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

Hi All,My water cooling system will be with me today, and I have been searching the net to find good cooling soloutions.Most of the info seems like my old A level Chemistry class, and would like some SIMPLE suggestions on what to use.So far, I have been able to glean that steam-distilled water is the best choice for a "base" coolant, and adding "water-wetter" will aid against corrosion, and also increase the cooling properties, trouble is "water-wetter" is

My current system is:Dell XPS (original series)Intel P4 3.0 ghz1 gig RAMATI 9800 Pro 128mb Audigy2 sound cardMy board is AGP only so I can't consider a PCIe card.Now, I'm not really ready to buy a new system, but I have been looking at upgrading my trusty old 9800 Pro. I wasn't really looking at going for one of the latest nVidia or ATI cards (6800gt or x800 XT +) for >$300+. However, if people think that kind of upgrade would really help, I would consider it. I was looking more at the mid-range cards, like the 6600gt or something ATI. I was looking at Tomshardware.com, and I was not impressed with the benchmarks for the 6600 over the old 9800 pro. Even though the…

I have been ahving this problem off and on for a few weeks , since I got this new Dell 8400 with a 3.4 Gig and Nvidia 6800 GT with 256 Ram. All of a sudden the scenery will look like it went to CGA resolution. This happens mostly when I go to FSNav which I run full screen and then back to full screen FS9. Sometimes I can "shock" it back into normal grahics, and if I switch to windowed mode, may times , it will clear up. Go back to full screen, and it is NG again. I have experimented with most Graphics card settings and nothing seems to make a difference. If I reload the aircraft I am in ( doesn't matter which one) , many times this situation seems to go away, for the re…

Very curious as to whether or not SLI makes a difference in FS9. The claims for other games are a douobling of rendering speed. I'm about to build a new system and really considering this.Dave

I always understood that one of the advantages of a USB was that you could remove / plug in with the computer switched on. Due to ( I'm told) a conflict with the Nvidia chipset, my flight controller would only work after a live plug in. The answer was to get a PCI-USB card. I did this and it cured the problem. However, before I could do this, the following happened. After working on other things I decided to go flying. I pulled the USB, then plugged in again. That got the controller working, ( I'd done this a dozen times already over the last few days since getting the new controller) The instant I clicked the fs9 icon everything went dead. My recently aquired Gigabyte GA…

Hi All,After some pretty bad framerate reports from the 5.2's and 5.3's I've been gunshy to update my drivers- anyone try the new 5.4's to see if ATI has fixed the problems?Thanks,Joel

Hi Folks!i wanted to buy a new board with a new CPU + Ram. I can't afford such a high end system so i would like to know from you how a AMD Sepron 3000+ will behave in FS2004? i had an AMD 2400+ and it was really poor. i had also 512 SD-Ram and a gforce 440mx. my new system config would look like this:AMD Sempron 3000+512mb DDR ram128mb videocard (nforce or what ever)i would like to know, if you would recomment it...thxbtw is the motherboard also important for the performance?

What are the differences in performance between the following memory chips:1. PC3200 400MHZ 1024MB2. PC4200 533MHZ "3. DUAL CHANNEL (2X)512MBWhich way should I go if I were to build a new system.I realize that anything over 1 gig of memory is essentially an overkill with FS9. But I am planning to put 2 gigs.Appreciate all sorts of help and comment.Thanks.Abe

I would like to reduce the sensitivity of the nosewheel steering when using the defualt rudder toggle.I find that the rudder sensitivity in FS9 has two sliders!The top slider seems to have no effect on the visual rudder movement whilst the lower slider does make the rudder move slower.But in all cases the nosewheel steering seems the same, making it difficult to make smooth and gentle turns on the taxiway.Nigel

I am very pleased with the performance of this card. There's really only one issue remaining at this stage: in spot view only, when I look at distant mountains, even with aniso switched on, I get a certain amount of shimmer of various peaks and mountainsides. Not all of them, just some of them. They "quiver" like jello being shaken in a glass bowl. When I look at them from the 2-D or 3-D cockpit, they are stable and normal to the eye.Why is this and is it fixable?Thanks.JS

Hi All, I see the dual core pentiums are starting ship. Do you think FS9 would run any better on them as opposed to a single core chip at the same speed (core and FSB)? I've seen in other posts that the HT technology does not seem to have much affect on FS9, should I expect the same from dual core?ThanksSteve

I recently had my 2 1/2 year old ATI 9700 Pro AGP card go on the blink. So I packed it up, got an RMA and shipped it off to Canada expecting a good long wait while I went through FS withdrawels.1 week - UPS ground to New York1 week - New York to ATI (going thru customs)2 weeks - ATI quoted time to repair unit1 week - shipping unit back to meWell, I got it back in two weeks from the day I shipped it! Not only that they sent me a brand new 9800 Pro card instead! Just like to promote good customer service when I see it.Question - I use a second ATI video card so I can use a total of 3 monitors but my current card, an older ATI Rage 128, does not seem to be compatible wit…

