jws527

FWIW, you can't really hear the flap motor from the cockpit in MOST aircraft. I fly Diamonds IRL and the flaps are completely inaudible in flight or even when sitting on the ground with the engine running...and this is an airplane where you're sitting just in front of the wing (granted, I also have an ANR headset which is probably screening out what little sound there might otherwise be). You can definitely FEEL the flaps deploy, though. 🙂 Now, in a jet, sitting 10 meters ahead of the wing surrounded by avionics fans and cooling equipment, and with a fair amount of air hitting the windscreen...

Conservative (i.e. safe) ballpark figures that will work for a ~450 knot (true) cruise: 2800 first hour + 2400 second hour + 2000/hr afterward. Don't forget to add a reserve on top of this (I'm partial to 60 minutes, or 2000 lbs in this case). e.g. for a 4 hour flight: 2800 (hour 1) + 2400 (hour 2) + 2000 * 2 (hours 3 and 4) + 2000 (reserve) = 11200 lbs. Regardless of method, the important thing is to remember that fuel planning doesn't end with preflight; it continues until you're back on the ground. Think of fuel in terms of time (and not distance or weight or anything else), and start the counter once you hit your first waypoint. If turns out that you're significantly behind schedule (over the course of the flight) and will therefore have less time to loiter about your destination than planned, that's when you want to start thinking about a diversion. You should never land with less than your minimum reserve (which may or may not be less than the reserve mentioned above)...it's only the airport that might change. 🙂

There's a lot more to operating costs than fuel burn. And there's a lot more to the relative dearth of LRs vs. ERs in various fleets than the simple fact that the ER has been in service longer (just look at the order backlogs and recent order summaries). For starters, the LR costs tens of millions of dollars more per unit than an ER with a similar load capacity. Suppose the LR does have a slight advantage in fuel burn...but how many operating cycles (through fuel savings) will it take to recover that $30M difference in purchase price? You'd have to save a lot of fuel--it could take decades! There are also maintenance considerations: if you already have a large fleet of ERs, technicians don't need to be retrained and it's easier and more economical to store and supply parts (especially power plant parts) for each additional unit; the LR does not have complete parts commonality. Do not underestimate the cost of maintenance--man hours (for skilled technicians) and parts are very expensive, and an aircraft down for maintenance can't generate revenue--so anything you can do to reduce those costs in a scalable way will pay dividends later. For example: airlines perform reduced thrust takeoffs to reduce wear and tear on the power plants, not to save fuel (the reduction in climb performance can actually increase overall fuel burn in some cases). In the sim world, none of these things matter to us, so the LR is a better choice in part BECAUSE it can do precisely what the ER can and more--and the fact that, with a comparatively limited selection of engines and system configurations, it's also easier for the developers to model it in accurate detail.

http://www.techpower...der-Report.html To put it bluntly, Intel dropped the ball with Ivy Bridge. They used mundane thermal paste instead of a fluxless solder when binding the integrated heat spreader to the CPU itself. Not only does this result in inferior cooling performance, but it calls into question the longevity of the CPU itself, since thermal paste can theoretically degrade over time (takes a few years, granted), and replacing the IHS isn't exactly a common task. The only reasonable explanation is that they did this to lower production costs, though those savings were obviously never passed onto us. Because it runs very high temperatures with an aggressive overclock (despite the reduced power consumption and TDP), Ivy Bridge is widely regarded as a failure in the overclocking community. Since overclocking gives such great results in FSX, you should probably stick to Sandy Bridge. I had to make this very decision two weeks ago when I upgraded my own machine, and went with an i5 2500k. The 2700k is supposedly capable of better absolute overclocks (though clock for clock with HT disabled, it's really no faster than the 2500K), but it's ~33% more expensive, I only spend about a fifth of my gaming time in FSX, and I figured I'd pick up a Track IR, some new pedals, or another SSD with the difference. None of the Ivy Bridge processors were serious considerations given what I'd read around the enthusiast boards, though I did get a Z77 based motherboard just to have the option down the road. And FWIW--I came from an i5 750 with a 3.8 GHz overclock. Was able to recycle both my RAM and my aftermarket CPU cooler with this build, which saved me a few bucks (first time ever!). You'll definitely be happy with a SB processor coming from an i7 930.

Ordered one this one morning as soon as Newegg put them up for sale. Shipped this afternoon and should be here by Monday. I've been dying to replace my Radeon 5770 for the better part of a year now, and this card finally offers what I've been looking for. I figure it'll be about on par with the GTX 580 in FSX (which is an old, CPU limited game), but it comfortably bests it in just about everything else.

