Hello there folks. I'm very pleased to meet you all.As this is my very first active involvement in these forums so please kindly bear with me (just until I get the hang of things)!Having read several posts on this particular forum I have a query of my own to push under the noses of the resident hardware experts amongst you.My desktop system is 3 yrs old now (See spec. below) and in my mind still seems to perform pretty fairly with FS9. Having said that I have never seen another system run the software so have nothing else to compare with. I have no trouble with FPS, blurred textures, sound or anything else I can think of and have several large sceneries and hundreds of aircraft installed. Although I pay a heck of a lot of attention to routine PC maintainence (ie defrag all drives every other day incl. registry files, run ad-aware every day, check all driver & Bios updates 3 times a week, clean registry etc) and I find this makes a huge difference to system performance. However, I do have nothing else to compare with and am relatively new to Flight simming (started first ever FS download in August 2005 and now have 11,000 plus!)Athlon 2200XP ProcessorMSI MS680E Motherboard (VIA KT333 Northbridge Chipset)1280MB total Memory (2 x 512MB + 1 x 256MB DDR RAM) PC2700 333MHz CL2.5MSI Nvidia 128MB Geforce4 Ti420 4xAGP GraphicsWestern Digital IDE 120MB 7200RPM HDD 8MBCreative Soundblaster Audigy5.1 surround sound speakers15.1" NEC Multisync 1535VI Digital LCD DisplayWindows XP Home SP2I am curious to know just how much of a difference a large hardware investment would make (be it graphics, sound, raw processor speed or 2-3 monitors etc) and just exactly what those differences would be.Following on I am also considering a small investment in something to make the flying experience a little more enjoyable, but am unsure what to invest in. Top of my agenda would be a second monitor as the VGA card has support for this. Would this be a worthwhile investment? I have a 15.4" Fujitsu Amilo notebook and wondered if that could be rigged up in any way to give me a more panoramic view. Most of my flying centres around commercial jets (Boeing & Airbus in particular). I like to fly VFR over detailed cities and other landclass, and typically turn back to fly over again if I see something particularly interesting!I have also thought about a yoke perhaps as I only use a basic logitech attack3 joystick and no other flying aids. As the motherboard cannot support a faster processor other than what is already installed and only gives support for 4xAGP, and beaing in mind the relatively moderate 1.28GB RAM already installed I don't feel it would be worth me spending on the old desktop. The Amilo notebook is of course faster but the HDD is a 60GB running at a mere 5400RPM and to be perfectly honest I haven't even installed FS9 on it yet.In 21st century Flight Sim terms is my system as good as dead and burried?How does my introduction to Flight Simming story and system set up compare with yours. Many of you will no doubt leave me suitably embarrassed with my prehistoric system but this is just what i want to hear, that's the whole point.Thank you in advance for your time and comments

Hi Scratch1964!Nice to meet you and thanks for your post! (Boy, and I thought my posts were long! )Your system is, to put it plainly, quite old. But I do like the fact that it's actually quite well-balanced (in other words, neither your CPU nor your GPU are significant bottlenecks as they are of around the same speed). What's helping you keep your frame rates up is your 15" LCD monitor, restricting your resolution to 1024x768 (I'm guessing). At this "average" resolution (compared to 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 in newer LCDs), your CPU and GPU can keep up reasonably.As for adding as second monitor, depends on what you want to do. I have a 17" CRT monitor next to my 20" LCD where I put undocked windows, such as in the PMDG 747-400 and in the PSS A330/A340, I put the MCDU/FCUs on the second monitor. If you're thinking of enlarging the scenery, I'm not sure FS9 supports that (it might) and even if it does, your frame rates are bound to suffer because of the higher resolution.Thus, how much impact you can get from upgrading your system depends on what you are looking for. If you are sticking to your 15" monitor and are happy with your FS9 (including any add-ons you may have installed) now, upgrading your system may not do much. But if you want to go higher-resolution with a newer monitor, your frame rates are bound to suffer with your current system and thus, you would have to upgrade your system as well. The other "problem" with your current system is that it's not very upgradeable given the amount of change in the hardware world. Besides the hard drive, the sound card, and the speakers, there isn't much you'd want to keep if you want a brand-new system.Does this help?Edwin

Hello,I "fly" an "old" system with success. I did overclock my CPU and video card (with the assistance of a guru from Abit). I have 2 monitors attached to my video card (see config below) and I have a decent FPS : on heavy sceneries with ASV weather, AI traffic at 50%, .....+-20 FPS .I use FSAutostart to "clean" the machine before starting.From time to time I dream to upgrade but when I read topics from guys with a "dream machine" and with blurries, low FPS, ....PS I will try to add a PCI vid card to attach a third monitor !!

Edwin & EmileDelighted to have the pleasure of your company.If I may address both of your posts in chronological order....Edwin - Great to meet you! You are quite right in your well balanced response to my many queries. Actually that was a relatively short script by my standards - i'll have to learn to tame myself on here from now on!I fully accept that my system is past its peak and is no longer considered to be mid to high end. However I very much concur with your views & comment that it is a well balanced set up. It was chosen with care and, at the time, was by far the best for the money available here in UK. Back then I only very rarely touched software of any kind but instead used the PC for mostly work that involved typing. The idea(s) behind the small 15" monitor was firstly to save space, secondly because of the cost involved and thirdly that we found a previous 19" monitor unnecessarily big for our type of work (although it was a boxy 19" CRT which occupied almost half a living room!).I may just try to install FS9 on the Amilo notebook for its performance as it is running a far more respectable 2.4GHz Athlon64 3700 Processor, 1GB DDR Ram PC2700 @333MHz clock speed, ATi Radeon 9700 on a very pleasant crisp 15.4" widescreen display. In view of what you say about the resolutions then I wonder if I try an external 17" display with this machine that it may not suffer as much as the desktop??? It is the 5400RPM speed of the HDD that puts me off running any intensive software from this machine though.Its a pleasure to have this opportunity to talk to you. I have read many of your postings on here with great interest.Best regards,Scratch1964

