After installing several programs that swapped out cloud textures, I find I am left with some combination that causes horrible stuttering, even though I selected the option for low res clouds. I'm done spending time on the addons in question and I just want to go back to a simple set of low res clouds. I know there used to be some but now I can't seem to find such a file. Does anyone have any suggestions? ThanksDavid Lee

even i tried all sorts of combinations to get some nice clouds, unfortunately i just went and ticked 2D clouds in the FS option to solve my stuttering and poor frame rate performance with 3D clouds.

If you have an Nvidia card of reasonable power - 6600 or above, install the 91.47 beta drivers, engage transparent AA at Multisampling level thriough the card menu options, then use the normal quality clouds with 100% 3d cloud settings. No further problem.Allcott

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately I have an ATI 800XT PE so I'm not sure that this could apply in my case. I've tried other drivers without much luck. All my textures are loading slowly now but it seems to be the clouds that cause the most problem - stutters that are just unbearable while it loads cloud textures. Very frustrating!DavidDell XPS P4 3.6ghz, ATI 800XT PE, 2gb SDRAM

ATi's equivalent is adaptive AA. Try that.Allcott

have you tried Chris Will's cloud sets? They are unbeatable as freeware.http://fsw.simflight.com/FSWdownload.htmlsherm

Alcott, first, how are you? I hope all is well. I do have a question. Wouldn't 100% 3D clouds setting be more demanding than say at 50%? Or is there a good setting between an Nvidia card and in the sim itself? As you see below in my sig, I have a good system, but I am looking to make things as good as they can be. I have yet to find the right solution.I think I saw another thread on this, but can't remember. Thanks for your input.

For another option for low res clouds do a search here in the library for "Bart Dylkiewicz". He has a number of options available.Greg

from a pure technical point, the slow-down you are experiencing is from your GPU trying its best to calculate all the vertex position relative to your plane (view). What this means is, even if you use lower res textures, this calcuation will still exist...and unless you have a powerful GPU, this problem will remain. Texture sizes doesn't do much....as the vertex number is dependent on how much clouds are in the scene, not what textures are used (all clouds are on a single sheet). These clouds are texture spirits filling up an invisible polygon box(s)....Using special built in features such as Adoptive AA, etc can help, but those are card-specific.Your best bet is to reduce the cloud coverage down or upgrade your video-card. It doesn't really make a difference if you use a 256 vs a 64x64 sheet. Again, alpha textures of any kind is very GPU intensive. Even a single cloud close to you will bring a weak GPU to its knees...from overdraw as well.i'm guessing you are getting very good (20+) fps, but when clouds appear, it drops down dramatically (10 or lower)? If that's the case, texture sizes won't make much of a difference....you'll need a better v-card. -feng

>Alcott, first, how are you? I hope all is well. I do have a>question. Wouldn't 100% 3D clouds setting be more demanding>than say at 50%? Or is there a good setting between an Nvidia>card and in the sim itself? As you see below in my sig, I have>a good system, but I am looking to make things as good as they>can be. I have yet to find the right solution.>I think I saw another thread on this, but can't remember.>Thanks for your input.Doing fine, thanks Jeff. There's a more complete topic on the `new` transparent AA settings for the lesser Nvidia cards here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=17151&page=and http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=17170&page=2As you proabbly know, by default the lower end GForce cards cannot anti-alias alpha textures. So when you have a large quantity of alpha textures on screen (like clouds) you can run into GPU processing problems as the card has to calculate the AA for the non-alpha, then display the alpha textures. This is obviously improved when you use the 2d clouds. But with the newer drivers, you can now turn on transparent AA under the Nvidia Control Panel, and use either `multisampling` or `supersampling` to finally allow AA of alpha textures in GeForce cards. At this point, the advantage of the split between 2d and 3d cards becomes much less - in testing on my very mid-range AMD Athlon 64 3000/MSI K8N Neo 3/6600GT combo the fps difference is just 1 fps between part-3d and 100% 3d clouds, when using Supersampling. Allo ther things being equal. And the IQ is so much better whether I use Multisampling or Supersampling that I was able to reduce anisotropic filtering to a lower level, which eliminates the fps impact completely with no loss of quality. You may even find that the in-sim Anti-Aliasing checkbox is now useable as on a couple of rigs, with the transparent AA setting in the card control panel and the standard AA mode set to Application Controlled, the IQ has been better than with 4x AA set by the card, but with no fps hit. That may differ depending on the card in use, so do experiment for yourself. All in all a major step forward for pre 7xxx-series GF card owners, as it improves anything with dynamic shine, finally gets rid of tree `shimmering` and autogen flicker - and allows much higher mipmap levels without any texture problems that I can see. Just try it and see if it works for you!Allcott