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

Hi people, I have had a wodnerful Saitek X52 for a bit over half a year now. Just a few weeks ago I got a new machine and after finally completing teh migration of my FS9 install to the new computer hooked up the Saitek and tested the sim on the new machine. To my dismay, I am getting significant spiking from the twist rudder control. When giving slight left rudder, I will suddenly get full right rudder. Also, often when using slight right aileron, or slight up elevator, I also get full right rudder for a few split seconds. In flight it's less extreme, but on the ground it makes taxiing next to impossible. I checked it in the controller calibration window and the right ru…

Hi all,I'm currently flying FSX with a Logitech Force 3D Pro joystick, and I'm not finding it all that great. It's a force-feedback joystick in case you weren't aware, so it doesn't have a true centering spring, instead relying on little motors/servos/whatever to keep it centered and generally control it.My problem is this: I find it to be a very twitchy/jumpy stick. This can be seen by simply going to game controllers (in the control panel) and viewing it's properties. You can see various displays for things such as centering. It has issues staying dead centre, and trying to move it gently and smoothly in any direction will often make the little marker in this display tw…

For my last post of 2006, I must pose this question. What is the fastest AGP card readily available that has been performing well for FSX?I have come to two conclusions: 1. There will probably not be any AGP DX10 cards released.2. I can't afford to replace my mother board/ram for DX10 compliance.As a result, I think I might just get the best video card out there and upgrade my processor. My board will take up to a AMD X2 4800+ so this looks like it may the most affordable option.Considering my current specs, does anybody have any suggestions?

Hey BuckI know you are running the 8800 GTX but I am hoping someone else might be running it and be able to help as well. I can not get FS9 to recognize the AA/AF settings I am setting in the Nvidia CP. I started by removing my 7900 GTX and 7800 GTX cards drivers. Then I rebooted to Safe Mode, ran driver cleaner,Ccleaner and registry mechanic.Rebooted back to normal and so far I have tried the 97.92, 97.44, 97.28 and no matter what I set in global settings and profile settings, FS seems to ignore it and does not apply any AA. I have also let FS rebuild its config to no avail. I am really hoping someone can help me as I have a second 8800 GTX on the way and I am not h…

I was doing a disk cleanup and installing Megascenery SOCAL...once i started installing MS, I got the delayed disk write error (like when I had my external HD...that started coming up...but the HD died so that shouldn't matter). Every now and then, I would have to retry installing a certain file during the installation, and to the end, I accidently clicked abort so the whole isntallation froze and I had to close the process. The disk error kept coming up, so I decided to restart. Now, windows won't start at all (no safe mode, or anything). It gets to the logo screen, than briefly a blue screen comes up (It comes and goes so fast I can't even tell what is on there), and it…

See the 6th post in the thread herehttp://www.thevistaforum.co.uk/viewtopic.p...er=asc&start=15which quotes the MS Head of OEM.Some folks there suggest anyone planning to buy OEM Vista should do it sooner rather than later in case MS find a way to enforce the "only with a new machine" clause.I'll probably stick with XP unless the future DX10 patch turns out to be really, really good, but I thought other folks here might be interested.--Bryn--Bryn

What views do you guys put on a dual monitor setup? I've just ordered a new system so I will have two monitors until I sell my old system. I have 21" WS and a 18" 4:3.Thanks

Hi Guys, My system has IDE hard drives. Can I connect an external SATA hard drive via USB for backup and restore? Or do I need SATA controllers on my motherboard (which I don't have)? I could just get an IDE hard drive, but I am intending to upgrade to SATA within the next few weeks, so I need something compatible with both types of drive.Can I use one of the Coolermaster Xcraft 350 enclosures? I notice they come in IDE, SATA and Firewire versions. Does this just relate to the kind of drive you put inside, or the kind of hard drive controller on your motherboard?http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod3882.htm Cheers,Noel.

Hi.. all i'm new to this forum... please help me with one problem..i just install windows vista and FS9 and they r working well..the problem is i can't install AITM both versions... Can any of u brothers help me wit my problem? i would really appreciate it...Thanks

Support for wide screen monitor:YES - I own a desktop/laptop with widescreen monitor and need better implementationNO - I don't care about distortion on my instrument panelI vote YES!!Andy

Got a Dell 2407 widescreen a couple of weeks ago. Rut it at 1920x1200x32. It looks great and the frames are good. Have noticed that in some of the 2d panels the instrument display panels are "streched" wider than they should be,(squares look more like rectangles). Have done some digging on this issue but have not been able to come up with a solution. Do not know if there is one. Maybe someone here knows. Can this widescreen be run at the above resolution and the 2D gauges "unstreched"? Thanks for the input.Regards,Joe

First they close their excellent online support forum a few days ago (you've probably seen my rant below), then they announce a new product - a digital DH2GO, that is, 2 DVI outputs but still a VGA input. Weird.What a lot of us would like to see is a TH2GO with digital inputs and digital outputs. I wonder if that is in the pipeline. Wrong time to buy an analogue TH2GO?Read about the new box here:http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/news...2go_digital.php--Bryn

