FS2004 With Win 7 64 Bit and NVIDIA GT 240M Graphics Card

[mikewmac]

I am setting up FS2004 in a new laptop with a Windows 7 64 bit operating system and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M 1 gig graphics card. When I run FS2004 everything seems to operate fine (great FPS) except for poor quality images. Using the NVIDIA Control Panel I can't seem to get rid of the jaggies along curved edges of FS2004 images. As a matter of fact, no changes in any of the settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel seem to have any effect on the poor quality images in FS2004.

Has anyone else heard of and/or experienced a similar problem and, if so, are you aware of a workaround. I am currently searching the internet for similar problems as well as trying everything I can think of such as checking for newer drivers (none), 2nd party control panels (RivaTuner won't install in Win 7 64 bit), etc., but no joy so far.

I am obviously having major pilot errors here and missing something important and/or there is a major incompatibility issue between FS2004 and either Win7 64 bit and/or the NVIDIA GT240M graphics card.

Any and all thoughts and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike

[campbeme]

What's your screen resolution set at? I had a similar issue with FSX, changed the resolution to a higher setting and all looked great. Was Vista 64 bit though.

Mark

[mikewmac]

What's your screen resolution set at? I had a similar issue with FSX, changed the resolution to a higher setting and all looked great. Was Vista 64 bit though.

Mark

Thanks Mark,

My screen resolution is maxed out 1920X1080, so that is not the source of the problem. I actually tried a lower 1440X900 screen resolution, but the NVIDIA Control Panel still did not work for FS2004.

Mike

[Greg]

It runs perfectly fine here with Win 7 x64.

One thing you may want to check is the anti-aliasing option in FS2004. In my case I've always had to disable AA in FS2004 (untick the box) and force AA in the NVidia control panel. After installing nHancer I had the same problem as you have now and found out that I had to enable AA again in FS2004 to get rid of the jagged edges.

[mikewmac]

It runs perfectly fine here with Win 7 x64.

One thing you may want to check is the anti-aliasing option in FS2004. In my case I've always had to disable AA in FS2004 (untick the box) and force AA in the NVidia control panel. After installing nHancer I had the same problem as you have now and found out that I had to enable AA again in FS2004 to get rid of the jagged edges.

Thanks,

I downloaded and installed Nhancer, optimized all the settings in my FS2004 profile and still had the same problem. Along the way I tried FS2004 with both its antialiasing enabled and disabled, but no joy either way.

However, I now know what the problem is. It seems that the graphics settings in my FS2004 profile as established by either the NVIDIA Control Panel or Nhancer are only applied in FS2004 full screen mode and not in windows mode. This is different from how all my graphics card controls worked with FS in the past, so it had me stumped for a while. I have the habit of always running FS2004 in windows mode for quick and easy access to the menu bar for quick restarts as I develop AI FDE's, hence my frustrating problem with poor quality images.

Now if I can only get used to all this new found graphics speed and image detail, I'll be all set.

Mike

[Firebird]

The problem is the default FS9 settings, and nHancer is the way to fix it.
If you look at the FS9 default profile you will see that the AA setting is enhanced. To enhance the built in game setting.

This is total crap. What you need to do is to force AA and AF settings that are good for you. For me I find that 4xs Combined AA and 8x AF is good.
Now there are two ways of doing this you can either force your system default to use those, which is good for other apps such as ACM, or you can mod the FS9 one directly. The latest version of nHancer can now mod the supplied profile but if you are not used to it it might be better to copy the FS9 profile and amend that first. The way you can make sure that the modded copy gets p/up is to clear the FS9.exe from the application field.

Hope this makes sense, as I am away from my main puter at the moment.

[mikewmac]

The problem is the default FS9 settings, and nHancer is the way to fix it.
If you look at the FS9 default profile you will see that the AA setting is enhanced. To enhance the built in game setting.

