System Hardware: PC | MOBO | RAM | CPU | HDD | SSD | PSU etc

I've got a 6600 duo-core conroe, and an ATI1600/1650 w/ a 512k graphics card running FS9 & PMDG 747. I've got weather almost maxed coming into JFK and the Core 1 activity according to the Wizard is registering 99% however, the Core2 is only at 1%. Is this normal or is there a setting to have Core2 kick in and share some of the load?jack

While surfing I ran across a site that had plans for modifying a standard keyboard to work as a flight control console. I think it had "downloadable" and printable template you could lay over the keyboard. They charged about $9 for the download. Of course, I forgot to bookmark the folder and now I cant find it. Anyone know what I'm looking for?

I do understand some of the different technologies involved that trade response time/cost and viewing angle for better black/higher contrast, or less backlight bleed. I know one thing: my Samsung is fine if you look straight on at it, and it does not do well for night flying, which I very much (used to) enjoy.Anyone found the perfect compromise in this regard yet? I'd pay the $$ for one that was fast enough and offered better black and viewing angle.I miss my Sony 22" ultra high grille point CRT!Noel

Hi,I can get 4gb of this- Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 DDR2 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN BL2KIT12864AA1065 -for less than i could get another 2gb of the corsair dominator i have now,i am wondering if this is good ram.thanks,Tony.

I was just reading the latest and greatest 'best buy' feature on video cards on Tom's Hardware.On comparing one high-end card to another and also in the mid-range, the author alluded to the fact that most cards don't process AA beyond the 4x setting, so it's not a big deal that you'd want a card that could be 'used' at the 6X setting on your 3D driver screen. To put it up to the 6X seems to not give you anything past what would be seen at the 4X slider setting. If I understand what he meant, is that there is a wall at the 4X setting that is not breached by any card?!?!? Is 6X truly a placebo setting? I dunno....Any I.T. video gurus out there, that would agree or debunk…

Hi everyone I'm new here.Recently I bought a new computer with a Sapphire Radeon HD2900XT 512mb graphics card. I have set aa to 8x using the Catalyst Control Centre and aa off in FS9.However, the anti-aliasing seems to be very bad in FS9, even worse than my previous graphics card (very old NVIDIA Geforce MX420).Here's an examplehttp://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/sq380/Untitled.jpgI hope that someone can help me. Thanks

Hi everyone!Just got my new PC (never get tired of saying that ;)) and everything is great. Except for one thing : I got 3 GB of RAM and it came as 3 x 1 GB sticks (contrary to the advice I got on the forum, the guy in the shop said that it wouldn't affect performance and since I wasn't the one paying, I didn't really put up a fight). And now, when I bring up the System screen in the Control Panel, it lists me as having only 2 GB. As I said, I was told here that is was better to have 2 x 1 GB sticks and 2 x 512 MB sticks, for dual-channel operation (or something like that). Is it possible that not having that is the cause of XP not seeing the last GB?Thanks for any opinio…

I'm currently running FS9 and FSX under XP-Pro.If i install Vista on another partition, will i get a choice at bootup?

I am interested in the eVGA model. Reviews are really good for this unit and I was thinking of getting one. Could use some opinions.Thanks.

Hi GuysI am getting back to flying after a looooong break. As you can see from the no. of posts and the joining date I couldnt do much flying from the day I joined AVSIM :(...My old system has given up on me so planning to build a new rig.I have seen a lot of threads about performance so I thorught...where else to ask for advice than here :-yellow1 The spec of the system I have in mind is given below. Case Aplus Twin Engine CaseCase P/S Corsair HX Series 620WMotherBoard Asus Maximus Extreme - Intel X38 DDR3 ORMotherBoard Asus Maximus Formula SE - X38 -DDR2CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - G0 SteppingMemory Corsair Twin3X2048-1333C9DHX OR Memory Corsair…

Hi everybody, I play FSX SP1 Deluxe on a AMD X2 3800+, 2GB RAM (PC3200 DDR 400), Asus A8R-MVP 939 Motherboard and ATI 1900XT card with Windows XP fully updated. I had till today only 1024MB RAM (G.E.I.L. - 2 modules of 512MB PC3200 DDR400 CL=2,5-8-4-4). But today I got my new 2048MB (again GEIL 2 modules 1024MB PC3200 DDR400 with CL=2,5-6-4-4). I had my PC slightly overclocked (directly from BIOS options, +10%, so I had 2200MHz per core.) Before I installed the new RAM I reset the overclocking back to normal. After I installed the new RAM (the old is not installed so I got 2GB) I wanted to set the overclocking again and I see that my cores are at 1600Mhz!!! How ca…

For those running multimon setups for FS9 and NOT using Matrox Triple Head, are you able to get AA working on more than the main monitor?I have a 8800 and it seems AA only works on the main monitor.Any suggestions?

Any recommendations for a video card for this set-up?HP PavilionAMD 64x2 Dual Core Processor 5000+2.61 Ghz, 3.50 GB ramWindows XP media center edition service pack 2Sorry, I don't really know what any of that means. I pulled it from the my computer properties. If this is not enough information to help with a suggestion please let me know. Respectfully,Scott

Starting the slow process of selecting components for a new build. The drives & case will migrate over from my current machine. I intend to purchase a Penryn processor, and today I am leaning towards 2 core versions, mainly because of allegedly superior overclockability. So, it is pretty much down to GPU solutions. I had an ATI 9700 Pro way back when, and while IQ was fine, the card and all drivers available were prone to the odd lock up, and some games would not run well at all. I changed to an nV 6800 GT OC and have NEVER had any issues with the card in any apps, with any drivers I've tried, and IQ was decent.Is this now a matter of preference (or perhaps famil…

What is everyone's settings for Sensitivity and Null Zones for the Aileron axis, Elevator axis, Brake (left & right axis), & Rudder axis in FSX with the CH Flight Sim Yoke & Pedals? I just can't find settings that feel right. I can never trim the C172 for hands-off flying for very long. Thanks.

