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

I have recenty become enamored of such warbirds as the Spitfire and the P51. My normal rig is a PFC yolk/power quad rig and I was wondering if there would be any problem with installing a joystick type controller to fly the fighters with.I was wondering if having two controllers would mess up FS9 software. This post borders on a hardware/software question so I wasn't sure which forum to post on. If this is moved, I'll go over to hardware.I'm hoping that I could just enable/disable the appropriate controller in Device Manager but don't want to fritz up my system.Thanks,Jim

I use nVidia drivers 56.72 on my Ti4600 and they work great. Shall I stick with them or upgrade to something else? Appreciate comments, thanks!JS

I just purchased a new top of the line ABS computer to use in my work (photography and video) and will probably install Flight Sim 2004 on it also. On all of my other computers I have had the hard drive partitioned into 3-4 differant sections. This new computer has a TWO- DUEL 120 GB, zero configed harddrives. ( It also has the new two video cards setup). I've heard that flight sim runs smoother if you COMPRESS FS2004. Can you compress Fs2004 if the harddrive in ONE big 240 GB drive ? I DE-frag alot after working with my photography so would I be better off with ONE 240 GB drive or break it up into 2-4 smaller drives? Your opions PLEASE. Thanksjerrycwo4

My Grandson has just finished building me a new computer to replace the three year old model that found it hard to cope with the demands of FS2004.I also decided to splash out on a second monitor, with which to view the GPS,Radio, Throttle etc.I went into Display Properties/Settings, selected the second monitor,and checked that the "Extend my windows desktop to this monitor" box was ticked.I then fired up the Flight Sim, went into windowed mode, and from my normal 2D panel window, I then un-ticked the "unlock view" indicator. This allowed me to move the Cockpit, Spot plane, Tower views etc. to the second monitor, but would not permit me to move the GPS picture out of the…

I purchased a Geforce Ultra Gainward 256 Video Card and had it installed today with the 66.81 drivers. Although the frame frates are good the image quality is not. I have never seen so much shimmering especially in the trees, buildings, and Runways. Has anybody any idea's what I can do to improve image quality?Also I am not sure hgow I should set the display settings. My resolution is set at 1280 x 1024Any help would be greatly appreciated.Best Wishes and many thanks,Chris

Hi, I just got a new 6800GT and was wondering how I should tweak the settings to get optimal performance and quality from FS9. I have an AMD Athlon 3200+ system with 1GB RAM.I am currently *gasp* just running FS9 with maxed out settings within the sim itself. Should I be tweaking settings using third-party utilities? If so, a detailed settings guide would be very helpful.Thanks!

I went from an Athlon 2800 (2250mhz 256 L2 cache) to an Athlon XP-M (2450mhz 512 L2 cache) and have noticed a lot of improvement in general computer speed. In FS2004, however, I notice quite a bit of improvment in low density scenery areas but in high density areas such as default Seattle area with everything maxed and 30 miles of visability, I notice maybe 1 frame per second increase with default C-172 and no improvement when using my beloved RFP 747-200. Is my 9800 Pro holding me back? Would I get better frames per second with a better card? I purchased the XP-M (A stepping) from NewEgg.com and it came a day earlier than expected. I also purchased Artic Silver 5 and…

If a motherboard supports both IDE and SATA hard drives can you therefore run 8 HD's (4 SATA & 4 IDE) or do they all have to be the same type thus keeping the limit at 4 drives (without using an add-in card)?TIA

Hello All,Need some informed answers on 'On Board Sound' of let's say an ASUS P4C800-E 1 year old, verses a good quality PCI sound card in the Frames Per Second area and smoothness.I believe that I have read that on board sound, (I'm having no problems with it, however want to pick up just a few more FPS or smoothness), is a heavy drain on the CPU.True? and Why? Appreciate the help in advance.Best,Clay

Anyone being in the business in getting a new SATA harddrive lately?Am considering a new SATA harddrive to put FS9 on. May go for a WD Raptor 74 gig though feels like kind of overkill so am interested in 7200 RPM 8mb versions as well. Is WD still number one in that area as well with their caviar series or is there other options?Also needs a noise cancelling microphone. Not a headset since I want to use the headphones I have now.

Hello,After 2 months working very fine, now I have the following problem: after a variable period of time (from few seconds to several minutes) using FS9 or whatever PC game (Train Simulator, Motorboat Simulator,...) my system suddenly reboots. This only occurs with PC games not in others applications such as Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, etc. Besides, during the games and specially after the reboot I notice a rare burnt smell.Surprisingly, my system has passed satisfactory all kinds of tests.I don't know what's happened. Can anyone help me?Best regards,Pilotmar.MY SYSTEM:P4 3.2 GHz 800 MHz1024 Mb RAM (2xDDR 512 Mb PC-400)GECUBE ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 256Catalyst 4.12Box P…

Hi all,Found out how to do this a while back and it seriously increases the performance of windows in general and FS2004.Basically with a normal installation of windows xp alot of rubbish is installed that you will never need to use. This takes up valuable disk space and can affect performance. Services that may not be required also use up the computer resources. Well there is a great program called nlite which is available from http://nuhi.msfn.org (You need .NET Framework 1.1 in order to run it... )nLite Features- Service Pack Integration- Component Removal- Unattended Setup- Driver Integration *- Hotfixes Integration **- Tweaks- Patches ***- Bootable ISO creationThis …

Flight sim friends,This is my first post on this forum, though I have read extensively.While I am so happy to hear of all of the great reports with state of the art systems

Through my ATI 9800 XT, the ILS glide slope markers (for example "yellow brick road") show erratically or not at all until the last mile or so from the runway. An nVidia 5600 on the same system shows them steadily for several miles out. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone have a solution? Thanks.

