FS Autostart or Cacheman in FSX???

[macca22au]

But how on earth will any of us poor naifs ever know what to buy, seeing that we have to get the full combination right - chipset, GPU and CPU:  or all in ones, or nearly all in ones.  And what if we mix brands?  Can Intel live in the same box as an ATI card or will an electronic divorce occur?

No don't answer but some time around the end of the year those of us without knowledge, wisdom or sense will put our money down and find that someone else is getting vastly greater performance with a different combo.

It's like going into McDonalds to make a choice, or Starbucks - fear, uncertainty and dithering will overwhelm us.  At least if we eat or drink something we dislike, nature takes care of itl

Computers are for keeps - or at least six months!

Or will it be just more 'mines bigger than yours' stuff.

[macca22au]

Sorry to post again:  I have re-read the performance approach setout by NickN and would love to apply it but....I have Vista 32bit.

Has Nick or anyone done a similar exercise for Vista?

[NickN]

I am still in Europe


Even though FSX shuts down Aero during use, Vista requires shutting down the Aero and other visual features the right way so on boot the memory and CPU cycles are recovered for applications. I have been waiting for service pack(s) to be released before finalizing any Vista changes for the same reason FSX is a mess to develop for until they finish making changes to it.

Although there are aspects to what I posted (as in the method/approach, not so much the exact steps) which are used in Vista I would not use that list for Vista tweaking unless you know what you are doing.

The best way to release resources without getting into services and deeper areas is to simply shut down ALL the Windows eye candy features. That alone will recover quite a bit for FSX use. The defrag approach is the same but unfortunately O&O Defrag was redesigned a bit and in doing so they changed things in such a way that it still works but it allows a disk to fragment easier over time. I use version 8.5 on WinXP. Version 10 requires different instructions than what I posted.

Just as I have been waiting for Vista service pack releases I was waiting to see if O&O would issue another update which would change the file layout method. I do not want to post things and then have them become obsolete.

What I posted works fine for XP SP2 (It MUST be WinXP SP2)

Vista sucks the life out of a processor and memory. Right now its still in a dev phase and will continue to be for some time. SP1 will help but in my opinion it will take another SP to get the OS up to speed. XP was the same way although initially before the major service packs it was never anywhere near as bad as Vista.

Vista looks for a motherboard and other hardware which is correctly Vista certified, another reason why no major corporation will touch it with a 10 foot pole. Corporate upgrading to Vista is 10X the cost and pain to deal with over what XP was when it was released which is why MS has allowed downgrades to XP for business systems being sold by OEMs.


Since learning DX10 in FSX was going to end up a preview and not a re-write.. I have not had much desire to switch. Although I do have Vista x64 I only use it for playing and testing. I do not use it for regular FSX use or any mission critical applications. Its not worth the headaches yet but over the next year I am sure that will change.

[macca22au]

Yes Nick - and even worse I traded my XP off against Vista as part of the purchase.  

So if I want to revert I will have to purchase XP once again.  But frankly I am thinking of doing so, putting Vista on the shelf until FS11 or 12 when it is fully optimised and learn from the hard won lesson.  

Seeing that the latest patch is only a Dx10 preview I can hardly consider it a good bargain.  

I bought Vista on the understanding that I would have a full and frank Dx10 game now - and that's not the reality.  

I know that there are MS flamers, and MS Aces defenders but I am just a poor old sod in the middle - I have wasted a lot of money that maybe I can afford, but I cannot afford to waste.

[macca22au]

And as a matter of routine I set out to update my video driver to 163.77 and chaos......

I have Matrox, and initially the game crashed and froze with a black screen,

Then the sound broke up.

I cannot clean the drivers out - it always rolls back to 163.22 but NEVER goes back to the 'natural' screen for a clean install.

Now the game won't even uininstall.

All is corrupt.

So tomorrow a clean reinstall of Vista Premium, and I wish I had the sense to buy XP once again.

Then a clean reinstall of FSX, SP1 and Acceleration, then the painstaking business of reinstalling the add-on aircraft (hoping the keys are not lost), and UTX etc etc.  

The one thing old age does is give you time!

And they call it a game.

[reider]

Do the clean install of FSX and start it once. Skip SP1 since Acceleration includes both SP1 and SP2, do a full start at least once.  Then do a full space followed by a full name defrag if you have the facility.  Then reintroduce add ons gradually so you can spot if any problems.  Once you`re relatively happy, repeat the defrag process with both types where available.