I have an ABIT IP35 Pro MB set up for a RAID 1 (Mirror). Is it possible to connect a SATA CD/DVD drive or do I need to use an IDE drive and why? Thanks.

Sorry if I write in FS9 section but it's important for all the community, mouve to the correct section if you desire.I want to inform that a lot of people are getting random buttom problem and in the Saitek forum there is big flame for a lot of defective Yoke. If any one have problem please write the shop and the serial number so this thread will help to figure out how many we are.Thank youhttp://www.saitekforum.com/showthread.php?p=61356#post61356

Does more than 2Gb RAM help with blurries?

I would like to publicly nominate ATI's 7.10 driver suite as the BEST driver package EVER put out by them since the year of 1995 when I got my first ATI card, the MACH 64 Turbo.I simply am in awe of how RAZOR SHARP all elements of FS9's display is since having adopted them. At 1920x1200 resolution, the scene is stunning! I mean...it goes WAY beyond 'adequate'!As soon as I finish this post, I intend to send an email to ATI to tell them how truly sensational their latest driver effort is, and to extend my appreciation for their continuing efforts to squeeze each and every last 'performance' drop out of not only the current 1000 series cards, but every card that came before…

I'm trying to fine tune my 8800 GTS 640, and i was wondering what similar owners are going with as far as setting up the Nvidia settings.Here was I got, but I think I can do better:Resolution 1280 x 1024 32 color( monitor native res)Antistropic Filtering: Application controlledAA mode: onAA setting: 4xTransparency: offTexture clamp: HardwareError reporting: offextension limit: offForce mipmaps: trilinearMulti-display: Single (single monitor use)Texture filtering: qualityTriple buffering: onVsync: OffI may be off a bit as I'm doing this from memory, and I'm at work. I have heard that not using AA in FSX is way better, but actually I think it looks worse IMO and framerate d…

G'day guys,Wondering if somebody could help me. I've got an 8800GTS and running the 163.71 drivers. Screen res is 1280x1024.When I set nHancer to run supersampling (on any level) I get blury 2D panels and the SHIFT-Z line is very blury. If I set anything other than supersampling, Ie 16xQ, the bluries go away but of course the AA isn't as good.Does anybody have any expirence with this? I've tried adding PanelAsTexture=0 to the .CFG as suggested to me elsewhere, but that just caused my 2D panels to disappear.As seems to be the way with these new drivers, I've had to enable AA within FS9 to get any anti aisling. nHancer can't seem to enforce AA if the checkbox within FS9 isn…

Well, I finally got the new computer built and XP installed today. My full specs are in my signature. It was a chore getting the SATA divers installed on the floppy. It seems every other build I reverse the floppy cable and then have to fix that error. Then, for whatever reason, I couldn't put the floppy in the drive when I ran the Abit driver utility from CD. I had to wait until the menu said it was ready to accept the floppy disk, but never gave any indication of that or made any sound that would give me that clue. I also had to change the RAM voltage or the system would hang on reboots every now and then. All of that took longer than actually installing XP!Anyho…

I have been using the matrox triple head 2 go analogue adapter for the past 12 months and I have found it to be great with FS2004 + Track IR... the only downside I have found is that when reading text it can appear slightly blurry when small (can cause headaches after a couple of hours) and the edges of each screen can seem mis aligned.. I have run the image quality tab but it does not help. I am guessing becose it is an analogue adapter there is a slight loss of quality when spanning across 3 monitors.. Does anybody have the new digital edition and if so have could you please comment on the quality.....Many Thanks

My impression after my previous thread is that it's for me rather pointless to try to upgrade for FSX.So what kind of FS9 system could I have if I keep my Asus A8V Deluxe with AMD 64 3200+ 1 Gb 400 MHz RAM and replace my NVIDIA 6600GT 128M DDR3 with the AGP version of ATI X1950PRO 512M DDR3?In FS9 how much difference would the lower CPU and RAM make?Regarding harddrives I have three options1) Continue using IDE drive like I do now. 2) Buy a SATAII RAID controllercard so I can use my current WD 160 Gb for RAID specifically designed drives in raid 03) Get a raptor drive 150 GbThis option would cost far less than replacing mb cpu ram in addition to the video card. Maybe it's…

I'm now looking to build a new computer, but I've gotten lost in all the new stuff on the market..... So, I'm asking for suggestions on what motherboard/ram/etc. to get for best results....I'm looking for the best, most overclockable system based on either the Core2Extreme QX6850 or Core2Extreme X6800 (depending on whether the dual-core or quad-core is the best bet)... Don't know yet if I'd want 2GB or 4GB of ram....Any recommendations on what motherboard and RAM to get for the best overclockability/performance? Also, would I be better with the Geforce 8800GTX or Ultra, or the ATI equivelant (or is there an ATI equivelant to the 8800GTX/Ultra?)(Edit to subscribe to thi…