FS Autostart or Cacheman in FSX???

[Y]

Great Nick, I wasn't expecting instructions so long and so detailed.

But as I haven't partition magic only Acronis Disk director I don't think I will be able to carry out all your intructions. ie when and after creating a temp directory.

Steve

[NicksFXHouse]

Great Nick, I wasn't expecting instructions so long and so detailed.

But as I haven't partition magic only Acronis Disk director I don't think I will be able to carry out all your intructions. ie when and after creating a temp directory.

Steve

As I mentioned earlier I keep copy/paste notes so my answers can appear to be long but take me little time to post. Sometime I have to edit a bit but for the most part the step-by-step posts are already typed up.

[Y]

Yes you've got it I can split partitions, create partitions in all the usual formats fat32, NTFS and the rest. You can do most things partition magic can do except for a few minor things like changing from one format to another. The reason I bought it, is because I have already bought True image from them which I am very pleased with, and Partition magic I think, correct me if I am wrong doesn't support disks over about 200mg or similar size.

Anyway back to your instructions on how to move the paging files.

First of all I have already got FSX on a separate partition to my operating system, I don't think it matters as your instructions go. So this morning I tried splitting that one, (it isn't the primary drive though!?), but disk director only lets me carry out one operation at a time, does this matter?

When I came to deleting the temp directory afterwards by following your instructions in the sharing tab, it still wouldn't let me delete all the files and folder afterwards. I also noticed that a folder called recyled keeps appearing when trying to delete the files, but I think I should of turned the system restore off for the drive, but I had a feeling it wouldn't cure the problem as there was other files in the temp directory that wouldn't delete.

I can load disk director from a CD, so I might see if that will make a difference by carrying out all the operations and commiting them

[NicksFXHouse]

Partition Magic should run fine on drives of up to 300GB in size as long as the area is less than 90% full. A larger hard drive is also possible but it typically requires 3-4+ gigs of system memory be present.

On the subject of running the main program remote from the OS install, it can be done however it can produce system file arguments during boot and flight. I do it but I can not vouch for how well it may work on other systems. Keeping in mind that my system is very fast and such arguments have very little impact. There are those that may experience stutters and lags due to that condition so I have always recommended the main install (FSX or FS9) be located inside the OS.

About page file re-location. Moving the page file to a location outside the main OS install is a waste unless the following conditions are present:

1.
The drive the page file is moved to is significantly faster in access and rotation than the drive the OS is installed on.

2.
The page file is located on the first sectors of the disk on the drive for access optimization.

[Y]

I have followed your instructions again without luck maybe it's disk director thats stopping me because every time I attempt to delete it an icon similar to the recycle bin appears in the main directory called recycler by the side of the others that I'm trying to delete with the system volume information folder inside etc, and if I do manage to delete the first folders, I cannot delete these new folders which has just appeared. Anyway I've shrunk the paging file area a lot smaller, I think I will leave it at that now.

As already said I have FSX installed on a separate partition to windows and all other programs. Has there got to be a certain percentage of free space on the NTFS partition where FSX is to work at it's fastest?

Steve

[NicksFXHouse]

I have followed your instructions again without luck maybe it's disk director thats stopping me because every time I attempt to delete it an icon similar to the recycle bin appears in the main directory called recycler by the side of the others that I'm trying to delete with the system volume information folder inside etc, and if I do manage to delete the first folders, I cannot delete these new folders which has just appeared. Anyway I've shrunk the paging file area a lot smaller, I think I will leave it at that now.

As already said I have FSX installed on a separate partition to windows and all other programs. Has there got to be a certain percentage of free space on the NTFS partition where FSX is to work at it's fastest?

Steve

Hi Steve

I must have missed your post this morning.

That is very strange. So you are able to set the permissions fine and the file deletes but as soon as it deletes the recycler pops up and restores it?

I assume you have no secondary file protection software running... DEP in the System properties is set to "Essential Windows Programs and Services Only"

Ok, if all that is in order then it sounds like either the permissions in the system are not set up correctly for file sharing at the admin level for that type of high level function (it can happen) or system restore has somehow grabbed that directory and will not let it go. Or there is something in the Windows file protection system that is not allowing a complete clean and is restoring. System Restore must be shut down from 3 locations and the system rebooted. It

[Y]

Thanks Nick, Great little program, although it hasn't helped in this situation I have now added it to my software toolbox, it might come in useful for removing those stubbern files.

I did try it on the system files and folders but they still kept appearing.

I thought of booting up disk director on a cd and I managed to delete the mft files and folders.

But thanks to your advice and me perservering I've managed to get the yellow mft files at the bottom.

One last question, does the cluster size make any difference?

And whilst doing some experiments, I ran FSX on a fat32 partition drive and it did seem a little faster with less stutter, could this be the case?

