Soliciting Advice

[Plugpennyshadow]

My Sys Specs:

Win XP Pro SP2  (Just ordered Vista Ultimate to try it.)

ASUS P5K-E Motherboard

Intel Core2Duo & 2.66GHz

Two WD 3200 AAKS-OOVYAO 7200rpm HDs in Raid0  (Intend to upgrade to paired WD Raptor 10000rpm HDs in Raid0.)

Single NVidia 8500 GT  (Intend to upgrade to SLI 8800s in near future.)

2 GB Kingson Dual Channel RAM  (No Idea the specs on this...Appreciate advice on RAM that will complement this MB and FSX.)

22" Samsung SyncMaster 216aw  (Plan to purchase another for two monitor flight.

Saitek X52 Controller  (Waiting for Saitek pedals I just ordered.)

I would appreciate comments and suggestions about this rig....

[Plugpennyshadow]

Darn fine rig ya got there Plug....LOL.

Addendum to my post...

What does everyone think of the Ultimate Terrain X?  I have it for FS2004 and really liked its improvement of the visuals, especially at night.

Thanks...

[macca22au]

I had something similar and it ran FSX medium-high.  ie pretty well.

FSX does not, and it would seem, never will support SLI, so maybe you could put your money to a quadcore card (either a qx6850 or the new 9650).  

My quad 6850 has done more good than any massive upgrade in clock speed because FSX has through Sp1 and Sp2 been made to thread really well.

And the big hang-up in FSX is the enormous amount of scenery to be loaded, and 4 cores at 3gigs makes a big difference.  

Which of the GTs do you have, because there is quite a performance difference.  I have the GTX that performs really well, though Guru NickN on this forum tells us of new high performance ATi card to come.

Last I haven't got one yet, but NickN recommends a RAID controller to take the load of the CPU.

I have the Vista Premium, 32 bits, and in spite of many saying otherwise it has worked quite well.  However it demands a lot of RAM. Ultimate is the 64 bit version, and I have heard of some lag in drivers but that seems to have been overcome.  

However the heavies on this forum would say stick with XP.  DX10 on SP2 adds nothing and until FS11 comes out we won't have a dx10 game at all.  Therefore the one advantage of Vista is immediately lost.

And only put your game on the two RAID HDDs and have the OS on another disk with all of your other non sim applications.

[macca22au]

Once upon a time soliciting was a criminal offence.

[Plugpennyshadow]

"quadcore card (either a qx6850 or the new 9650)"
\
By the above, do you mean a Video card with quad Graphic Processing Units or a quad-core CPU?  Do you also recommend a single high-end Video card as FSX doesn't gain from SLI equipment?

And I have the NVidia GeForce 8600 GT with 256 of memory.  Been a good card.  But think something esle could do better.  Advise please.

If someone could, would ya give me some advice on Sys Memory....Make, Model, and Horsepower to optimize for FSX on this rig.

Intend to take advice about running OS on Raid array and put FSX on sep SATA drive...But have question.  I have heard of Raid5 as optimum Raid setup for gaming.  Is this worthy?  Will do this with rig if it is.

[Plugpennyshadow]

"Last I haven't got one yet, but NickN recommends a RAID controller to take the load off the CPU."

Explain this for me in more detail, please.  Why does the RAID controller take the load off the CPU?  How does this improve performance?  Why is this better than the on-board Raid controller?

Thanky Thanky

[macca22au]

Yes the quadcore is a CPU.

[NickN]

Because a motherboard RAID controller, or, a cheap PCI card RAID controller is SOFTWARE RAID

Its not true hardware RAID, and, the file access created by FSX is insane so if you do not have an 'on-card' memory buffer that will feed the system at the same speed as the bus will take it, you losing.

Every time a head has to seek, each drive, the CPU gives up time. If the RAID solution is el-cheapo motherboard or PCI card crap, you can kiss critical CPU cycles FSX needs, goodbye. Hardware RAID cards eliminate the majory of the CPU poll for each seek and those cycles go back to the application being run.

