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

Hi.QUESTION 1.I

I have just installed FS9 onto a freshly formatted external USB2.0 Seagate Barracuda 200GB HDD ATA 100 @ 7200RPM 2MB cache. I then plugged this into my Amilo notebook and did a test flight with the default Cessna from London Heathrow.I firstly tested the frame rates with everything on full and then gradually moved most of the settings back to between half and full. I also tried altering the resulution settings between 800x600, then 1024x768 and upto 1200x800, and locked the frame rates at 35, 30, 25 and finally 20FPS.Lastly I tried with the ATi settings by upping the AA & AF to 6x & 16x respectively.The best I could achieve was 14FPS even on relatively moderate se…

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Hi,well, I finally got around to upgrade my computer. I'm running an Athlon 3500+, nForce4, ASUS A8N5X, Radeon Sapphire X850XT PE, 1gb Corsair RAM, ThermalTake water cooling, etc... temps go to 35 deg C at most when running at full load and 8% overclocked (the AI NOS thingy in BIOS)The sim runs great, but stutters a lot. On ATC contact, every time a piece of scenery or AI AC load and so on. I tried all sorts of things, read through this forum, but nothing seems to help. What I did so far:- tweaked fsconfig file a lot: Terrain section, bandwidth_mult, etc...- tried different video drivers from 5.10 backwards, including Omegas. I thoroughly cleaned drivers remnants before i…

Hi all!I have an on-board sound card in my ASUS K8V SE-X, and would like to know if I'll notice any change in performance if I install an off-board card, like a Creative Sound Blaster one, for ex.Also, I'm looking to buy a 160GB HD ???RPM and place my FS9 in it. I would leave the old one for my C: files and stuff. Would you think this could help me out in squeezing a bit more FPS out of my sim???Thanks and regards,Lucas.

i must say its quite a sleek monitor, but what really took me back isnt the size as much, (as i am coming from a 21" CRT) but the sharpness and clarity of this monitor.It is a very nice monitor with very great colours and hopefully it will last me a long time.However one thing id like to see is, if its possible how do i get more of the cockpit in the screen? Coming from a 21"CRT i thought id see more of the cockpit but what i see is exactly the same in the 24"?I have it set at 1920 x 1200 and had the 21" at 1200 x 1600.Also im running a 6600GT card and have no problems performance wise, so its a good thing i dont need to upgrade my GPU.

I just got a 19" LCD monitor and I use it with an ASUS Nvidia GeForce 6800GT with 128 MB. Yet the letters in screen looks fuzzy - not sharp. I changed monitors, and got same result. Used the monitor in another computer with a ATI 9600 card and everything is OK. My conclusion is that the Nvidia does not fit well with LCD screens. Actually I remember to read somewhere something concerning this issue.Is that correct? Is there anything I can do to improve the quality of (mainly) the text in my LCD screen? I believe this is not a driver issue (tried last two drivers - currently is 81.94) or refresh rate or resolution.My system is a PIV 3.2 GHz, ASUS board, 1 GB memory, WinXP w…

Hi,I believe that my Dell Microsoft 1.2A PS/2 Compatible mouse may be causing FS to crash, certainly I am getting a crash from every longer flight. I have had error messages pointing to all different kinds of dll's including panels.dll and G2D.dll. There was a problem AfCad which I fixed and it solved a crash that I was getting at more or less the same point in a particular flight. I have tried updating the mouse software to the latest version from Microsoft but it has made no difference. I did a search on Google and found only basic advice such as defrag etc. all of which I have done.What happens is that if I don't touch the mouse at all, the pointer jerks up and down. A…

Hi all,I just discovered that my 3 Ghz. hyper threaded Pentium IV 800FSB socket 478 was only using one of the two processors at 100% when running FS9. The second one is doing almost nothing thus giving a total performance of about 50%.Is this normal or is there any way of getting both processors to work at 100% when running FS9, thus increasing frame rates etc. ?My total memory is 2 Gb. (2 X Corsair 1024Mb DDR400 64MX64 TwinX).My main board is a Gigabyte 8KNXP i875P.My graphics card is an AGP ATI Radeon 9800SE.Thanks in advance.Hans

I just purchased a new computer (spec's below) and installed FS9, a few free add-on planes and Traffic 2005. For whatever reason my FPS were between 10-15 fps no matter what the settings were. I tried everything and earlier today I used the "q" key to turn the sound off in FS9 and all of a sudden my framerates jumped to 30+ in heavily dense airports with 70% traffic and with all the settings maxed. I then turned the sound back on and my framerates dropped by 15. I went into dxdiag and turned down the acceleration to basic and my framerates are now a steady 30+ with 6xAA and 16x AAF. I had a few questions about setting up a 5.1 speaker system so FS9 uses all speakers but w…

What LOD bias do you run? I am looking for a negative setting that gets rid of the wavy textures when zooming out as much as possible. ThanksI have the latest ATI drivers and am running an X850

Can someone explain why this problem happens.When running FS2004 it sometimes just exits itself for no reason and you are just looking at the desktop.No error message or anything. Ive read it can be caused by overheating or hardware problems.I dont think i have any of these as the computer otherwise works fine.Think I might re install FS2002 as it seems to be much more stable.FS9 seems to be plagued with CTD issues.I have all the XP sevice packs plus the FS9.1 Update installed.Doesnt happen all the time but is very annoying when it does.I can live with the poorer graphics of FS2002 if it runs more reliable plus i have plenty of Addon airports and planes to add to it.Plus …

