Simviation Forums

With my 2Gb DDR2 800 memory I still see my HDD light blinking often during flights in FSX.

With my 2Gb DDR2 800 memory I still see my HDD light blinking often during flights in FSX.  Does this mean I'm using the page file a lot?  And if so, should I try another gig of RAM and the /3Gb switch?  This is XP pro 32bit.
-J

Get and run FileMon to see what files are being accessed. Could be
scenery being loaded and reloaded or any number of other things.

   Paul

[quote][quote]With my 2Gb DDR2 800 memory I still see my HDD light blinking often during flights in FSX.

I captured a Filemon log during a short flight.

Bump.  I'd really like to know how to follow up on this.

Jim

Are you experiancing stutters ascociated with harddisk activity?

MSFS queries scenery at astronishing rates... I wouldn't really look at the filemon that much... as it will take hours of sifting to get anything through it. Try running filemon with Windows at idle, and looking through it... If theres any applications that are causing an abnormally high amount of activity, kill the program.

You can try opening up fsx in Windowed mode and watching which scenery files are loaded then. I have seen MSFS querying scenery data on the harddisk at astonishing rates, scenery that's on the other side of the world. Therefore, I think you MAY see a benifit from disableing scenery you're not using through the scenery library. I do not know if that has a gain, if any. I tried and didn't notice a noticable gain, but you never know.

My other recommendation would be to use use Nicks tweaks AND O&O Defrag 8.5.
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 028653/0#5

I wouldn't bother with more RAM unless you have any cash lying around.

I've got all of Nick's tweaks.  I agree the Filemon is huge.  I'm just wondering if the fsx.exe process is using 1.2 gigs in task manager-is that all that's being used be any sim-related process?
-J

I've got all of Nick's tweaks.  I agree the Filemon is huge.  I'm just wondering if the fsx.exe process is using 1.2 gigs in task manager-is that all that's being used be any sim-related process?
-J

Use the filter options in FileMon to look at access to various types
of files. Perhaps look for access only to the  "Addon Scenery" folder.

Trying to make sense of ALL fsx.exe operations is pretty much impossible.

Andf running FSX with only 1GB of memory is going to require
cutting back on your settings, nethinks.
Even with 2GB of memory I found I had to cut sliders back further
than I wished them to be. I ultimately added another 2GB of ram
and now run with most settings close to max. YMMV.

As to Task manager, "View" "Selected Columns" select "Peak Memory
Usage". This will show how much memory any process is using, max.

    Paul

[size=15][color=#000000]
This is the EXACT reason why I posted warnings about using a cheap-o RAID card,

Regardless, Other than finding out the Antivirus or other software may be polling files... you are not going to change what FSX is accessing so trying to interpret those records for changes to FSX itself is downright silly

In the case of scenery accesses, there may be problems with addon scenery
that cause FSX to load files that are well beyond the range of a flight
in progress. In this case, knowing what those files are would enable
one to disable those scenery locales when not actually flying there.

I have recently seen this phenomena and pending the discovery of
the reason for the 'abnormal' file accesses to some scenery
areas I have just created seperate scenery.cfg files with only the
scenery for the region I am flying in activated.
A million or so 'abnormal' file accesses over the course of a one
hour flight is not something I am going to tolerate as being 'something
I can not change'....

   Paul

OK, thanks for the replies.  I've got NOD32 so I don't think that's causing me any issues.  In fact, flights are pretty smooth- a few stutters.  I just see my HDD light blinking.  I'll look at the PEAK charge.

I'm not even going near RAID without 4 HDDs and a good card.

-Jim

It's ridiculous.  I'm getting all uptight about some stutters with the Scenery Complexity and Autogen sliders absolutely maxed!!  Before I was getting the same thing at dense/normal.  We're never satisfied.

However two serious questions:

1.  Fly2e is likely to classify this as commercial, but Nick I want to install a RAID controller, but I want it to be a good one.  Could you either specify what its attributes should be, or maybe name one or two, or if all else fails PM me.  Its not the problem of an el cheapo its just knowing which are best.  I have three HDDs, two of them in RAID0 and which are dedicated to the game.  The OS and the rest are on the other disk.

2.  Gypsy Baron's approach interests me.  I fly only in Aus/NZ, Europe and North America.  Maybe an A330 flight to Singapore from Melbourne, or a 747 Brisbane, Singapore, London.  I would like to know if it was possible to turn 'continents' on and off, depending on the task.  You make it sound simple but how did you go about it?

[quote]




[size=15][color=#000000]
This is the EXACT reason why I posted warnings about using a cheap-o RAID card,

Ever since I got this PC, my HD usage has been quiet high. I think I'm going to get a 150gb RAPTOR then.

Regardless, Other than finding out the Antivirus or other software may be polling files... you are not going to change what FSX is accessing so trying to interpret those records for changes to FSX itself is downright silly

In the case of scenery accesses, there may be problems with addon scenery
that cause FSX to load files that are well beyond the range of a flight
in progress. In this case, knowing what those files are would enable
one to disable those scenery locales when not actually flying there.

I have recently seen this phenomena and pending the discovery of
the reason for the 'abnormal' file accesses to some scenery
areas I have just created seperate scenery.cfg files with only the
scenery for the region I am flying in activated.
A million or so 'abnormal' file accesses over the course of a one
hour flight is not something I am going to tolerate as being 'something
I can not change'....