Simviation Forums

Hey Guys, here's wishing you all a nice day,

     What if anything do some of you do with your PC as you prepare to launch FSX ?   As an example:  do you turn anything off in the Windows Task manager ? - - - or - - -reboot for a clean start ? etc, etc.

     Thanks for your time on my request.

                                         caveman

Disabling the antivirus is the most important thing, because it's slowing down the disk accesses.
Then, there are some utilities that are supposed to disable the "useless" services, but I'll let the more-experienced members talk about that

I always run FSX when the computer is fresh (ie after it has been shut down for awhile).  It allows everything to cool.

That is interesting about the anti-virus.  How do you disable Norton?

I used to turn off my anti-virus, windows defender, ATI tray icon and any other startup applications but now my computer can handle everything so I leave everything running.

Mine can handle them all no problem too, however, since the advent of SP1 many people suffer from a micro stutter so I turn off most stuff to smooth these out.  I run Vista 32 bit and have the shortcuts on my desktop for a FSX theme and the normal Aero theme.  First off, I turn off the side bar, then change to the FSX theme.  Start FSX, decide on the aircraft/time/location and download the 12 hour weather time slice.  I then have a shortcut on the desktop to turn the internet connection off, so I do this.  Stop the AV, stop my LCD modules  (Crystalfontz), then load my scenario.  Doing all this takes less than 5 minutes, everything loads at least 3 times quicker, the micro stutters are virtually wiped out completely and everything is really smooth.

Reider

I don't bother with task manager, I just shut down anything unnecessary in the task bar after a fresh restart to clean up the OS. The main one is MSN Messenger, or any other IM program, as they hog a lot of RAM. Next I right-click my avast! antivirus tray icon and turn of all of the services, then close down the tray icon. Next is Quicktime then ZoneAlarm (firewall). Due to my personal preferences all my Windows in built security is turned off already. This closes all programs that are RAM and CPU intensive, giving me an extra 100-200mb of RAM and about a 5-8% drop in CPU usage while playing FSX. As for using programs that shut down "unnecessary tasks", in my opinion they are useless. Each program or service you shut down only releases about 1-3mb of RAM, compared to the 20-30mb per program and service I listed above. So as you see it makes very little difference, and a mess of your OS.

My system is Core2 Duo 1.83ghz, 1gb RAM, 512mb go7600 and my FSX settings are all ultra high except traffic which I have turned off, and a tweaked cfg. This gives me 20fps (locked) in scattered cumulus and about 10-15fps in overcast, with very little stutters.

Is that true? for example if I disable my AVG I would get better performance?

Is that true? for example if I disable my AVG I would get better performance?

If AVG means Anti-Virus, then yes, you will get better performance if you disable it.
For example, with Avast! antivirus, I just have to right-click on the icon of the taskbar, and select "disable protection service" or something like that (sorry, I don't know the english name exactely), and then Avast! disables all its protection systems that were running.

Since the antivirus is not running anymore, then it's not checking all the files that are being accessed, and then the disk accesses get a bit faster, which is really usefull for FSX, since a lot of stuff on the disk is being read while you're flying. You won't get more FPS, but you will certainly get less micro-stutters due to disk accesses.

WARNING: I'm just talking about disabling the antivirus while playing, and activating it again when exiting the game. DO NOT DISABLE YOUR FIREWALL ! Just the antivirus. While you play, the only thing that you will eventually download from the internet is the real-world meteo data, which contains no virus, so the antivirus gets quite useless. BUT, since you're still connected to the internet, your firewall is still MANDATORY all the time !!

     Hey Guys,  I just want to jump in here and thank you for your input.  I'm always stumbling around in my PC trying to find "THAT WHICH IS USELESS" and would slow down the PC while flying.  
     
     Sure do appreciate your help and hope I "hear" from others also.

     Have a good one - - - caveman

I don't bother with task manager, I just shut down anything unnecessary in the task bar after a fresh restart to clean up the OS. The main one is MSN Messenger, or any other IM program, as they hog a lot of RAM. Next I right-click my avast! antivirus tray icon and turn of all of the services, then close down the tray icon. Next is Quicktime then ZoneAlarm (firewall). Due to my personal preferences all my Windows in built security is turned off already. This closes all programs that are RAM and CPU intensive, giving me an extra 100-200mb of RAM and about a 5-8% drop in CPU usage while playing FSX.

Everything above I totally agree with and it made great sense.  However, your reasoning was totally spoilt with the next bit.......

As for using programs that shut down "unnecessary tasks", in my opinion they are useless. Each program or service you shut down only releases about 1-3mb of RAM, compared to the 20-30mb per program and service I listed above. So as you see it makes very little difference, and a mess of your OS.

The measurements of RAM released change from one machine to another.  It depends on the differences between the machines, what OS is being used, the difference in the processors, free space on the drive and all sorts of stuff, what you get on your specs may be entirely different to what Joe Bloggs gets on his specs.  But at the end of the day, if running Vista (you don`t quote your OS) the biggest bonus since the advent of SP1 is to get rid of the micro stutters, which are not totally caused by RAM in the first place.......  They only appeared after SP1 was released and are quite widespread judging by the reports.

But, quite a bit more importantly, turning unnecessary tasks off (be it to stop micro stutters, make things smoother or anything else) is facilitated quite properly and allowed for within the apps and the task tray.  I would suggest if  "So as you see it makes very little difference, and a mess of your OS" then you more likely have a problem with your machine or the actual apps you run than anything else.......!  Never had a problem doing that here, and nobody else I know who does it for the same reasons has either......  The facility is their so you can stop them temporarily, for whatever reason.  If this causes problems then you either have faulty apps or a faulty puter, or both.

Reider