Swapping Hardware Question

[Guest byoung]

I am going to upgrade my hardware tomorrow.. I am using Windows XP professional and have my flight sim environment all configured.Will I just be able to plug my hard drive into a new motherboard, using a faster processor, DDR Memory, Video (I have to change these drivers) with out any problem? Will XP reconfigure itself to the new hardware?I know with Windows 98 it was better just to re-load it when you swapped hardware.Otherwise it is going to be a pain in the neck to re-load everything...Also, what is everyone's opinion on Matrox Parhelia Video Card? Is it worth the money, or is there something cheaper that comes close...Anybody using the Matrox Parhelia with Flight Simulator 2002?Also, what about Dual Processor configurations? Will FS 2002 take advantage of Dual Processors?Thanks!Barry

[CraigC 0]

Barry, first of all I am not a PC hardware genius, nor have I ever claimed to be, but I have a couple of opinions about your post. First of all if the HD you are adding is a second HD (secondary master or slave) then it should be fine. Obviously if its the Primary HD youre going to have to reinstall everything.When I saw you considering purchasing the Matrox Parhelia, I really wanted to respond because the latest issue of Maximum PC magazine had a review on about 12 different video cards, and for the price the Parhelia scored horribly. You honestly would be better off spending $200 less (375.00 as opposed to 175.00) and getting much better performance out of the Ti4200. If you would like me to scan the actual article for you to see, Id be happy to do that.Lastly, I think your dual proc question has been brought up before when FS2002 was just about to be released or when it was released. Im pretty sure the answer was no. It would be great if it did, because Im sure that many simmers in this forum would spend whatever cash it took to get the best performance possible, but MS didnt include instruction sets (I think this is correct, dont quote me) to utilize a dual processor setup.Hope some of this was at least partly useful, but I wanted to make sure that I let you know that buying a Parhelia will be a BIG waste of your money.CraigEDIT: Grammar errors (its 6am here :))

[Guest]

jerrycwo4Last Janunary I bought a duel (AMD1800+) cpu system to run Fs2002 AT IT'S BEST and the best I can figgure is that the duel CPU'S did NOT make it run "better". I don't think it helped Fs2002 any, but in Adobe PHOTOSHOP it made a BIG, BIG differance. Jerry

[Guest byoung]

Thanks...I'll see if others will respond...Barry

[Guest]

Barry, As for your hard drive and XP, just plug and play! maybe later you could reformat and change the file system to Xp's preferred NTFS as I think you will be on FAT32 at the moment if you last built your system under 98, but really it won't make much difference.Video Cards, well Ive seen and tried most of them, I can not believe that running dual or triple heads on a system will not draw the same power and processing usage from the system as just one, and how many times have we heard about frame rates, look at my system.2000xp Cpu1,5 gig ddr ramGF4 Ti4600 I don't have any fR issues even with everything turned up full, but I did try to put a small TV screen onto the card as a second monitor, which it is designed to do!Well, I could not get even 16fps on minimum settings!So unless you ask the advertising agent to show you that he can walk on water too, I would be very cautious, It states clearly that it was designed for word processing and grafic programs, (still images) etc.I don't want to rubbish the card as it maybe very good at what it was designed to do, but, FS2002 is a very different animal, So make sure it can do what you want in 3DAntialiasing and OpenGL before spending your hard earned cash,

[Guest byoung]

Thanks for the reply!Hopefully others will comment..Barry

[greeneg 0]

Hi Barry. Having fairly recently done what you're proposing to do, perhaps my experience will help a bit. I was using an ASUS CUSL2-C Motherboard with a PIII 1G and 512K RAM. Decided that I wanted to get a better video card and increase the memory so that system performance (and hopefully FS2002)would be better. Since I learned that I could do neither with that board, I looked around and found a MSI 694-D PRO2 board. This board has the inreased memory available and the AGP2 slot, so loaded up the components ant away she went. Never being one to leave well enough alone, I did add the second processor that the 694 can carry ( it can be used with either one or two processors).In terms of results, FS2002 itself doesn't run noticably better, but Windows XP does. Browsing and general system performance are up by almost 45% by 3DMark2001 SE scores. Subjectively FS runs smoothly but it still slows down in high load areas such as EGLL and LIRF (simflyers). I fly without AI Traffic most of the time; that's my performance compromise, you kind of have to decide for yourself what yours will be if you have to make one. I can tell your that as far as FS is concerned, 2 PIIIs are not that much faster than one: windows as I said is another matter.One thing about installing a new board and using an existing Win XP system: you don't necessarily have to do a "clean " or formatted install. What you will have to do is to boot from the original WinXP disc and "repair" the installation. This amounts to a re-install but will preserve ( hopefully) your current FS setup. This is one of those things that MS came up with to prevent the installation of the orginial CD on mulitple machines. As always, Backing up Everything is a very good idea.In summary, would I go the two processor route again? Probably not: but, it was the first time I'd ever put together my own system and it's been fun to do and it does perform well for what I do, particularly when you consider that it was obsolete when I built it.Good luck with it, hopes some of this helps. Let me know if there's something else I can help with.Best Regards,Ed Green, KCLTegreen1@carolina.rr.comSystem: MSI 694-D Pro2 w/ twin PIII@1G1024 PC133 RAMVisonTek geForce3 TI500 64M DDRTurtleBay Santa Cruz SoundSaitek X-36 USBWindows XP-Pro

[Guest Howard]

I have tried what you are suggesting and ended up with a confused operating system. I would suggest trying the following (hopefully you have more than one partition):1) Use the settings wizard to collect essential info from the old system.2) Reformat the partition with the operating system.3) Reinstall the operating system, then updates, then drivers.4) Rename your existing FS2002 folder to e.g. exFS2002.5) Re-install FS20026) Copy across to the new FS2002 folders from the exFS2002.Worked for me on several occasions. Caution is required when copying across folders. It may be better to save the folders from the new installation somewhere.No warranty given and best of luck.Howard

[Guest byoung]

Thanks Howard/Everyone...Everything updated fine, except for the USB 2.0..I am still having a problem the installing USB 2.0 drivers..I have the AMD XP 2200And right now 512 MB Memory, I purchase another 256, but it was bad and I have to return it..SMOKING!Barry

[Guest Howard]

USB 2.0 drivers are avilable from Microsoft. Use windows update and it will present a list of the drivers available.Howard