So you guys know, there's nothing odd or off about the processors at Microcenter--they're legit retail boxed Intel processors, and they aren't from crummy batches or OEM overstock or the like, either. The store simply sells them at a loss (as a loss leader), and makes up the difference (and then some) on other parts.There are two catches:1.) You have to physically buy it in the store (no online orders).2.) You're limited to one of each processor type.They do this so that you're enticed into the store to buy more stuff, and the limit is there for obvious reasons.Even so, most of their component prices are actually very competitive with some of the major online retailers (e.g. Newegg). Great store if you're lucky enough to live near one...competitive pricing, large selection, and a staff that generally knows what they're selling and talking about (at least relative to other major retailers). I bought most of the components for my last build from Microcenter.

That's a great list of components--I gather that you've done your research.Some suggestions:1.) I'm going to go against some of the preceding posters on the cooler--stick to the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. It is bar none the best performing cooler from a price/performance ratio, and more than adequate for a 3.6-3.8 Ghz overclock on an i7 (in fact, it'll do 4.0, but I'll get to that in a minute). I'm using one on an i5 750 with a 3.6 ghz overclock (stock voltage, turbo mode disabled) and it never even breaks 60 C under a sustained 100% load on all four cores (as it would be in FSX). If you're going to go with a more expensive cooling setup, go with water cooling (like the Corsair H50).I mentioned 4.0 Ghz--frankly, you're going to have to push the system pretty hard to run a 4.0+ Ghz overclock, and stability is not guaranteed. For one, you're certainly going to have to increase the CPU voltage, which means (at the least) more heat and significantly more power use (50+ watts). It also means you're pushing the limits of stable operation, and FSX is one of the few apps that will actually trip up an unstable overclock in fairly short order (happened to me several times on my old Core 2 Duo system). It could be very problematic even under daily use. At that point, you might as well consider water cooling, but I'd say stick to air (the Hyper 212) and a 3.6-3.8Ghz overclock.Oh, and regardless of what cooler you buy, make sure you get a quality thermal paste and apply it properly, which can make a difference of 5-10C. Arctic Silver 5 is the de facto standard in this regard.2.) Save some bucks and get Corsair XMS3 over the Dominator version. They're pretty much the same thing...the Dominator just has a more aggressive heat sink. The ASUS motherboard should allow you to configure the RAM to run at or only slightly above rated speeds even with a very aggressive CPU overclock (mine does, at least). I'm not a big fan of RAM overclocking since system memory (especially on a triple channel DDR3 X58 platform) is rarely a real bottleneck.3.) You will get rapidly diminishing returns on video cards past the $300 USD point (in fact, some would argue it begins in the $250 range). I don't think anything more than a Radeon 5850 is really necessary unless you're running extraordinary resolutions (i.e. 2560x1600).You might also consider the new nVidia GTX470 (the 480 is not a good value). The ATI drivers have a lot of issues in both FSX and FS9--I'm running a Radeon 5770 myself and I have all sorts of problems with v-sync and anti-aliasing (moreover, FSX doesn't even work in XP 32--I dual boot and have to run it in Vista 64, and I have to use a special tool and configuration file to get AA working for FS9 in XP). Frankly, if I only used this system for FSX, I would have returned the Radeon and gone with a GTX275 for now.

nVidia dropped the ball on this one. I'd had five straight nVidia cards until this product cycle, beginning with a Riva TNT all the way back in 1998. Now I have a Radeon 5770--was going to pick up a GTX275 until it dropped out of circulation last fall, and FS9/FSX aren't the only 3D intensive programs I use. It isn't/wasn't intended to be a long term solution, but I'm still running a native 1280x1024 LCD monitor and anything more is excessive--I was waiting to see what the new nVidia cards brought to the table before I splurged on a new monitor and a higher end card. However, the new parts are a disappointment (very late, expensive, hot, loud, and power hungry). It will apparently take a refresh to really bring the GF100 architecture into its own, assuming there's a lot of untapped potential there yet. Actually, the GTX470 might be worth a look if the price comes down into the $200 range...I really do miss nVidia drivers.Anyhow, I like this card a lot--it's actually fairly quick, and it's extraordinarily power efficient. Unless a major price war brings the 5850 into the low $200 range, I'll probably just hang onto it until next fall when the next product cycle begins. I don't like the drivers (yes, I suffer from the vsync problem in Vista--and severe artifacts in Win XP with FSX), but hopefully that will be sorted out at some point.

