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

Hi everyone! I have a memory question. (agian) I was playing flightsim the other day and I got a 'out of memory error'. I am running 1 gig of ram! I started using a small program to monitor the ram. While I'm playing I run around 90% of my ram being used, sometimes up to 95%. Is this a setting in window that needs to be changed? I'm mean really, 'out of ram' - What is this a commodore 64! :-grr . Does this mean that more ram would work better and so many people ask?HuggsKittiex:)~ This system is: AMD 64 3500+ 939 ASUS A8V Deluxe with wifi GCorsair TwinX1024 3200 XL Pro 2 36gig W.D. Raptor drives in Raid256 X800 ProWindow XP homeAntec True power 550wThermaltake Prem…

Hi all, this is the case that Im planing on puchasing for my system:http://www.pcclub.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A1320741#what do you all think....im also considering getting instead:http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-129-124&depa=1with:http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-103-920&depa=1My system will go as follows:ASUS K8N-E Deluxe moboAMD 64bit 3400Geforce 6800GT Video Card1gig DDR400 RAM120gig Western Digital 8mb buffer 7200 HDWhat do you think about the first case compared to the second selection?Thanks,Bill

I just bought a new monitor after running off a 6 year old 15". I was going to get a Viewsonic, but the jerks at CompUSA tried to pull a fast one. The sign on the display read 179.99, but when you read closer, the mfg. mail in rebate expired Aug. 28. I tried to get them to give it to me at that price, they wouldn't budge, said the rebate wouldn't be honored by ViewSonic anyway. So I left and went with my second choice, a Samsung Syncmaster 997DF. 19" CRT from Best Buy. I played with it some last night, boy that thing is big, and for some reason, I can't get the contrast right. At night in FS, the screen is kind of gray. It is funny when I hit alt-tab to switch bet…

I have recently purchased a new pc specifically with gaming and FS2004 in mind. I was told that it would cope with any game out there the specs are as followsAsus p4p800 deluxe springdale socket478intel p4 3.2 hyperthreading 800fsbantecplus 1080amg server case 430w true powermaxtor diamond max plus 9sata 120g8mb cache1 g duel channel gold pc4000 ddr ramxp homehercules ati 3d prophet 9800xt classicWell this was true for all the games i tried except for fs2004. I tweaked the system overclocked it u name it but it still had poor performance 5,6,7 fps with heavy clouds and built up scenery or third party basicly its pretty unflyable in those conditions early twenty if im luck…

I have a sidewinder 2 ffb joystick and im having the current problem, the throttle does not go the full way forward in the simulator and then it is unresponsive. Outside the Sim it works fine is calibrated correctly. I cant work out the problem and it is making Fs almost impossible. Thanks for your reply. :)

Hi, I am planning to buy a new computer.....(1) Will a combination of 512 MB ddr ram AND GeForce card give me a smooth flight? say a frame rate of 20-25 per second? It is going to be a P4 2.8 HT 865 GBF Windows XP Pro(2) Is there a difference between GeForce FX and GeForce Ti? Which is better?(3) Is 1024 GB of Ram required? How many times expensive is it going to be over the 512 MB?Thanks.Jinesh

I'm running 2 21" monitors on a P4 2.4GHz computer with 512MB DDR PC2700 RAM and a Abit GeForce Ti4200. It tends to be more difficult to use dual monitors with FS2004 than not, especially when I want to just jump in for a quick flight. I'm debating taking one of the monitors off to set up another computer in the home. That leads me to ask... is there any performance decrease from running two monitors, and would I notice an increase should I take one of the monitors off?Eventually, I'm looking to replace at least one of the 21" monitors with a new one, as they are both kinda dated and blurry.Ken

Ok.. my system runs fine.. but just to experiment...i took out one bank of 512MB and my system runs even smoother just on 1GB RAM.. is this strange or what.. i always thought the more the better..AMD64 3200 - ASUS K8V SE - ASUS RADEON 9800XT - SB AUDIGY 2 - 1.5GB CORSAIR XMS - RUNNING XP PRO ON A 320GB BUNCH OF SATA DRIVES

I am about to buy a new system and am wondering about the sound card.The only "game" I regularily use is FS9 & I am very concerned about performance. My old system has onboard sound AC97 & the quality through my speaker system 2.1 has never been a problem.I have been told that onboard sound systems are a heavy system load but wonder if this is true with the simple sound in FS9.The basic question is whether with a mid range system it is worth allocating budget to a separate sound card or whether I am better having a better video card/ processor/ memory.I am looking at an Athlon 3500 (to get 939 pin) with 1Gb memory & am not yet sure of the graphics card.If a se…

I recently had to reformat my hard drive (one tweak too many :-( ), and the tech that did the work installed the Cat 4.7 video drivers for my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 card. I had been using the latest Omega drivers, but had never tried the Cat 4.7 drivers. Can anyone tell me definitively if there is any advantage to going to the Omega's again (I'm a bit gunshy now to do too much screwing around on my main computer) in terms of performance in FS (or any other reasons)?Thanks very much for the assist. By the by, I did a quickie search on this subject, but there was nothing specific to this question and the Cat 4.7 drivers that I could locate. Thanks again.Glenn

I have a new ATI Radeon 9800 pro installed.It was a clean install with a new Win-XP(home) installation after formating. So no NVidia remnants.Instead of loading the drivers from the CD I used CAT 4.8 directly.I have TWO monitors, identical 19" CRT fs. both at 1024x768, one at 75Hz, other at 60Hz.I often get a semi-crash VPU 'recovery' to software rendering while in FS9 AND with another application on the other CRT, super flight planner tonight.Sometimes, in a confusion of working from one monitor to the other the system re-boots...without the VPU recovery step.QUESTIONSDoes this happen often?Must I have the primary monitor connected through the regular CRT pins or the LCD…

