FS2004 Tweaks (collection)

[Guest vortovor]

...for the one who's interested, my collection of FS2004 tweaks.Happy tweaking,Mike Win XP / Fs2004 Tweaking and Tuning Hard Drive PropertiesTo access: Windows Explorer>Right click on each Hard Drive icon then select PropertiesGeneralI highly recommend reformatting your drive and choosing the NTFS file system for maximum speed and security. However, you can still convert an existing FAT32 file system to an NTFS one even after installing WinXP by going to Start>Run and typing "Convert C: /FS:NTFS" (without quotes). This will take some time to complete and won't be as fast as if you'd formatted with NTFS, but still faster than FAT32 for most larger hard drives and certainly much more secure. Make sure you backup your data before doing this just in case.Untick "Compress drive to save disk space" to speed up reading from the drive. Untick "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" and then select "Apply changes to [Drive letter], subfolders and files" in the subsequent prompt to improve performance and free up disk space.Click the Disk Cleanup button, and under the "Disk Cleanup" tab tick everything except "Temporary Internet Files" (to speed up internet browsing) for cleaning. This will optimise your disk space by cleaning out and compressing old files. Use this utility often to clean your hard drive. Under the More Options tab you'll find two options which will help you remove installed programs/WinXP utilities which you may not need. If you use System Restore, the third option allows you to clean out older restore points which you no longer use, freeing up a great deal of disk space.SystemTo access: Control Panel>System or Right click on My Computer>PropertiesTo optimise your hard drive, go to Disk Drives>[Name/Model #]>Properties>Policies tab and for each hard drive select "Optimise for Performance" and tick "Enable Write Caching on the disk". Then go to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers>Primary IDE Channel (same for Secondary)>Properties>Advanced Settings>"DMA if Available" for all devices actually connected. For devices which do not exist, select None under Device Type to speed up bootup.Click the Hardware Profiles button, and for optimal bootup speed have only one hardware profile and choose "Select the first profile listed if I don't select a profile in

[Guest]

General verdict: don't follow any of this "advise", and certainly not blindly.Whereever it states "disable unless you need it" or similar, reverse to "don't disable unless you know you don't need it" for example.

[Guest meyomyx]

>> General verdict: don't follow any of this "advise", ..... :)There's some good stuff in there that works but of course - each system different and only fiddle with what you're comfortable with and make sure you can undo it.

[Guest vortovor]

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951Great tool to set your AGP/PCI latency. The standard value is 248 for most videocards. Just set it all to 64!Most simmers experience no more stutters in FS2004 with the latency on 64....just give it a try. Happy tweaking,Mike

[mankal4 0]

As a conservative "tweaker" I must say one of the best and safest tweeks I did was to change the PCI Latency of my video card from 248 to 64. I defintely noticed more FPS and smoothness in FS9. As a test I took off in my Meljet 777, from Heathrow (Gary Summons Scenery) with full traffic and ActiveSky Weather (raining) early morning and departed. I could easily see a 5-8 FPS increase and less (I didnt say no) stuttering. Try it out !

[Guest FattyBear]

Does the latency tweak work with mobile video cards?

[Guest ahmedem]

I have a PCI express graphics card, I downloaded the tool but the latency reads 0 for my card.I'm no expert in this topic I'm afraid so do I leave it at 0? Or is 0 a bad thing??!Cheers

[Guest]

general as in "overall verdict".What he proposes is often dangerous, bad for the stability of your computer, and not to be attempted unless you know full well what you're doing.Even if some things may work for some people, overall it's not worth the stability of your computer to attempt these things unless you know how to get back from a disaster which they can cause.And even then don't do it unless you can afford to reinstall your operating system.

[Guest Erups]

ADVICEnever never never disable any service or fiddle with the registry UNLESS YOU REALLY FULLY TOTALLY DEEPLY KNOW what the h

[Guest Knikolaes]

**shrugs** I dont understand any of this jibberish except one thing, and I have to disagree with this one thing . . .He quotes to ENABLE windows Messenger? DONT You want Windows Messenger DISabled. Otherwise if you have internet all you get is popup ads and all kinds of crud and viruses. In fact, the "blaster" virus (if you are not patched against it) and many other viruses use the Windows Messenger to transmit themselves around.I am hoping on his part that was just a typo. The first thing anyone wants to do when they reinstall their OS is disable that bloody thing BEFORE connecting to the internet to get their updates -- otherwise you WILL get the blaster virus before your updates all all downloaded and installed.As for the rest of that stuff - -not even touching it. I have no FPS issues at all on FS and I have a simple system with 120 GB's of Flight Sim addons installed. Works great for me and I am happy.Chris

[Guest shaheedan]

Hai Mike,I really need your help. i have a big problem after half way follow your instruction.using Win XP Home SP2, here my problem now.1. I can't open my Task manager, message appears " Task manager has been disable by your administrator" . actually i'm the administrator of my PC which connected to my home network.2. During start up, i have a Welcome screen display for long period, about 10-15 second. never happened beforeFor info, i didn't disable any service in the windows.and reliased after i , change LargeSystemCache=0 and change boot.iniconfigurations.i try to set it back but stil have a problem.Really need your advise.Regards,Shaheedan

[Guest vortovor]

Hi Shaheedan,Sorry to hear that. All I can advice is that you untweak ALL the things you've tweaked(open door).....its hard to tell what went wrong on your system :-(I use WinXP with only SP1(reason? I realy hate all these extra firewall/network options that come's with SP2)Kind regards,MikeDISCLAIMER: TO ALL...'OF COURSE THESE TWEAKS ARE FOR OWN RISK, NEVERY SYSTEM POSSES HIS OW HARD AND SOFTWARE, SO HARD TO TELL HOW IT WILL REACT'(seems logical I think, but forgot to write it down in the original toppic.)

[Guest]

And your refusal to keep your system up to date because of some options in SP2 you could easilyt turn off shows your "expertise" once again...I'm currently suffering a problem that a simple system restore under XP could have cured in minutes (Windows update crashing halfway through with part of a fix installed causing versioning conflicts which in turn cause WindowsUpdate to no longer work so I can't attempt to install the fix again). But as Win2K doesn't have that option I fear I'll have to reinstall.That's what you're telling people is the optimal state of their systems...

[Guest Knikolaes]

**chuckles**Wow . . . . . Ya know . . . ? There is a MUCH easier way to do all of this . . . . . Go to tweakfs.com and spend a few cheap dollars on their software. Tweaks FS like you wouldnt believe and does a GREAT job of it :-)Now most would think -- "I cant afford it", but compare that cost to the cost of the computer tech guy charging you 300 bucks to restore your system. **shrugs**Now I am extremely glad I decided not to touch that stuff.Hey Mike -- were you ever going to correct that error on telling people to ENable Windows Messenger? Just curious.

[Guest Erups]

>And your refusal to keep your system up to date because of>some options in SP2 you could easilyt turn off shows your>"expertise" once again...The XP SP2 indeed has some not so easily disabled (unwanted) features one of which is a limit on the number of possibile contemporary tcp/udp connections.That's not just a simple fire&forget update, it has some impact on the working of the computer.