I would not even bother with motherboard RAID on FSX OR the OS

FSX loves 4 things.. CPU speed, number of cores, memory bandwidth and a very fast storage system that does not choke the life out of the CPU clocks and memory bandwidth


Which is why I run DDR3 2000 @ 3.6GHz on a 3ware 9650SE 4LPML RAID controller with BBU


You put FSX on RAID 5 with a motherboard or PCI card RAID solution and you will run worse than if you ran a single fast HDD. The CPU will spend more time dealing with the heads on those drives than it will give attention to FSX.

[markag]

As far as graphics are concerned, it all depends on the resolution of your monitor and what you will be happy with.  Of course you can go out and spend $500 on a 3800X2 or 9800GX2 or 8800 Ultra. But, for around $200-$300 you can get 8800GT or GTS 512, HD 3870 (not X2).  Your 8600GT might be fine if you are running at lower resolutions, but if you are running (or would like to be running) anything larger than 1280x1024 then I recommend at least a 8800 GT or better from nvidia or a 3870 from ATI.  Go for the 512 or more memory options, because FSX has a heavy vram requirement.  It is also recommended to go with a single powerhouse card over 2 weaker models in sli or crossfire.  Not all games take full advantage of multiple cards still, so in those games, the performance will be on par with the single card. Therefore the better the card to begin with the, better it will run everything.

Also, you really should look into a quad core processor (CPU). FSX loves more cores.  The more cores it has available the happier you will be.  Plus, with todays pricing you can get an intel Q6600 for ~$250.  You can go better, but the price increases drastically as you do that.

[Plugpennyshadow]

Thanks to all of you who answered my questions and ponied up suggestions.  I now have a grocery list of stuff to research and eventually buy.

However, my E6750 CoreDuo @ 2.66 GHz with my current config as listed above is giving me 26-32 fps with scenery sliders in the middle or so.  It will drop to 22 fps over the super detailed cities like New York but never goes below that.  I can fly the helos with no stutter or lag.  I am just gonna jump up to some better RAM and a more peppy Vid card at this time.  Don't need all the eye candy maxed out to learn to cus the VOR needle...And you know what I mean...DANG FRAZZLED VOR!!!

I am currently concentrating on flying one type of aircraft and trying to learn Navigation so as not to fly around like I'm lost.  The Grumman Goose is a very easy a/c to fly and it is very forgiving.  

I am currently waiting for some more hardware just ordered.  My rig will be much as it is listed above except that I plan to add TWO additional Samsung 22" monitors for the full windscreen effect.  I am considering building a simpit.  Losts of work and gonna have to learn stuff I probably don't want to learn, but I like the concept.  I have the room and the desire, but do I have the skill...Time and lots of cussing will tell.

Thanks again for your kind advice and Keep The NOSE UP!

[Naja002]

Also you will need to tell your system that you allow FSX to use more than 2 gigs, but this is straightforward and if you install more, then let us know and Nick, me or others will give you the recipe for doing that.

Plenty of questions, but the above stands out: How is that done?

I have 4GB, but haven't notified FSX......

[NickN]

If you have FSX SP2, the exe file is already 2G+ aware

If you have XP or VISTA x32 and more than 2GB you need to MARK the OS for that use or it will ignore the sticks and never use them

x64 operating systems do not need the following changes


For XP:

disable hidden files and folder, then on the root C:\ you will find a file named: boot.ini

Open it in notepad and add the follwoing to the end of the OS boot line:


/3GB/Userva=2560

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professsional" /fastdetect /3GB /Userva=2560 <---- add it here


save and close the file

reboot

to set that back to default, simply remove the edit


If you are using XP SP2 and are running a dual, quad, OR a single core Intel HYPERTHREAD processor, make sure this update is applied
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en




For Vista:
WINDOWS VISTA ONLY:

[Naja002]

Thank You, Nick. It totally amazes me how You know all this stuff...Geewhiz!

Out of curiosity: Is the Userva=2560  something specifically to do with FSX--or does it benefit other programs?

Many Thanx!