For Vista users.......  If you use Aero, then create a shortcut to that theme on the desktop, create one also for a basic theme (FSX).  Then turn off the sidebar and start the FSX theme prior to FSX itself, returning them to normal after your flight.  Turn off any unused programs in the task tray.  If using FSX offline then turn off the net (I have a shortcut on the desktop) and the AV.  This makes it all extremely smooth in operation and literally takes seconds to complete, once you`ve done it a few times.

How to set up themes.....  Right click mouse on open desktop, choose 'personalization', choose 'theme', use 'save as' and direct it to the desktop to save with the title of Vista.  Repeat for FSX and choose 'Windows Classic', title is FSX and again save to desktop via 'save as'.

How to turn off net switch.....  Open Network (mine is on desktop), open 'Network and sharing centre', open 'Manage network connections'.  Find your C:\ drive and right click with the mouse, then drag to the desktop as a shortcut.  You can then right click this with the mouse at any time and choose to enable/disable the network quickly.  I placed my shortcut in the quick launch bar, but the desktop is equally effective.

The Acceleration disk has an Acceleration version of the SDK, though its only initially titled SDK until the installation begins.  You must have the normal FSX SDK and SP1a installed to use it.  SP1a is included with the disk too.  By installing the Accelerator version this will at least fix some problems certain people have had with the file menu not displaying some options.

Reider

[NickN]

The drivers you want are the beta's 169.04 http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_169.04.html

NOTE: That link above is ONLY for VISTA x32

for XP use THIS link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.04.html

For XP x64 use this one: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_169.04.html

For VISTA x64 use this one: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_169.04.html


which are said to have the latest DX10 and other temp fixes which correct frame issues. The next official release is rumored to incorporate changes needed to fix several problems in FSX.

Nvida and Aces are aware of driver related problems with both DX10 and 9 with FSX Accel/SP2


The links above are better suited as of this date 11/12/07 for SP2/Accel. That will change as driver upgrades are released)



The way you replace drivers are as follows:

1.
Download the OFFICIAL driver update.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Input the correct information about your system


NOTE: If you wish to play with the latest BETA driver release, they can be found here:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/betadriv ... lang=en-us

Input the correct information about your system


For ATI cards go here and input the correct information about your system:

http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html


2.

[NickN]

6.

[macca22au]

Comprehensive, frightening,scary but comprehensive - thanks Nick.  

As I am in the middle of a rebuild - that I may not have needed if I had known of the driver cleaner utility (my fault not any one else's) does anyone know if the Vista SP1 beta contains all of the previous updates or do I still have to apply them.  Critical for me is the one that addresses the address issue that was eating up memory.

Since that update and with CFF I have completely overcome the OOM problem that earlier bedevilled Vista and FSX.

However tomorrow I still have time to ask for XP to be re-installed.  

Should I?

All it costs is money!!!

[NickN]

XP= no DX10

And I can tell you that it

[Wingo]

I just followed Nick's instructions above to install the new Beta drivers from nvidia (169.09). I'm running Vista and DX9, but I have noticed an improvement still. I've managed to squeeze an extra 2-4 fps from just upgrading the driver, and the sim is a lot smoother. Personally, I would recommend these drivers.

[NickN]

good.. I also upgraded this evening and I also see changes in DX9,,.. texture flashes are corrected and better overall flight smoothness although I did notice an increased hit with water reflection slider pushed up..

no biggie they are still beta

[kagazi]

Hello Nick,

I should learn to read first and tweak second.  I used your boot.ini tweak (/3GB/Userva=2560) for systems with over 2gigs of ram installed (i have 3gigs) and my dell e510 w/xpsp2 refused to boot and instead gave me a memory warning with blue screen background.  I used safemode to remove the tweak and all is well.  I now see the tweak is for those who have sp2/accel installed.  

I don't plan to purchase acceleration but I will install the sp2 once it's made available.  I'm wondering if your boot.ini tweak will work with sp2 stand alone?

[NickN]

[quote]Hello Nick,

I should learn to read first and tweak second.

[kagazi]

Thank you for your quick response.  My memory card isn't very good (ati x1650 pro w/256mb ram) but I don't believe it shares memory with the system.  Maybe something else is causing the heartburn.  I will give your reduction strategy a go since It doesn't take much to reverse and the more memory I can get the system to utilize the better.

Thanks for all your tweaks!
K