I'd just like to say thank you to the good folks at ATI for finally releasing a driver I can get behind.

For months now, I've dealt with the phantom 'cloud FPS hit' from my HD 4850, which pissed me off mightily. FSX with an nVidia card just looks like crud to me, mainly because the color pallette is all wrong. nVidia's looks like a Ted Turner-colorized film where ATI's just looks...real.

So, finally, I downloaded the latest 9.9 driver this afternoon after a complete reformat of my machine and HOLY CRAP THIS LOOKS GREAT and I can now fly through weather without dipping into the single digits.

So, great work by ATI and the Catalyst team. Be sure to download the driver only because the CCC just gets slower with age.

pfunk

I wish my HD 4870 would perform better in clouds. I am running 9.9 too, are you using DX9 or DX10? I am also using REX 2.0 & wish I could get frames to improve, since its has been so cloudy around our parts these days, love to fly with "current" weather.....

SlackAdjuster

I've got DX10 turned off. It doesn't look all that much better.

I'm using stock weather conditions and I'm testing a flight from Meacham to Bergstrom.

Flying in the kind of weather we have right now used to put me in single digits. In cockpit, I was getting about 15-18 fps.

pfunk

Is the FPS gain with Clouds confirmed by others as well with these new Drivers on the 4800 Series Cards?

I'd like to get some confirmation before I switch drivers yet again.

This was the reason for me to lose my faith in the combination of an ATI video card and FSX. Traded my 4850 in for a 9800GTX+ then. Both cards are besically equal, but the NVidia one didn't display any frame rate hits at all when in heavy weather.

Glad to hear that ATI has apparently finally fixed that problem though.

Yet, I still think a NVidia card is the better partner for FSX.

I obtained a significant improvement in frame rates when I switched to nHancer and Nick's detailed instructions on settings for that and in the sim.

NickN's Windows and FSX setup tutorials are essential reads anyways. They excellently cover all the tweaking possibilities.

Unfortunately "NHancer" does nothing for us ATI owners...

But ATI Tray Tools does.

Yes it does! Ray's utility is in many users' opinion much superior to ATI's own card setting utility, and choose not to install it. On my other computer with an TI card, Tray Tools provides great access to all the settings most people would want to tweak, in an very economical environment.
(being free is also a plus!)

Thinking of upgrading to a 5850 when availible...

Anyone else getting good results with the 9.9's???

Ok, my thoughts. I wish I could agree with the original poster, but I can't.

This may sound like a rant, but its not. These are my opinions only and I am sharing them because they are on topic, and I would like to advise anyone considering a purchase of a video card for use with FSX.

I have been an ATI Booster since I got rid of my 3dfx Voodoo 3 card and got an Radeon 7000, and I have bought "a card a year" from them since then, but the one I have now will be the last, and its days are numbered.

First, a little about my current system. Its an Intel Quad CPU @2.66Ghz w/8 gigs of RAM. Its running and ATI 4650 w/1 gig on the card. The O/S is Vista 64 bit. The system was professionally built for me.

Heres the thing. Red Orchestra? Awesome - looks and plays great at crazy resolutions and frame rates. All of my NFS and other road games? Fantastic. Legacy games, like Janes WWII and Panzer Elite? Great, just great.

However, and its a big however; volumetric clouds in IL2? Nope. Detailed clouds in FSX? No way. Period. In both cases, I can turn clouds off, turn everything else up to max, fill the terrain with all kinds of stuff, and its great, with very high frame rates, but, turn on the clouds, and its over. With the clouds on, even if I turn the rest of the stuff down, my frame rates are in the teens at best.

Others I know with similar rigs and Nvidia cards are simply not having this problem. A trouble ticket to AMD gets the response that, to get to the point, FSX is no longer in production and so although they have heard the reports of these problems, they are not going to re-engineer their drivers to fix them. Thats their decision, and I'm going to make mine.

So, do some hunting on the forums on this issue, I have, and I am done with ATI/AMD.

The original poster sees a huge difference between the previous drivers and the 9.9s, I see no difference whatsoever. It is not a "phantom problem" it is a known issue, and I doubt very strongly it is going to get fixed.

I only wish I had done this research before I spec'd my rig - I could have saved myself a lot of grief and frustration.

My 2 cents....

OK, my second edit. Writing all this down made me pull the plug, and go Nvidia. While I am awaiting my free cookie, I have to tell you I really cannot believe the difference, and NO tweaking required. Wow - I really had no idea.

Anyways, I took my old card and THREW IT TO THE GROUND! Welcome to the real world, ATI!

Tab

edited to correct card type, I said 4600, its actually a 4650..

edited a second time to express my delight.