cost, I think, of more "jaggies". In any case, 6x AA does not help to reduce the problem regardless of my ATI 9800 Pro. I run FS with EVERTYTHING maxed. I use Ultimate Traffic as well. Apart from the monitor, my system is ok: PIV, 2.8 HTT, 1gb Ram (Kingstone PC3600), MoBo Intel 875P, 80GB HD (7200 RPM), Audigy2, etc. I'm thinking the monitor is the cause of the trouble !!!! Thanks again for your message. Gabriel.

Hi Gabriel,Yes, my monitor is a 22 inch monitor capable of 1600x1200 at a refresh rate of 85 Hz. It is capable of higher resolutions, but at a lower refresh rate. The manual for my monitor said the optimal setting was 1600x1200 at 85 Hz, so that's what I go with. Even though you are running at a slightly lower resolution than me I am surprised that you seem to be suffering from the jaggies since you are using 6x AA. Maybe it could be a problem with the monitor, but I would have a very strong tendency to think that the problem would not be with the monitor and instead be somewhere else. Are you sure you have 'Anti-Aliasing' unchecked in FS2004 and have 'Application Preference' unchecked in your display properties?I also run FS2004 with nearly everything maxed. I have, esentially, three things that aren't maxed. Terrain Mesh Complexity is at 85%, Scenery Complexity is at Very Dense, and Autogen is at Very Dense(and I also use a file in the Avsim library named 'fs9xml.zip'). I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of screenshots from you if you could post them. Here's a few of mine.Regards,Jim

One suggestion that may or may not help:I also have a 9800 Pro. Most of the time the view is dandy, but rarely, I have also seen the jaggies, particularly with certain 3rd party aircraft probably originated in old age formats. The following has lined them out for me.I don't know what settings you use, but try this and see what happens. Bring your screen up in the Windows mode, and to really see the Jaggies use spot view with a plane position that really shows your Jaggies on the top line of the aircraft. Then go to "Views" and check the full screen mode. Then push shift + alternate and again go to "Views" and remove the check mark from full screen mode and go back to windows mode. Don't know the techinal reasons why this works, but it does for me if I ever get the Jaggies. (You can choose which ever view you prefer).Hope this or something someone else has to say helps.RTH

Jim,What type of add-ons are you running? Your sim looks beautiful. Do you have any add-on buildings or other textures? My friend owns a fx5950 ultra w/ 1 gb ram and a 3.2 p4 and his computer doesn't show the building textures very well. Yours looks like you don't get a lot of texture overlapping like I've noticed on his computer.

Anisotropic Filtering, explained:"Anisotropic filtering (AF) is a feature of some video cards that sharpens the details of the fading-away part of a 3D object that recedes into the distance. Think of the text in the titles at the beginning of the Star Wars movies that is presented in large letters and then scrolls back into the distance. As it scrolls off, it becomes fuzzy and hard to read. In a 3D image, you may want a comparable effect to retain the sharpness of an object as it recedes; anisotropic filtering does this. (Isotropic describes objects or image elements with vectors of equal value along different axes, such as squares and cubes. Anisotropic describes objects whose vectors are unequal, such as trapezoids and parallelograms.) Since anisotropic filtering requires intense processing as image frames are presented to the display, it may affect performance. A user may want to weigh the perceived improvement in visual quality against the effect on performance."Also, if you want to reduce shimmering try reducing your mip level in your settings within FS.Hope this helps!:)

Hello Alex,Thank you very much for the compliment on my screenshots! They're just screenshots but I really like it when people compliment on them. :DMy main addons are FSGenesis Mesh and Landclass for the Continental US(portal.fsgenesis.net). I have a few addon textures installed. Gerrish's trees library(trees_v3.zip) by Gerrish Gray, Red-Brown Night Texture Fix(red-brown_night_texture_fix.zip) by Carlyle Sharpe. In the third shot, of the HJG 707 taking off at Denver International(dia2004v11.zip) by Gary Widup, I probably had a texture installed that adds some black lines to the taxiway lines and I think it changes the shade of the yellow on them a little. Nowadays I use Airport Enviroment Upgrade 6.0(aeu6.zip) by Chris Arrington(changes the textures of default airports only, not addon airports). And then of course I have my FS9.cfg tweaked from info I gathered on here on the forum. You can see what they are in the 'FS2004 and WinXP Optimization Guide V2' which is in the Hardware Discussion section. I don't have any 'texture overlapping' that I know of. Seems to me that everything appears in the sim way that it should.But the biggest thing you are seeing in those first two screenshots is a very very beautiful addon airport(payware), Miami International by www.flytampa.com All the buildings, taxiways, and I believe the ground textures around that airport are all non-default.All the addons I have mentioned be it payware or freeware are awesome additions!Thanks again Alex, :)JimSystem Specs:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB Muskin '222' Special PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard with v4.2 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 250 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDD, WinXP Pro SP1

Actually what caught my eye was not the beautiful airport scenery at first, but downtown. I could see the buildings extremely clear. I'll have to check out the airport environment upgrade 6 again, maybe I can tweak my friends computer so it doesn't slow it down too much, I do remember it looking much better than the default.Thanks again for the tips

Hi Alex,Well, you won't get any argument from me, I think the downtown in that screenshot looks really beautiful. But it's just the default downtown Maimi(other than maybe the FSGenesis US Landclass changes it slightly, I'm not sure).When I use AEU 6.0, I get a micropause whenever I pan my view around and an airport comes into view during the panning. It's annoying, but only slightly so. And I don't mind too much because I think what AEU 6.0 does for the default airports is worth it. With the recent upgrade I had to do to my computer system I think the micropause is even just a little bit shorter in duration, which is of course nice.Cheers,Jim