EVERYONE PLEASE (ATI 9800 USERS THAT IS),WHEN YOU TRY THIS YOU HAVE TO CLOSE OUT THE FLIGHT SIMULATOR AND LOAD IT BACK UP AGAIN TO REALLY SEE THE IMPROVEMENT. You won't notice too much unless you turn off these settings close out and start FS2k4 back up again....:-ukliam

To do this, what settings should I have with my ATI control panel? Any?

I'm glad to see that I am not insane (or had too many beers :lol ). I am very skeptical of any claims most claims posted and I was very hesitant to post but after seeing such a difference, I figured I'd not be a very good member of the community if I didn't share :-)So, as it is now, it seems like a ATI 9800 thing. I'll post my Omega settings when I get home if it will help.Glad to hear some other success stories!!! :-)Mike T

The FS9 Trilinear/Bilinear/No filtering overrides the control panel setting. I run Trilinear, because I want trilinear filtering even though I run the AF in the control panel on "performance" which would produce Bilinear filtering, but for the override in the FS9 settings. Trilinear/Bilinear filtering is not the same thing as Anistropic Filtering. They do two different things.

Thanks so much Mike for your suggestion, this alone is a remarkable breakthrough to say the least.This is so important of a discovery that most of the major FlightSim sites should let people know about this on their main webpages. I have a different sim now and it would be nice if everyone knew about this... :-eekI would put this on the same level as going from Windows ME to Windows XP. Truely amazing find.... :-)

Mike, Dillon,Funny. On my system it doesn't make a difference at all. I have a Radeon 9800Pro 128 MB using Windows XP and the latest Omega drivers. Performance is and stays good independent whether I use bilinear, trilinear filtering or none.Best regards,Henri

Okay I did a little test. I have a 9700Pro and my settings in the ATI control panel as as follow:Anti-Aliasing: 4XAnisotropic Filtering: 8XQualityTexture Pref.: High QualityMipmap Detail Level: High QualityWait for Verteical Sync: Always OnTRUFORM: Applic. Pref....these are the settings I would be most interested in knowing from the people reporting high FPS gains. My testing was done like this. I loaded the PMDG at Gatwick (OSS), clear weather, same runway and same time. Absolutely no difference in the sim conditions. I loaded fs9 with Trilinear off and got a steady 18.5 FPS. I then quit and loaded fs9 and set it on. I then quit and loaded it again and sat at the same runway and got the same FPS as before. I did this three times and there was no difference visualy or FPS wise. So obviously something is up with the people reporting high FPS and would very much like to hear what their settings are....edit; it's important to say that I did not fly anywhere, but just sitting there at the runway for two minutes, and got the readout from using the average framerate counter (shift+z)using the setting that you can switch on in fs9.cfg

I have 9800 pro and if I turn off filtering, FS looks like crap, textures become all blocky. Must be something else going on here too.Using latest Omega drivers.Matt

Here's what I would like to know from the people reporting improved FPS...just so that we can get to the bottom of this and we can all reap the fruits of this find. :)Just sit at an airport runway that is pretty hard on your framerates. Maybe use the setting in fs9.cfg so that you can report the average framerate. Make sure it's exactly the same conditions for both situations. Now write your settings that you have in your Ati control panel and report the difference in FPS. Or is this not a good way to test this...according to the findings you should see an increase in FPS, no?

Guys I think this first of all may be partial to users who have ATI 9800 XT video cards. I can't see any other difference. Also don't go by the framerate counter, fly around and you'll see the difference. My framerate counter reports only a slight gain but the sim is smooth as silk now even in the busiest areas. Like I said before, all the Simflyers sceneries (KLAX, KORD, KDFW, etc.) no longer have the framerate problem they had before.I'm in sim heaven over here... :-hah

Hi.Bi and or Tri linear filtering Does have an effect on the way the scenery looks. You may or may not like it. Try flying into the Sunset around 20:00 on August day, with it on or off. Do a flight from KSNA to KLGB. TV

Still would be nice though to know your settings in the Ati control panel...plus just before you said you got a huge FPS improvement and now you say you don't??

>Guys I think this first of all may be partial to users who>have ATI 9800 XT video cards. I can't see any other>difference. Also don't go by the framerate counter, fly>around and you'll see the difference. My framerate counter>reports only a slight gain but the sim is smooth as silk now>even in the busiest areas. Like I said before, all the>Simflyers sceneries (KLAX, KORD, KDFW, etc.) no longer have>the framerate problem they had before.>>I'm in sim heaven over here... :-hah>I have ATI 9800XT too. Can you post your ati control panel settings? AF, AA, etc.? Thanks

Here is a screenshot of my Graphic settings for my Radeon XT.In MSFS I've got all sliders to the right except for 90 mile visibility and clouds. MSFS Anti-aliasing is OFF and Filtering is OFF.My textures are CRISP, did I say my textures are CRISP? Also, I have clear and crisp textures out to the horizon. Clouds look spectacular with AS2004.5 and the new higher resolution clouds from FSW.

Okay so it looks like you have 4xAA and 16xAF with Performance selected. Just out of curiosity, what does the sliders to the right of AA and AF do, and the A.I. menu?