I'm bringing up Atmel Studio 7.0 for the first time and I'm not able to program a ATmega2560 clone using an FTDI bridge.  I get several timeout messages from avrdude and then an uploader process failed error.

Here's what I've done so far:
1. Verified upload is working for an Arduino Mega using the USB cable
2. I uploaded the bootloader using my AVR Dragon and that went fine
3. I've tried 2 different Mega clones (one of them is new so maybe it has a layout/ soldering problem) and both give the timeout error.
4. I've tried 2 different FTDI bridges (one from Sparkfun and the other from Adafruit) and both give the timeout error.

It feels like I'm not setting this up right in Visual Micro/ Atmel Studio 7.0.  My settings are all the same as when I got it to work using a regular Arduino Mega except I changed the COM port from the Mega to the FTDI bridge. 

I did notice that my "Programmer" menu in vMicro/Uploader has lots of stuff that isn't on the 'Arduino for Atmel Studio 7' page (http://www.visualmicro.com/page/Arduino-for-Atmel-Studio-7.aspx). ; I also don't have a menu selection for "Atmel studio Device Programmer" however I don't think any of that matters because "Always user programmer for upload (Instead of Port/IP)" is not checked.

I think my next thing to try will be to install Atmel Studio 6.2 and try from there.  Any other ideas?  It's possible I've gotten unlucky on clones or FTDI bridges, but this really feels like a Visual Micro/ Atmel Studio 7.0 configuration issue.  Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Well, it's always where you aren't looking.  It turns out VisualMicro, Atmel Studio 7.0 and the FTDI bridges were all fine.  I had 2 problems:

1.  The "good" clone I had was in fact bad.  I found another one that uploaded code without issue, which led to:
2.  I was using the wrong bootloader.  The correct bootloader for the ATmega2560 is stk500boot_v2_mega2560.hex.  Stack exchange was helpful here: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7769/how-to-burn-arduino-mega-2560-bootloader

The new clone is uploading code fine now from VisualMicro/ Atmel Studio 7 and the old clone is in the trash.

Hopefully this helps someone...

Useful thanks for the update. There are a lot of dodgy cables, usb drivers and clones around so it can be confusing.

Just to confirm that standard upload uses the arduino bootloader over serial. All other programmer/atmel options don't use the bootloader so normally not needed.

The "vMicro>Uploader>Burn bootloader" will apply the correct bootloader (same as arduino ide) using the currently selected programmer regardless of the "use programmer for upload" setting.

The "Use Atmel Device Programming" programmer takes you outside of all Visual Micro (Arduino) upload and bootloader capabilities, hands over entirely to the atmel studio project properties and device programming dialogs.