Disappointing graphics-need help

[FridayChild]

Here I am with my first FS2004 help request. Actually it may not be strictly FS2004, because I've already noticed this problem occurs in other games, too, so probably it's a drivers/card issue, but I hope you guys know how to fix it.
Let me try to explain: certain areas of the screen (namely the sky, the clouds, everyting that gets on the beam of the landing lights at night) are horribly looking. They look like the color depth was 256 colors, I don't know if I'm being clear. Most of the objects look just good, but with these exceptions. It's like the lighter objects were 256 colors. You can see the borders between different coloured areas. it's like those areas were painted in stripes.
The card is an Asus 6600GT, with the latest (78.something) Asus drivers. The Windows color depth is 32 bit, 1280x1024, but FS2004 only supports 16 bit at this resolution, so i set FS2004 to 1280x1024, 16 bit.
Let me know if you need some more detail.
I hope someone can help, I waited eons to finally get a PC able to run fs9 and now I'm crying in disappointment... I nearly miss FS98...

[Tweek]

I think I know what you mean, because I get the same problem with clouds at night. I don't know how to fix it, I just avoid flying at night, or at night with clouds. Clear skys at night aren't as bad as in the day, as you have stars to look at aswell!

[Brett_Henderson]

This kind of thing bothers me too. Building your own computer with high-end hardware is fun:

Athlon64 3200, MSI K8T800 M-board, ATI 6800256Pro, 1GB3200RAM..  is my machine.

There are SO many subtle things to tweak.. it can get overwhelming. CMOS settings, Best (not always the latest) drivers, Windows settings, V-Card settings and actual application settings. If you don't get everyting just right.. you aint much better off than running a Dell, Gateway or something prebuilt. Sure, by brute force you can make a computer fast enough on paper.. but those hidden bottlenecks rear their ugly heads when you run demanding software like FS9.

I've seen a P III with only 512Mb of RAM and a Gforce FX440  V-card run FS9 more smoothly than a pieced together Athlon3800 rig.

AND.. a setup that runs something like Half-Life just fine gets 15fps with FS9  and the other way around.

For the amount of money difference.. I can tell you that this computer does not run FS9 proportionally better than my Athlon2500 machine did. Sure it better.. but not several hundred dollars better.

I'm sure a guru will stumble in with some advice..

[FridayChild]

It could also be useful, since I understand that I'm not the only one experiencing this problem, that the people who also have this issue  write what graphic card they use.

[Tom_M]

If you're running at 16bit colour in FS9, you will notice colour banding when trying to view two-colour gradients on top of everything else. Use a lower res and 32bit.

[Tweek]

It could also be useful, since I understand that I'm not the only one experiencing this problem, that the people who also have this issue  write what graphic card they use.

I use an Nvidia Geforce FX5600.

[FridayChild]

Woops

[FridayChild]

At 32 bit things did get definitely better.
I could still notice some "color banding" when descending through the clouds, though.

[FridayChild]

Woah.
I planned a dusk flight, and sure enough, when I looked at the blue sky above the clouds, I could see the horrible lines separating the various tones of blue.
 :(  :'(
My screenies look nothing like the best I've seen here, but my vcard should be good.... 6600GT.... I picked it after asking here for advice, and a lot of users had this card.

[cstrut]

I noticed a similar problem and my solution was to make sure the settings on my computer and in FS9, as pertaining to resolution, where the same 1024x768x32 for my box and for FS9. I also tried some higher settings 1152x864x32 that was really amazing but it seemed just a wee unstable after many hours of flight. What shame too because that setting was excellent for high speed low level flying.