Affinity Setting

[Groovin_DC-10]

Sorry guys.

[patchz]

I don't think so, as you have to set the affinity every time you fire up FSX. So it apparently does not change anything permanently.

[Capt.Propwash]

In your FSX.CFG that is burried deep in your computer in hidden files.. add the following anywhere that you want BEFORE you start flight sim.

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=14

Start FSX, and then set your FSX AFFINITY via Task Manager to all 4 cores... and the Priority to Normal. 

Every sequential start of FSX should stay at the 4 cores in the TM Affinity.


You should see about a 10-15% increase in FPS. (3-7 FPS increase)

[Groovin_DC-10]

Thanks guys.  I think Pat is correct because everytime I exit FSX, the affinity setting goes back to all 4 cores. 

Capt,
I changed it back to all cores and I think it's still working on all 4 cores.  I opened up CoreTemp while FSX was running and it's telling me that Core 0 is being used 100% most of the time, while cores 1, 2, and 3 stay fairly low, maybe 10-30% average, but once in a while all 4 cores will hit 100%.  Does this seem right for FSX?
I still haven't added the Affinity line to my cfg file incase it's already working fine. 

Is there a reason why you recommend setting affinity to Normal?  I've been setting mine to high.  I feel it has given me a small increase in performance.  I tried realtime, but my Saitek autopilot panel starts to freeze on realtime.  So far High has been 100% stable.

[Slotback]

In fsx.cfg try these tweaks:

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=14


try it


and then try

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=13


See which works better for you.

Don't bother messing with affinity and priority through task manager. The settings do not save either (so don't worry about that).

[EVVFCX]

during my usual daily visit to SV I saw this thread, as we are always looking at smoothness and speed I thought I'd google.
The list i found about it doesn't mention the 13 or 14 mentioned above and others replying it doesn't make any difference, it did say use 15 for quad core.

I'm on dual core so 13 or 14 doesn't effect me but where have these figures come from?

[Capt.Propwash]

Think of the cores in your system as a series of Pots stacked up. The top being the smallest (core 0) the bottom being the largest (core 4) **** ALTHOUGH THEY ARE THE SAME SIZE... Hummor me on this.

[Slotback]

during my usual daily visit to SV I saw this thread, as we are always looking at smoothness and speed I thought I'd google.
The list i found about it doesn't mention the 13 or 14 mentioned above and others replying it doesn't make any difference, it did say use 15 for quad core.

I'm on dual core so 13 or 14 doesn't effect me but where have these figures come from?

FSX with SP2 by default uses all cores with this tweak removed. If added, the affinity mask setting in fsx.cfg basically does the same thing as the one in task manager; it controls how many cores that fsx will use. I've heard of people getting best results by it set to all cores (which is does by default with SP2) but I've also seen people say that it is best to have it on all cores minus the first one. Apparently the tweak doesn't improve performance much or at all with dual core processors.

If you want an online script that automatically does a lot of tweaks for you read this thread:
http://205.252.250.26/cgi-bin/yabb25/Ya ... 1318977019

HOWEVER, if you want to do it manually the fsx.cfg tweak is:

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=XXX

It is not there by default but FSX SP2 will automatically try to run FSX on all the cores your processor has anyway. If you want to change it then add it. It's binary coded decimal. Some people have suggested that disabling the first core will improve performance. A bigger and better description of how it works is here:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/setting ... 29041.html

So basically on your dual core try:

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=3

This will make it run on both cores.

AND

[JOBSCHEDULER]
affinitymask=2

This will disable the first core.

See which works better. If affinitymask=3 works better then you can just remove the entire thing from fsx.cfg.



There was an error in my last post, the numbers should of been 15 and 14. Where did 15 and 14 come from? On a quad core then all cores in binary is 1111, which in decimal is 15. Disabling the first core (which some people think gives better results) is 1110 which is 14.

I hope this makes sense.

[EVVFCX]

now you've quoted it in binary it makes sense because all I saw was 15 and not the 13 or 14 thats mentioned, I've done the online fsx.cfg tweaks in the past and I'm reloading everything again after an OS reinstall.

[Groovin_DC-10]

Hi Capt,
Just wondering if I would benifit from Game Booster. 
My PC is strictly for FSX.  I have the OS in an SSD and FSX/FS9 on a seperate HDD with their add ons.
I'm currently running a program called "End It All".  It shows me what hidden aps are running and gives me the ability to shut them down.  When my PC starts, I have two hidden apps running.  The USB 3.0 interface and my disc burning program.  I shut them down.
Is this what Game Booster basically does?  Or could there be more unnecessary stuff running in the background?

I also used the online FSX cfg file tweaker and got a very noticable improvement.   

[Capt.Propwash]

GameBooster is basically the same thing as End It All.   

It finds the processes that your computer does not need running, to allow it to stay running ... example: Background Intelligent Transfer Service.   This can be fully disabled if you wanted it to be.

[Slotback]

Disabling BITS will often break Windows update. On a modern computer the performance benefits of disabling background services are extremely small and doing so can break important features. Only fully disable background services if you're 100% sure they will not break anything.

IMHO, don't bother with programs like Game Booster and End It All. If you have unneeded programs that you know you don't need starting up with the computer then stop them from starting in the first place. This can usually be done in the options for the program you want to disable, the services control panel (start, run, type services.msc, press enter), or through msconfig (start, run, type msconfig, press enter).

If you have a program running in the background running that you sometimes need, you THEN gamebooster might be a help, but even so you could probably get away with letting them run in the background. Less hassle.

[Groovin_DC-10]

Got it.  Thanks again for the informative posts, guys.