I just upgraded my computer from a AMD 2400 to a Intel P4 3.2 and a new motherboard a ASRock P4VT8+.I have 1 gb of DDRram and a ATI 9800 video card with 256 ram on the card.I am running WinXP Home with Service Pack 1.I uninstalled FS9 and reinstalled today and I am getting a VPU Recover error which says has reset your graphic accelerator as it is no longer responding to graphic driver commands.This only happens in FS9 no other program.I am using the latest Omega drivers RAD_W2KXP_Omega_2567_7z 822.I tried the new ATI drivers and it was doing the same thing so I tried these and still getting the error,does anyone have any ideas of what I should do? Jeffg

High All Is the quality of the video card used, the only determining factor,regarding frame rates or is the amount of RAM a factor as well? I'm using an nvidia 5950 ultra and its very good but I notice that as I add more "eye candy" to my airport, my frame rates are starting to take a hit. I try to keep things as simple as possible, but it's hard to resist putting in the details when you know the scene could look better. I've scheduled my aircraft so that there's lots of action, but no more than half the gates are occupied at any one time, which helps. What's the best video card on the mark for flight simmers? Thanks Ken

The driver for my vid card has a setting for mipmaps -- NONE,BILINEAR,TRILINEAR.I don't know what this is for and the default setting is NONE . Could anyone please expalin what setting I should use.Thanks Barry

sir/madam: i recently invested in a new video card - sapphire ati radeon 9600 atlantis. my packaged card was a nvidia geforce mx 420. my graphic update was to eliminate the scenery flicker i assumed as a card fault. unfortunately the new card has not improved the grraphics with flt sim 2400, in fact it seems worse. my os is xp, dell dim 4500. monitor settings 800x600 and 75% refresh rate. have i misjudged the radeon hype or are there settings that might alter the presentation? thanks

I am sure a lot of you have Windows XP and have either thought about or have upgraded your motherboard to support a faster CPU. My concern is that you now have to re-register Windows (or something)after a certain number of upgrades (I think the number is 7 upgrades). Does a new motherboard count as one upgrade and a CPU another? I want to keep all of my previous components. I have recently upgraded to an ATI 9800, but that is the only upgrade I have made. I plan on keeping the same 9800, memory, hard drive, soundcard, etc. I just need a new motherboard (939) and a CPU upgrade (Athlon 64 3500+). Does this sound possible. What are Windows upgrade restrictions?Thanks…

Hi all, does anyone know if EVGA is a good company for graphic cards?Thanks,Bill

I have just upgraded from a Nvidia 4200 (128mb) to an ATI 9800 Pro (128mb). I just wanted to crosscheck with a few of you guys to make sure that we are all on the same page here as far as the numbers are concerned. What I have found is very little increase in overall framerates. However, I can turn up most settings to the max, where as I could not with the 4200ti. Here is my scenario: Weather Clouds: scatteredVisibility: 30 milesPrecipitation: noneWind Speed: noneDefault Seattle International Airport with C-172 on 34R

At least some of the time, when I unlock my GPS and put it on my secondary monitor off of my ATI Radion 9800 Pro card, the mouse pointer flickers erratically. This increases proportionally to the size I make the GPS.The pointer also flickers if I move the pointer back to my primary monitor. Moving the GPS display back to the primary monitor, or even to my third monitor which is off of a PCI Graphics card stops the flickering, but of course FPS decrease when it is on the third monitor off of the secondary graphics card.Anyone else having this response and possibly know what to do about it?Thanks:RTHP4C800 Deluxe MotherboardPentium 4, 3.2G CPU1G PC3200/400 MemoryWinXP ProDi…

I'm planning on wiping out our hard drive and "starting over" with a clean installation of Dell Win98SE.Computer is a 1998 Dimension XPS T500.I'm wondering, before doing this, and besides the standard "back up your stuff" warnings, if there are other routine maintenance procedures, or anything like that, I should do before sweeping house.Main concern is internet (cable modem) connectivity - I don't have another PC to use to get needed software ahead of time.Thanks,Andrew

Has anyone used CH gameport rudder pedals with the Radio shackUSB adapter. Were you able to get toe brakes to work. Thanks

My good-thinking "better half" is buying me a new CH USB yoke (current one is PC version) for an upcoming birthday. But I also have a set of PC rudder pedals (only 1 year old). Is it possible to run the PC rudder pedals with the USB yoke? I'm open to purchasing any interface requirements ( PCI cards and/or cables) if required.Thanks,Bruce.

Ok, this is weird - (Gamecard)I have an F-16 Fighter Stick - but the options in CH's own software specify either an F-16 Flight Stick or simply a Fighter Stick... wha?Anyway, I seem to have no trouble getting the devices recognized... but absolutely nothing shows up in calibration! No movement, nothing!Otherwise, the control panel and calibration act as if nothing's wrong.Huh?Any help appreciated!thxAndrew

Whats the latest on using the Stock ATI drivers or using the latest Omega. I remember about a year ago Omega was the only way to fly (no pun intended)...

HIbeen out of the hardware scene for a while,whats currently the best nvidia based card for fs9,I have a TI4600 128mb at present but was thinking of upgrading it.Any opinions would be welcome,I am also upgrading my cpu at the same timecheers keith