Is there any performance hit associated with using a force feedback joystick?Thanks,Jim

Anyone with the CH TQ have this problem:I calibrate it, but no matter what I do, the throttles don't advance evenly. What I mean is if I move two throttles up at the exact same position, I get different amounts of thrust. It is very noticable for example in the 3 engine Dreamfleet 727. I get noticable differences in fuel flow and EPR in the different engines and tanks (it happens in other planes too, so it is no issue with the 727). I can see the problem right in the calibration screen in the CH Control Manager, so it isn't an fs2004 calibration issue. I have all the axis set at the same sensitivity and null zones (max sensitive and no null zones). I also set up eac…

I've searched through here and while there is good info I haven't come across this info. I've run a Toshiba 5100 for almost 3 years and it's starting to struggle(p4-1.7, 512 ddr ram, 64 meg geforce 440go and a year ago upped the hd upped to one running at 5400 rpm from 4200). The difference in performance by the hd upgrade was surprising.Anyway the time has come to replace it and is anyone running a dell xps with the ati9800 256meg and 2 gigs of ram?Or the newly released hp zd8000 with the pci video card?- alieanware 7700?- others?Thanks for any response. I am on the road for up to half the year so the laptop makes sense for me. I don't have a desktop pc anymore since the…

Usually, when I implement WinZip I have moved the unzipped file into a named folder.I then double click on the file opening the WinZip Classic window.I then click on extract with both the "Allfiles/folders in archive" and "Use folder names" checked with the intention of unzipping into the same folder in which I moved the unzipped file.Some of the time the folder in which the unzipped file is located is automatically selected and opened for the extraction. At other times, whatever the last folder was to which I extracted a file is opened, and I must manually select the folder in which I want to extract the file. I have never been able to determine what initiates this choic…

Hello Pilots,at the moment I am using a Xerox 19'TFT flat screen. I am very happy with it and I have no serious problems with it.I like to know if you have some tips and tricks for, to tune my fs. For example some textures are flickering (when fps are below 20 for example).Any tuning tips?Thanks,Bj

Hi All,I seem to have a problem or at least i think i do. My system is pretty much high end spec but i still get slow textures loading from the cockpit when viewing in the 2d mode, virtual cockpit seems ok but also sometimes happens here also.It always seems to happen when i look left or right when in 2d cockpit after switcing between views. The textures appear to have a delay loading & i also get those brown squares also in the scenery below when looking left or right.I have attached below 2 screen shots when flying the Wings of power B17.I have my frame rates locked at 30 & i have the texture bandwidth set at 180 & i have also tried 400 but this makes no dif…

hi allI'm considering buying a CH yoke to replace my cheapo saitek twist joystick. I cannot afford the pedals at the moment so I will lose my rudder! I've tried flying with autorudder to see what I'll miss but I can't help twist the stick which I think overrides the autorudder.so my question is, has anyone flown with a ch yoke without the pedals - does it still feel ok and is it better than a twist joystick?

After trying the suggestions in Microsoft's article 815069 about improving game performance, I have been getting more and more corruption of my video displays. I have a 4 screen setup. A Radeon 9550 128 meg agp card handles screens 1 & 2, a Radeon 9200 256 meg pci card for screens 3 & 4. Random patterns began to appear in the pci displays, then lately showing up in the agp displays too. Also when I select any weather other than clear, buildings in the agp displays get jumbled up. Another issue is I'm also not seeing any fog in the pci dsplays, even though I altered the display.cfg file as per Microsoft's note about the Radeon 9200.Latest ATI driversLatest VIA driv…

I am running XP Home, SP2; and have an ATI 9800 Pro video card running Omega drivers. I note that I have notification of an XP update that simply says "ATI 9800 Pro". Is this something that will end up re-installing drivers over those that I currently have, or is this some other enhancement that I should get that will make the card run better?Thanks for any help,Bruce.

Hi,Folk, like myself, who rely on AVG FREE EDITION (ver 7.0) will be well aware of problems currently being experienced as we have been attempting to download and install updates. :(Sadly, there is a lot of negative comment out there which, as ever, says more about those individuals who choose to react in this fashion and whose behaviour, in this instance, probably only serves to irritate those at Grisoft who, I am quite sure, are doing their level best to rectify this issue ASAP.As ever, a little time and research produces positive and helpful results, for there is a workaround:Please regard this as being a temporary solution which should resolve matters meantime. For th…

i am wondering if getting another gb of ram would make any difference in pauses,frames etc.would appreciate any opinions. thanks