My current computer is as follows:Windows XP HomePentium 4 1.6 Ghz256 MB RAMRadeon 9000 AGP ProIm looking to get a new computer for FS (And yes mine does run slow) but I was also thinking about just upgrading what I currently have. I have heard that if you order a new mobo with the processor and RAM from newegg.com that they will put it all together for you. Is this true? Also what components would you guys reccomend? I would like the entire thing to cost under 1000 USD.Thanks,Matt

My wife purchased a new 19" LCD monitor for me. Now I have to make some video card decisions. Currently running a 19" Dell glass monitor with a Nvidia Geforce 400mx 64mb. CPU is AMD 2600. Careful "slider management" gives me good FPS(20-25) for my needs. However, I would like better clouds and faster texture loads (stutter)so a new video card is now needed as well.With the appearance of the new 19" LCD my possible approach is to use a new video card in along with the old 400mx and both monitors. The issue becomes one of cost for the new card. From PriceWatch it seems that the Nvidia 5200 through 5600 line (not Ultra) hit my $$$ sweetspot. Power supply is 400w. I am sure t…

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/e...on/upgrade.mspx Has anyone tryed this upgrade?

Hi All,First post! I'm hooked and have been since I bought FS9 last June. I've always found answers to my questions and want to say a big THANKS to all!I'm putting together specs for a new system and need help/recomendations with system memory. The motherboard I'm working with is a Asus A8V Deluxe. I'm looking at 1gb of Corsair Twinx 1024-3200LL and wondered if some other model or manufacturer would perform better. FX-55 processor, ATI 9800PRO video (current system), 2x36gb Raptor drives, Antec case, Thermaltake 480W PS and case fans round out the box along with peripheral drives of my existing system. Anything else I should consider? Thanks in advance for your com…

I really need some help if someone can help me. I want to use the map mode of the ch yoke to program buttons for each panel i have PMDG, LDS, etc. BUT if i use map mode, FSUIPC does not recognize any buttons on my joystick at all. It is nice to use my prop control for reverse, mixture for spoilers etc but if fsuipc will not recognize my yoke then i am s.o.l. Has anyone figured a way around this? thx guys

Hello,A question for you the Gurus :I run with 2 monitors attached to my GF4 TI4600. When I try to remove an installed driver and clean the config so that I can install a new one I cannot re-config my GF4 TI4600 so that the 2 monitors run well .I cannot config the nView Display mode correctly and have a primary and secondary display with different refresh rates, resolutions, ..... So what I do now : I install the XG drivers one "above" the other and it works. Before I take a "restore point" in case of. Any recommendation how to proceed with 2 monitors attached?Thanks in advance.

HowdyToday I purchased a new LCD monitor, as my 21" CRT looks good except for night flying, with the new Ultimate Terrain night lights as black appeared slightly dark brown, annoying none the less. Anyway the new monitor is the BENQ 23" 1920x1200 DVI. When I start FS9, load a saved LDS767 flight, scroll through the views, it looks fabulous but all atempts to change settings bringing up the menu with the alt key to change from windowed to full screen for example causes FS to either hang or freeze up. I have tried re-installing new drivers for my ATI X800 XT and deleting the FS9.cfg and it still messes up. I have managed to set FS's resolution to 1920 x 1200 as well as the …

I would like to know which of the available Nvidia drivers is the moststable and reliable under FS9 - My card is Nvidia FX5900 128Mb.Perhaps there isn't an easy answer for this but your comments wouldbe welcome to help me decide which drivers to try. There appears tobe a large number of these drivers making it difficult to decide whichone to go for.ThanksJB

I am currently running a P4 Northwood 3.0Ghz @ 3.4Ghz 227x15 and I am thinking of purchase the P4 Prescott 3.4Ghz. The big question/s will I see an improvement in FS9 and can I overclock the Prescott to 3.85 227x17?Regards,Andrew.

I just installed the latest omega drivers and when i load fs9 it says right away about not being about to load some aircraft and they may not work then underneath that is says fsint.dll. Question is what aircraft use this dll file and wonder why installing omega drivers would have messed around with that. ALSO if anyone using FS autostart may be able to answer this. After i run this progrma and it launches fs9 i notice some things such as PMDG takes longer to load (you know that scrolling bar that goes by as it load Airports, airways, etc) and then i notice it takes longer to load the terrain when i finally click ok top start at an airport. any ideas if i disabled a servi…

I just had to replace my DVD/CDRW unit. I chose for the little difference in cost to go ahead and get a unit capable of writing DVD's as well. I must plead ignorance to all of the terminology though. Is there a good tutorial or summary anywhere in laymen's terms for the different applications relative to these units. (i.e. "+", "-", "double layer", etc. etc. I really don't know what media applies to what I might want to do.Thanks for the help:RTH

I just had to replace my DVD/CDRW unit. I chose for the little difference in cost to go ahead and get a unit capable of writing DVD's as well. I must plead ignorance to all of the terminology though. Is there a good tutorial or summary anywhere in laymen's terms for the different applications relative to these units. (i.e. "+", "-", "double layer", etc. etc. I really don't know what media applies to what I might want to do.Thanks for the help:RTH

What is the best ATI graphics card out there running PCI-E 16x? I'm not sure what brand name is the best, asus, saphire, etc. And is the X850 worth it instead of the X800? Thanks!