Catalyst 3.9 are the dogs b*******

[InTheAir]

Wow! Wow! I mean wow!

Here was I sitting here, feeling all miserable. I've spent the best part of £1500 on a new PC with an ATI Radeon 9700Pro card. FS2004's performance and display quality was the worst since FSW95 for me.

Then I downloaded Catalyst 3.9, put the AA settings to max (16x) and launched FS2004. I couldn't believe it - graphics as smooth as a baby's bottom, no suttering, no blurry textures, a constant 30 frames per second (even with cloud every where and mesh set to 100%).

Catalyst 3.9 has done it for me.

[Bigshot]

Wouldn't expect anything else. It's nice when you find a good driver set that works well with the system. ATI solved those annoying glitches left behind by MicroSoft in FS9. The Omega 2.4.96() and the Cat 3.9 drivers do a nice job. Have fun with that new rig.

[shwncplnd]

Bigshot, you mean you have to install both the Omega 2.4.96() and the Cat 3.9 drivers for the glitches to go away? I've been thinking about maybe getting a 9700P or 9800P, but from past experiences with ATI, the driver issue has been a big pain. Clearly ATI has their mojo working good now, but I'm still a little hesitant.

[Bigshot]

Either/or. I have the 2.4.96 Dell beta drivers from Omega. They seem to have an OpenGL bug in them; but that's OK cause I don't play any OpenGL stuff. The folks at IL2FB forums report that there's a special driver set that uses the Cat 3.7 OpenGL stuff so you can run with the Cat 3.9 w/3.7 OpenGL features which solves that glitch. I recall a similar discussion at rage3d.

As I've said before, Other than the blinking menus and text issues with fs9, both of which have been resolved by ATI with either the 2.4.96() and now the Cat 3.9, I've never had any issues with any of the ATI drivers I've used in any game/sim I've had installed. That includes the Cat 2.3, Cat 3.6 Omega based driver and now the 2.4.96 Omega driver which I'll keep for a while.

If you're looking at an ATI card, I'd recommend either the 9700Pro (if you can find one) or the 9800Pro. If I was looking for one and could buy a 9700Pro for $200 vs a 9800Pro for $300, I'd save the $100 bucks and get the 9700Pro. Only about a 10 percent difference between the two cards despite what you might read. But I won't be looking for anything else till next spring when the R420 comes out.

[shwncplnd]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I don't think I have any other games that use opengl, so that wouldn't be an issue for me either. It'll still be a couple of months before I'll have enough pesos to get it, so hopefully by then, the prices will be a little lower than they are now.

[cwr737]

First, since when is breakfast a bad word...
Second: Isn't dog's breakfast actually a negative - "gee, your landing reminded me of a dog's breakfast - all over the place"
Third: Perhaps you were thinking about "the bees knees" which, for reasons I can't fathom is complimentary.

[Bigshot]

Ouch, ouch, ouch!
http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/IL2FB-Mustang.jpg

[FunkyMunky]

dogs balearics....i'm saying no more :)

[drama]

after upgrading to Catalyst 3.9, was like entering a new world to me. My ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is running like a Ferrari.. Only one problem thougt, anyone else haveing problems with FS2004 when you hit ALT+TAB to switch into windows, and then back FS2004 again, and all sound is gone, and the panel to..
I can't even change aircraft without somethings gets f***. Do any one know if this is VideoCard related. or just a bug within MS FS2004??

[gosta2]

Bollocks, I say.

Cheers,

Gosta