Hello All,Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. I decided to invest in an Athlon 64 bit CPU. All I can say is WOW! Flying from the Virtual Cockpit there are no stutters. For example I hadn't realised how long it took to move the MCP Heading/Altitude/Speed bugs, now they're silky smooth.If you can afford it, I highly recommend the investment especially (if like me) you only fly the Queen, although that might change if an Airbus ever left the PMDG hanger. ;-)Having read the NTSB MD-10 report this morning I'm now off to practice my crosswind landing techinque. :-)Regards,PaulP.S. Can't wait for the 744F.

Paul,What were you running before the upgrade?Bob

unfortunately new hardware is still so expensive. But it is so much fun once you have it. I finally paid off my credit cards after a year. I built a really fast computer and am happy, although with 100% traffic the game comes to its knees sometimes when flying in heavy weather in the VC... heres hoping FS10 will do betterAnyway, happy holidays and enjoy!I cannot wait for the 744F either!

Hi Bob,I was running an Athlon 3000+. I'm now running an Athlon X2 4400+. Both socket 939 so no new motherboard required. Also I've read it's pretty easy to clock it however.... I'd recommend it, stunning improvement.Regards,Paul

Seeing how I have terrible performance with the "Queen" on my P4 2.8 X800 PRO 1 gig of DDR ram machine, I was excited to see this topic. Can you tell me how much it would cost me to upgrade to what you have, I already have a video card, monitor, sound card speakers, etc. So I'll only need a motherboard, processor and ram I think. Where do you suggest I purchase this stuff from?Thanks,Jeff

I also just built a new 4400 based system and I too am very impressed with it's performance across the board, and I haven't even put the stirrups to it yet. Thought I'd make sure it's completly stable before I start tweaking. I have all my sliders either maxed or close to it, fps locked at 30 and for the most part it stays there and looks great. When I get into some real heavy scenery, it'll droop to 14'sh but that's still pretty smooth, expecially when my old 2.8 would buckle at the knees trying to display that scenery.Roughly speaking 4400 $4902G corsair twinx PC3500 $300Asus A8N-SLI $1507800GT $370'sh Don't quote me as it's been several weeks since I purchased, the vast majority of it through newegg. Jay EklundCAT VI Senior Captain KDENhttp://online.vatsimindicators.net/812321/764.png

Just found a neat trick for those using P4 Hyper-Threading CPUs. 1) Get MSFS running in a dense (i.e., low frame rate) enviroment. 2) Now go out to the desktop and pull up Task Manager (CTL/ALT/DEL). Select processes tab and find the FS9.exe process. That's your running MSFS. 3) Right click and select "set affinity." Both CPU boxes will be checked. Un-check one of the CPU boxes. Go back into MSFS and un-pause. Give it 5-10 seconds to settle in. If you are CPU limited, your frame rates will about double. I immediately went from 13-17 to 26-34 fps. My guess is that this will only work if the CPU is your bottleneck. I have a 6600GT and it seems that little ol' video cards was being held back by my CPU. Who woulda guessed!Maybe the HT'ing setup only allows ~ 1/2 of the CPU's processing to be assigned to MSFS. It's saving itself . . for something. It seems that selecting MSFS to run on only one 'virtual' processor lets MSFS have the entire CPU's processing power. Or not . . . but boy, what a difference. (There's a program out there that will auto-assign CPU affinity to a particular program. Anyone remember what that was?)

>Seeing how I have terrible performance with the "Queen" on my>P4 2.8 X800 PRO 1 gig of DDR ram machine, I was excited to see>this topic. Can you tell me how much it would cost me to>upgrade to what you have, I already have a video card,>monitor, sound card speakers, etc. So I'll only need a>motherboard, processor and ram I think. Where do you suggest>I purchase this stuff from?>>Thanks,>JeffJeff, I'v built a ton of computers. I was in the business but I'M retard...err...retired now.It's real easy to spec out your own upgrade if you go to NewEgg or Monarch and look at the combo's. You can select your mobo,CPU, and memory. Both company's will mount the CPU/heatsink and fan. They will also mount the memory and burn the unit in after updating the BIOS. This way your extremly unlikely to recieve a DOA part. They package the unit up correctly, just need to install it in your case.If your handy with a screwdriver this is a good way to go.Things to consider:Newer hardware sometimes requires a larger PSU, 430 watts or more depending on the number of HD's, dual SLI vid cards, burners etc.I used to buy a few dozen same model mobo's at a time. Sometimes 2 or 3 would be DOA (dead on arrival), that's ok for a dealer, lousy for a home or custom builder.I'v used the same case for an upgrade or two, the next time upgraded the PSU along with the rest. Used the same HD's, CD-ROM etc.If all you need is an upgrade no need to buy a whole new rig. If I do add something new a family member seems to always have a use for the parts I took out.Regards

Hi Sam does that include the programs you run with FS9 such as severinfo, AS6, ACARS programs for online flying or does that only work for offline?

Will try this, thanks for the tip! I belive there was a program called something like FS Autostart that might have had that feature...to set the affinity automatically.

Hi Sam,Regarding:2) Now go out to the desktop and pull up Task Manager (CTL/ALT/DEL). Select processes tab and find the FS9.exe process. That's your running MSFS. 3) Right click and select "set affinity." Both CPU boxes will be checked. Un-check one of the CPU boxes. Go back into MSFS and un-pause. Give it 5-10 seconds to settle in. When I "right-click", "set affinity" is not an option. Only, "end process" or "set priority".Any thoughts?Renzo

I have XP Pro . . .and I hope that's not just an option for the Pro version. . . but the first thought is to make sure you have a hyper-threading P4. Otherwise, there's no 'other half'. I've heard about this before on the LOMAC board. Those guys are really challenged, but that's because of rough software. They were saying another trick is to shut off HT in the bios. If yours is not a HT CPU to begin with, you may already be getting optimun preformance. Those AMD FX 5Xs are still the top gaming CPU (ahh, IMO!) . . . and they are single, non-HT cores. Because (he argues) until games start to use the new Dualie's capabiity, the dual cores (and so it seems the HTs) won't help actual game play frame rates . . . and you can't get the speed. The 4800 dualie is at what, 2.4? The FX57 is at 2.8.

Haven't tried it online. Good point, though. Give it a try and let us know.

Nice little trick!!! It really works fine... Look at the pictures that Microsoft released today og the FS-X and you will probably need this little "trick" now and then :)

Weird... it didn't work at all for me.Jeff