Steve

[NicksFXHouse]

Hi Steve

Just a clarification

[gilly_is_alive]

So has anyone succesfully completed all of these instructions?

what difference in frame rate is it producing?

[X-EAL]

So has anyone succesfully completed all of these instructions?

what difference in frame rate is it producing?

Actually, I have, with the exception that I used Ultimate Defrag instead of O&O and used CCleaner instead of Registry Mechanic.
My boot time is much faster. With regards to FSX, I have found that (at least for me), if I have the fps counter on, I worry about that number more than the smoothness of the Sim. For what it's worth, I have mine locked at 18 and it sits pretty much in the 17's. If I'm near a lot of autogen or at a very detailed airport, it will drop to the 8-10 range but the sim still flies fine for me.

NickN, I wish to thank you for your time and detailed instructions. I appreciate it and you have made my flying experience better.

Bobby

[gilly_is_alive]

I am in the process of going through the recommended steps and i have reached the part about wether you choose to disable the system restore setting or not.  What wioll happen if i disable this?  is it really that important.  as far as i can tell I will just have no option to revert to the last known working configuration if something goes wrong with my computer.  but the only thing that could make me want to use this feature is a virus which oculd get into the system restore anyway.  please help!

[Y]

Hi Nick,

Sorry I didn't get to you sooner, I get very busy sometimes, you know how it is.

Yes I can confirm that when I load up Acronis Disk Director straight from a CD, (not from inside Windows) I am able to browse inside all available partitions and copy, paste, delete, and make new folders and as well as delete all the MFT files and folders to my hearts content, oh and edit files.

I still think partition magic might be more flexible than Disk director as I cannot convert a drives format from lets say fat32 to NTFS etc, I think you can convert from FAT16 to FAT32 and back again though, but the only way of converting a partition to another format is to merge it into another partition which is already in the format you want. In future versions it should be possible to convert existing partitions to other formats and they are going to make it VISTA compatible. You still can resize, split, create, merge, change cluster size etc just like partition magic. But I suppose the development of partition magic is stopped now, making Disk Director much more appealing that

[gilly_is_alive]

Nick I need your help!!

I was going through your processes, couldnt do some of the IE stuff as ive upgraded to IE7 and couldnt find the delete offline content box but no biggie.

The real problem started when doing the first O&O defrag.

I set it up just like you said and let it run for hours, maybe four or five.  I noticed that the hardrdive light had stopped flashing and i could hear no more noise coming from my laptop so i figured that it had finished so i moved the mouse pointer to stop the screen saver.  When the screen saver finally went away the program said that it was still running and was at 86% completion but the computer was doing nothing, there was no noise or anything.  There was a large bubble coming from an excalmation mark in the system tray stating:

"Windows was unable to save all data for the file C:\WINDOWS\System32\CONFIG\SysEvent.Evt.  That data has been lost.  This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection.  Please save this file elsewhere."

So i got really worried at this point and tried to reboot.  The computer took ages to shut down and any simple task like clicking on a menu took a long time to happen.  When shutting down there was a rundll32 error but i just clicked end now because nothing else would work.  

Upon the restart the system began a scandisk procedure for improper shutdown.  Noramlly this takes a few minutes but this time it took a number of hours.  The Scan disk found the following errors:

"Windows replaced bad clusters in file \FOUND.024\FILE0006.CHK of name (null).

"Windows replaced bad clusters in file \WINDOWS\DUMP1926.tmp of name (null).
Then it began a new process after the scan disk stating:  "Windows is verifying free space" and this took over an hour.

What should I do now?  I have not had my laptop connected to the internet through any of the processes and i am using a different computer to write these messages.  Should I try the defrag again?  Thankyou Nick

[NicksFXHouse]

So has anyone succesfully completed all of these instructions?

what difference in frame rate is it producing?

This has nothing to do with frames.. this has to do with being able to maintain smoother flight with greater loads. If you are after frames, you need to buy the computer and components that provide that. FS9 should be run @ 24-28fps and I dont care what card is in the system. FSX can not be run @ 24fps and provide very high detailed eye-candy as the hardware to do that has not entered the market as of yet.

[NicksFXHouse]

So has anyone succesfully completed all of these instructions?

what difference in frame rate is it producing?

Actually, I have, with the exception that I used Ultimate Defrag instead of O&O and used CCleaner instead of Registry Mechanic.
My boot time is much faster. With regards to FSX, I have found that (at least for me), if I have the fps counter on, I worry about that number more than the smoothness of the Sim. For what it's worth, I have mine locked at 18 and it sits pretty much in the 17's. If I'm near a lot of autogen or at a very detailed airport, it will drop to the 8-10 range but the sim still flies fine for me.

NickN, I wish to thank you for your time and detailed instructions. I appreciate it and you have made my flying experience better.

Bobby

You are welcome... if you do not feel comfortable using the other programs, I can understand. Although I have yet to find better software to do the job for me, what matters is your system is providing better performance.