This is total crap. What you need to do is to force AA and AF settings that are good for you. For me I find that 4xs Combined AA and 8x AF is good.
Now there are two ways of doing this you can either force your system default to use those, which is good for other apps such as ACM, or you can mod the FS9 one directly. The latest version of nHancer can now mod the supplied profile but if you are not used to it it might be better to copy the FS9 profile and amend that first. The way you can make sure that the modded copy gets p/up is to clear the FS9.exe from the application field.

Hope this makes sense, as I am away from my main puter at the moment.

Thanks Steve,

That worked great. To be safe I backed up the profile that I was using and then allowed the overriding of the predefined settings on the duplicate profile. This allowed me to turn off AA and filtering in FS9 and now I have great FS9 images in both windows and full screen mode. BTW...I am still experimenting with all the possible AA and AF settings and am not too knowledgeable about them all, but am currently testing 16xQ AA and 16x AF. WOW! What great image quality at 60 FPS.

I'm like a kid in a candy store with all the new graphics settings allowed by Nnhancer and a laptop that allows me to try them with minimal impact on FPS.

Mike

[Greg]

The enhancing works fine for me. I see no difference between enhanced mode and forcing AA and AF, but then again I never work in windowed modus...

Glad your problem is solved, Mike!

[MIKE JG]

Screenshots!!! Screenshots!!

[mikewmac]

The enhancing works fine for me. I see no difference between enhanced mode and forcing AA and AF, but then again I never work in windowed modus...

Glad your problem is solved, Mike!

Thanks,

I agree. I see no image quality improvement in full screen mode by forcing AA, but now I have the same image quality in windows mode.

Mike

[mikewmac]

Screenshots!!! Screenshots!!

Mike G.,

I only have my stripped down testing version of FS9 loaded on this new laptop so far so I can develop AI FDE's away from my desktop PC, but when I get my full tilt boogie version loaded and optimized I'll take some screenshots.

Mike M.

[Firebird]

Glad that I made sense and that it worked.

I always use windowed mode, unless I screenshoot, so that might be the reason that it never worked for me. Also I seem to remember that the instructions say to turn off the FS9 internal AA which may account why my full screen didn't work either until I nHanced it.

[djnocturnal]

i'm having similar problems with fs9 and jagged edges, i downloaded nhancer, and input the settings mentioned but am still getting them in window mode and full screen. I am running windows 7 too if it matters.

[Firebird]

It shouldn't matter, but check to see if the version that you are using specifically mentions that its W7 compatible. It may be that W7 expects something slightly different.
You could also try making sure that AA is switched off in FS9. I think I had to do that for mine.

[djnocturnal]

can't seem to find any info regarding if it is for Windows 7 or not, it seems to run ok...version is 2.5.7
AA is not selected in fs9, its wierd because I never had this problem on my last setup.
here is a screen shot.

[mikewmac]

I'm successfully using Nhancer 2.5.7 with my new laptop utilizing Windows 7 64 bit, so it isn't a Windows 7 compatibly problem. There is both a 32 bit and 64 bit version of 2.5.7 available for download and they are stated to be only good for a GeForce driver 182 or later and if you want to use an earlier driver, it states that you should use nHancer 2.4.5! Are you using the latest drivers for your NVIDIA graphics card?

Mike

[djnocturnal]

I definitely have the correct version of nhancer, my Nvidia driver is 8.15.11.8640 and is nvidia geforce 9100. wish these jagged edges would go away! lol perhaps i'm doing something wrong with the settings of nhancer?

[Firebird]

Well I would be tempted to say possibly, but everybody else seems to get it to work so I am tempted to think initially that its something that you haven't done rather than doing wrong.

So you have cloned the built-in FS9 and unchecked the 'Enhance in-game AA setting? You absolutely must do this.

I found the link to the post that I learned this trick from http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=38921

[Flyin Illini]

Have you tried full screen? When im in normal mode i have jaggies, but when i go to full screen they are gone. Its weird.

[Firebird]

Both are fine for me. What Mike seems to be saying is that the full screen is catered for by the AA:Enhanced function but the windowed mode isn't. You have to force it to use a set mode to clear them in both modes.