Hi,I'm experiencing problems during large file operations on HDs attached to either SATA1 or SATA2 running in non-RAID. The system tends to lock up while trying to copy large files, running Chkdsk on the drive while in Windows or while Defragging the drive. I have been unable to format any drive on SATA1 or SATA2 while in Windows although it is possible while in SAFE MODE (!?)My System specs:ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, AMD Athlon 64X2 3800+ (2000MHz)(K8 Manchester), 2GB Crucial PC3200 DDR400 Ram 2.5-3-3-8 (1T) (Dual Channel), (AGP 8X) Saphire ATI Radeon X800 XL (R430) 256MB (Omega 3.8.273 (Catalyst 6.7)), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), SB Audigy…

I have just bought a ECS elitegroup RS 400A mainboard and an Intel Pentium D 930 3GHz dual core processor along with one GB of Ram. I have also got a PNY GEFORCE 7600 AGP graphics card. Appeared to have the NVIDIA technology but was considerably cheaper (and presumably not as good).I've upgraded my computer several times in the past but never had this problem. When I switch the computer on the power and HDD lights come on and I can hear the fan going but I have no picture on the screen and there are no further beeps or indication anything else is happening.I disconected the graphics card and plugged the monitor into the onboard graphics port and the same thing happened.An…

Greetings AllI'm not real sure but wanted to ask if a 32 screen would be ok with fs9.Cost of a good one is around 700 now with sale disc. of 300.To use the triple head I would need to buy a new video card 2 monitors and the 3headtogoany comments on what display might look like.I'm thinking the panels in cockpit view might be distortedBest regardsAndrew

Wow, I just went from 2x512 kingston pc2700 to 2x1gig Corsair pc3200.... flew at heathrow with scenery at normal and autogen sparse (tweaked to 400 200 I believe), LOD rad set to large, 1m textures, and mid range mesh complex... will post cfg later... but I was using about 1gig ram and about 200mb of my 256vid ram. didn't drop below 11fps, avg'd about 17fps, had set to 26. it was very smooth, I'm sure with more tweaking I'll get it even smoother. :)And that's on a laptop :)

Hi,I'll be building a system tomorrow with an 8800 GTS on XP Pro 32 bit.I've been doing lots of reading and lots of people are complaining about this and that. The primary purpose of this computer will be to run FS9 and FSX.What video driver version would you suggest?I notice that 97.92 was just released on nVidia's site as a released driver (I guess Guru3D has had the beta for a little while).Thanks,Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

Hi allI wouold like to build a Core 2 Duo system (probably a 6600 CPU for price reasons) - but I have a fairly recent ATI X800 (256 meg) vid card which is an AGP card. Hence I would need an AGP motherboard - any suggestions please?Thanks Barry

All - I set up a new system for FSX about a week ago, and I'm experiencing some strangeness on the video front. The system is a Dell running Vista (32 bit) on an Intel Core Duo 6600 (3.2 MhZ)with 2GB RAM and an nVidia 7900 GS graphics card with the latest Vista drivers. The game goes through the load and at about 82% complete, the screen starts to flicker a bit and the mouse pointer turns from white to black. Then it completes the load, but instead of going into the simulation, the screen starts to flash. During this flash, you see the outline of the graphics (aircraft, instrument panel, terrain, weather, etc) with sharp primary colors followed by a little glimpse of the …

From the posts, it seems dual cores have some advantage. I am pricing a new computer and I see Quads at 2.66 Ghtz for a few bucks more than dual's. Any advice on which route to go for FSX?

Due to my desire to have all the goodies in FSX, I blew alot of money on a new computer. Pentium D 3.4 dual core, 2Gigs of RAM an an ATI X550 video card and I am getting abysmal frame rates, usually between 7 and 10 FPS. This is with the default settings. For weeks I've culled everything I can on this and other forums, printed out endless settings from people who are getting over 20 fps. Nothing I try seems to work. I surrender! I really need some advice, since I must be doing something wrong. For example, after installing MY Traffice, I got a wopping 4 fps. I uninstalled it. I've been flight simming since my c-64 days and am not a complete techno idiot, but I rea…

Greetings All, Recently sent for the Matrox 3head and a new Nvidia card(7800GSoc)Trying to decide which monitors would be a good choice.There are so many deals.I like Samsung but thought I would throw out the question to the community.So if an ybody has an idea to share thank you!Best regardsAndrewDamascusPa

Hi all. I'm looking forward to build myself a USB Throttle Quadrant out usb joysticks I have and would dismantle for the electronics. I would like use a 4 ports USB Hub for the connection of the mounted result.What kind of USB Hub should I look for. Powered - unpowered?For example, would this cheap powered one at Ebay be suitable for the job?http://cgi.ebay.ca/NEW-USB-2-0-4-ports-Ext...1QQcmdZViewItemOr should I seek for some other type more reliable? If so, any suggestion?I'm using XP Pro-SP2.Thanks for any input,Hugo

I know everyone is probably getting pretty sick of these questions but after much searching I am unable to find out whether it is worth getting FSX for use on the following system:-Athlon 3000+XP (333)2 x 512MB PC3200 RAM (U/C - 333)XFX 7600GT 256MB AGPSB Audigy 2I have just upgraded GFX card from 6600GT 128mb which has helped in loads of games although not a huge difference in FS 2004 which runs OKish with tons of addons such as FSG mesh, Ultimate Terrain, Active Sky etc etc. Would I get better visuals & similar performance if I install FSX or not?

Has anyone come across a PC hardware review site that uses FSX for performance benchmarks? I would think it would be a good application to use since it is so demanding. I suggested it to Tom's Hardware Guide but have not received a response. Maybe some of you have made your own comparisons and can share them here. No doubt many of us are in the process of upgrading and would fine this info useful.