Simviation Forums

On occasion when I pan my view to different areas the ground and water seem to redraw in blocks fairly quick but very bothersome. I been pondering getting a 10,000 rpm sata drive and use it just for FS9. Will it help? Does anyone run it this way now and if so how would I set it up? The rest of the computer is  set up pretty well as far as ram, cpu and graphics card. Appreciate any input. Thanks in advance.
CaptTaz

Although I do not have a SATA drive I do know there can be a signifacant differance when it comes to transfering data. But wheather or not you will see any noticeable differances it is hard to say it depends on your system and graphics card.
But I certainly would go for it providing your mother board has the needed adadapters on board if not you can not use a SATA drive on your system.
As for setup it should be quite easy although I would strongly consider you uninstall FS and reinstall it on the SATA drive. DO not forget to back up your added on scenenry,aircraft and any other addons you might have and make sure you make a copy of the scenery cfg file it will make life a whole lot easier for you if you have a lot of addon scenery. Once fs is installed just move the scenery cfg over and overwirte the old one it will save you having to re enter all of your addon scenery.

Thanks for the quick reply! That really helps me with my decision. I did not mention my specs on the computer but they are as follows.
P4 3.5 w/HT 800 FSB--1Gb dual ch ram3200--Nvidias 6800GT Factory OC and yes it will accept the Sata Drive. The machine normally runs just fine great Framerates usually in the 30 to 60 range with it locked at 80 and all maxed out. Its just the occasional studder in the redraw thats maddening. To make sure I understood your suggestion, you did mean to reinstall the full program on the Sata drive including the app itself, and not just the Scenery and texture files as well as the aircraft?

Heya CaptTaz,

Yes, install everything; base program, addon scenery, addon aircraft all onto your new hard drive.  With the PC specs that you have listed it really should move like a scared jackrabbit!

I just reformatted my computer and installed my FS9 on a brand new SATA Drive. Definately helps my load times, the time it takes to switch views, and the time it takes to reload textures. Give it  a try you won't be dissapoited!

Boy you guys have made my day! I just finished ordering a new WD Raptor 10K rpm 80 Gig HD and can't wait to get it in. A HUGE THANKS To all of you.
CaptTaz

I built a custom computer and I'm running a ASUS motherboard, with a Nvidia 6800 Ultra video card and a Western Digital 80GB 10,000 RPM hard drive with SATA and it really helps but you won't see the real potiental unless you open up FS9.CFG with notepad and look for this entry:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=

The default is set to 0 or 60.

I set mine to 400:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400

That really makes the graphics load real quick, like if your panning around the aircraft or scenery with the hat switch on a joystick, before it would take up to a second tops to load a square piece such as a water texture.  
But with the value set to 400, that increases the data transfer to the video card and it really makes it perform it's best!  Those second blocks are no longer seen in my FS9 while panning

The default value is like taking a gallon bucket and emptying like 100 of them into a funnel in a min.

With the increased value, It's like taking a 18 wheeler tanker and emptying alot of them into a even bigger funnel, increased volume at the same time.

As always, back up your default FS9.CFG before making changes