I know you've resolved this, but I'd like to mention that I too was having the same issues, although I'm using a Radeon 5770. I dual boot Vista 64 bit and XP (XP for FS9, mainly, since it's too quirky under Vista 64), so I simply migrated my FSX installation to Vista and the problem disappeared.It's definitely a driver issue--I actually get better frame rates in Vista than I do in XP for most of my games, which doesn't fit with convention (normally it's the inverse). I know XP is awfully dated now, but it's still disappointing that ATI's XP drivers are so poor. A great aircraft is useless without a great pilot; accordingly, great hardware is useless without great drivers. :) I'm a bit tempted to take this 5770 back and exchange it for a GTX 275...though I may just hold out until Catalyst 10.3 is released.

My first payware purchase ever was the PMDG 737NG way back in the summer of 2003. I'm still using it today, albeit patched and upgraded over the years. These things are daunting at first but really rewarding once you get used to them (though personally I still enjoy taking out an old fashioned steam driven bird and then flying real world procedures mostly by hand--it's more akin to what I do in real life, as I'm just a lowly MEL and IFR rated private pilot). A bit of advice for navigating in the more realistic FMC-driven aircraft:Go to flightaware.com and plug in the name of the airport that you're departing from, and then scroll through the list of departures or scheduled departures to find a flight going to the airport you intend to fly to in the simulator (you'll probably have to register to go back or forward more than a few hours--it's free and well worth it). Click the name of the flight. Alternatively, you can use airline timetables to find a suitable flight number and then input that data right on the home page. From there, you'll get a screen showing a lot of information, such as scheduled and actual time of departure and arrival, aircraft type, and so forth. What you really want is the filed route and cruise altitude.It'll look something like this (in this case COA458 from KIAH to KDCA):Route GUSTI1 SJI J37 SPA J14 JAXSN J14 RIC OJAAY1That simple line of text is all that you need to put a complete flight plan into the FMC. Simply enter that route into the FMC exactly as it appears (if the identifier shown has a number, it's either a complete SID/STAR or an airway--SIDs and STARs only come at the beginning or end of the plan, respectively, airways come in the middle; if it only has letters it's an actual waypoint/transition point) and then your aircraft will be programmed to fly the exact same route and departure/arrival procedures that the real world airlines are using. If any airway is shown, then the waypoint FOLLOWING it is the exit or transition point, so (using the above example) you'd input SPA via J37, and so forth. The user manual for whatever airplane you're flying should explain the rest (i.e. how to input SIDs, STARs, airways, and runway approaches).One note: sometimes the flight plan won't have a filed SID and/or STAR. This might be the case with smaller or less busy airports where they aren't really required (or even available). In the real world, pilots will usually fly with ATC radar vectors during the departure or approach phases. For your purposes, it's simple enough just to navigate arbitrarily on approach as you see fit (the default FS ATC can actually do this, but only if you file an IFR flight plan using the default flight planner--and in my experience it often gives strange and entirely inefficient vectors).A couple caveats to the above method: it only works if you're flying a scheduled real world route (flightaware shows most or all of the filed IFR flight plans to and from a given airport, so you'll also have a lot of GA routes to choose from as well--these are mostly business jets/turboprops and generally not suitable for aircraft without an FMS or full featured GPS, or for low altitude VFR flying, but they will give you "real world" examples if flying between two small/GA airports). It also only works for US domestic flights or international flights departing from or arriving to the United States. Finally, you'll probably need fairly recent AIRAC cycle data for whatever airplane you're flying, because SIDs and STARs can and do change regularly.Otherwise, you can use flightaware's online flight planning utility or some other flight planning utility.Good luck.

Thank you sir, this was indeed the exact problem.I use RivaTuner in lieu of nhancer, but nevertheless - deleting the FS2004 profile in the Nvidia drivers and then recreating one of my own (with AA enabled) did the trick.

Sorry to bring this thread back, but it does match the problem I'm having.I don't think it's a Vista-specific issue. It may have something to do with drivers instead.I recently replaced my 6800GT with an 8800GTS, complete with the newest WHQL drivers (158.22). Now, Riva Tuner has no effect upon AA OR AF in FS9 (or FSX for that matter). It does, however, still work as expected with other games. This is under XP Pro.Personally, I'm going to try reverting to the old 8-series release drivers (from earlier this year) and see if that helps any.