My Amilo A1630 notebook with ATi Radeon mobile 9700 VGA card is in desperate need of the catalyst drivers v5.11.Unfortunately it appears that Fujitsu Siemens have prevented installation of any drivers unless downloaded through their own site. This is done by way of blocking the installation. If I try to install any ATi drivers I get an INF error message. The Fujitsu web site has only the old driver version 6.14.10.6430 dated 03/03/2004 and no other updates available. Surely if I have a Radeon VGA card installed then I must be able to install ATi Radeon driver updates.I am only getting 12FPS in FS9 with this machine which runs an Athlon64 3700 CPU and 1024MB RAM. I can onl…

Hi all...I know that FS2004 doesn't support 5.1 speakers. There's a tweak going arounf to be able to get the 4 speakers in a 5.1 speaker set to sound by adding to the fs9.cfg this...[sOUND]SOUND=1SOUND_FADER1=0.500000SOUND_FADER2=0.460000SOUND_FADER3=0.620000SOUND_FADER4=0.800000SOUND_FADER5=0.810000SOUND_FADER6=1.000000SOUND_QUALITY=2Channels=4SamplesPerSec=44100BitsPerSample=16The problem is that I've done this and still only get sound from my 2 front speakers (and the woofer)....Any help? What can be wrong? I every other game that supports it I get the full speakers sound..Thanks,Carlitos

My current PC has the older IDE cable/connectors to each of my 2 HD's and 2 DVD drives. I see lots of reference to the serial connection (SATA)for the HD. Do motherboards generally offer both types of connections to HD's, or is it necessary to add new SATA drives? If so, how do you migrate the data over? Are there maybe "converters" to interface an IDE drive to a SATA connection?And what about the DVD drives? Mine are IDE protocol.Thanks- Bruce.

Hi guys,I have my system new installed in the last week.I hav now a Radeon X800 graphiccard and the latest omega drivers installed.I made a testflight yesterday. Suddenly my panel starts to flicker. I disabled "Render to Texture". No flickering, but shortly after i had a crash to desktop from my FS. Tried to find the problem. After 2 hours a found it.If Render to Texture in enabled in FS, the panel flickers.If it is disabled, the panel stops flickering, but the FS crashed by loading 77% weather or during the flight.Is there a solution or workaround ? Can someonehelp me.thanksMarkus

This is a 'hot chestnut' of a question. i've had a Saitek Cyborg 3D Force joystick for about 2 years, never been a problem; force feedback has been very good. But now, once I start fs9, it flops about like an uncooked sausage, or similar :) - I've tried the 'latest' drivers circa 2003, but nothing I try improves the situation. Problem seemed to start after I had a new SATA HD fitted; which required a Format and reinstall of fs9. I would not have thought that operation was too serious, but it's ruined my flight sim experience.Question is, is there a cure, or does it mean a new Joystick. A last thought, if I switch on the joystick before starting fs9, the FF is th…

HiI am before an upgrade and i would like to ask you what videocard i should get the X850XT PE or the 7800GTX.I am also getting these parts: Abit AA8XE Fatal1ty Motherboard, P4 3.4GHz 800FSB 2MB cache, 500W Power supply.thanxTamas

I'm not planning a major upgrade until next year, in anticipation that FS10 may be out and have some hardware requirements :)I currently have an old system- ABit BD7II main board, old PC2100 DDR memory (1GB), and the CPU Intel P4 socket 478 2.66 GHz. I built this myself. (Win XP).I did a search on ABit for my CPU, and it came back with some later mobo models- even have AGP 8* !!One I see is the VT7. VIA PT880 / VT8237 chipset, Supports Dual DDR 400/333/266 (Max. 4GB). My video card is an ATI 9800 Pro 128MB (AGP).Any comments on what gains I might make with this new mobo amd memory?Any other advice on other uses of my CPU are most welcome (other then boat anchor :) )…

Hi AllQuite frustrated, just spent

My neighbor wants to get a laptop for himself. He has a summer house and wants something to use during the summer when he is not at his desktop. He plays games. mostly Quake and FPS type games, but also likes to play FS9 once in a while.He asked me what to get, but I don't know anything about laptops and dont want to stear him wrong. Can anyone recomend a good laptop for games. His budget is up to $2000 (give or take $200). What things should he make sure it has or dosent have etc..Any advice is appreciated.Rob

I'm having a problem with total lack of force feedback, as posted elsewhere in this Forum. This question is related to the fs9.cfg file;under the section named [Controls] there is a line thus = Force_Master_gain=10000 - can anyone tell me what this refers to (I guess joysticks) specifically?KenSomerset, England

I am building a new box mid december for fs and I am wondering if I will be able to run the sim no problem with full sliders and heavy ai. I do plan on running extra airport scenery and complex aircraft such as the pmdg 73 and DF 72 and plan on doing a lot of vc flying (trackir user :D). The box will consist of:AMD64 3700+2 gigs of pc3200 ram (cas latency 2.5)x850xt pe I am just wondering if fs will still be a slide show under those settings and how well it will run when some AA and AS are thrown into the mix.Also, if there are any fs2k4 benchmarks out there could you please direct me toward them?Thanks.

hi alljust a quick question, in its native resolution, at 1900 x 1200 and in the 3D cockpit in the PMDG 737 do you see the full cockpit or just your side like say the Captains cockpit side only?If so could you send me a pic in original size to fpa75 at hotmail.comthanks.

Hello everyone.Yes, I NEED recommendations, Im in the market for the best video-card to run FS, most smoothly as possible up to date.A friend gave me a NO on the nvidia7800, geforce cards are not good?Money to spend: -350/400 U.S. dollars.Please start giving me some recommendations on the latest cards that you guys have tried and know is the best on the market, worth the money!thank you.