Emile - I'm very pleased to hear from you in Brussels. (Just a short flight from London - 199 miles I think)! I must say that I have just downloaded a whole load of fantastic Belgian scenery from fsBelgium.com. The Brussels airports are wonderful. If you know of any other hard to find sites with Belgian scenery then i'd be very grateful for your tips.Your set up sounds very interesting in as much as consisting of older components too. Although I must say that you certainly have by far the better set up of the two of us...LOL!As Edwin has quite rightly said there is not a lot of room for upgrading my current set up so instead (until the time comes to part with it completely as opposed to upgrading) perhaps I should look towards a yoke, or maybe some pedals to improve the flying experience??? There is a lot to be said for keeping ones system free from unnecessary junk when starting Flight Sim. I never intended to get into FS9 which probably explains the moderate set up in front of me on which it runs. I just happened to come across a cheap secondhand copy and snapped it up. I didn't even know about the freeware add-ons available and when I found AVSim with its 70000+ freeware downloads I suddenly became completely addicted.Perhaps I can ask you about your experience with the 2nd monitor. What are you able to do & see that you can't do/see with just one monitor? Also (please pardon my ignorance here) but is the idea behind the 2nd monitor to enhance scenery or cockpit views, or does it improve visuals in some other way? As I have never experienced FS9 on anything other than this 15" monitor then I am obviously blindly ignorant to this kind of thing.Its great to have your opinion on this matter and to hear that your set up provides a good flying experience too.Best wishes,Scratch1964

Hi,I wouldn't worry so much about the RPM of your hard drive. It's only ONE factor in determining the overall feel of a system and hard drive speed should only really affect loading times, not necessarily frame rates. Given your notebook's the significantly more powerful CPU and GPU, I think you would indeed have a more pleasant flying experience with FS9 on the notebook.Two monitors: I spend 90% of my sim time facing my 20" LCD which shows the main 2D panel and the outside scenery. In order to keep my frame rates up on that monitor, I don't have anything heavy on the secondary 17" CRT so it's the cockpit monitors (gauges) that I keep on there (as I said, the MCDU/FCU, lower EICAS, clock etc.) I used to love this set up because it allows me to focus on my flying - if I needed a quick glance at anything else, I just had to look slightly to the side at the other monitor (no need to hit some keyboard shortcut to bring up another window). Nowadays, I find the secondary monitor more of a "nice-to-have" rather than a "critical" because I've found that I don't need to look at the other stuff that often and when I really do, I'm on autopilot anyway so bringing up the MCDU doesn't affect my flying much.Ideally, it would be great to have your scenery view actually span two (or more monitors) but I don't think FS9 can do that (someone, please do correct me if I'm wrong). One other possible use would be to add another view (say, external 'spot view') to the secondary monitor so that while I'm flying from the cockpit, I can see what's happening from the outside in. I know that is possible with FS9 but to have the graphics card drive TWO 3D windows would definitely have an impact on frame rates.Hope that helps. Please do let me know if anything is unclear.Regards,Edwin

Hello Scratch1964,On my 2 monitor I have :1/ Secondary monitor

Evening all from a very wet and miserable UK.Edwin & Emile....I must say you guys have given me some food for thought. The dual monitor set up and the option to use the Fujitsu Amilo as perhaps a main display with the NEC monitor as display for instrument panels sounds very appealing. I suppose, if it were possible to attach enough extra displays and position each wherever one chooses then one would gain the exact feeling of being in a real 747. I have been thinking about this for most of the day, whilst going about my usual business and have realised there are only really 3 possibilities unless I am to start from scratch with a power system and monitor....1. get a new VGA card that will support higher res. and a 17"+ monitor, 2. a larger display driven by the Amilo notebook along with the fixed 15.4" screen, 3. Use what I already have and attempt to rig up the NEC monitor as a secondary display powered by the Amilo notebook. I am leaning towards the latter, at least as an initial trial. I may as well make use of what I have got. Although I am also tempted to invest in VGA card upgrade. They are so amazingly cheap on eBay nowadays. The ATi Radeon is particularly reasonably priced. Of course, I won't reap the benefits of the 8xAGP.Tried some Bios tweaking today which has made quite a difference to general system performance although I haven't run FS9 yet today.I agree with you both that a display for ones flying instruments/panels/gauges etc would be a great idea. The switching and clicking during flight does spoil things a little. Is it an easy thing to rig up? I assume any necessary software is readily available.Emile....I must ask you about the performance of your twin display set up with the GForce4Ti VGA card. Do you suffer any FPS or other performance issues with (if I may say so) such an apparently older card? A 22" display must have quite a resolution. Your processor is far more ample though.Since you happen to mention golf...well I haven't played much this year and to keep two or more addictions fully fed, there just isn't enough hours in the day.Best regards,Scratch1964

Hello Scratch1964,These are the resolutions I run :Primary monitor 1600x1200x32 Secondary monitor : 1152x864x32Screen refresh 75 Hz for both On heavy sceneries (not EBBR this one is TOOOO heavy) with ActiveSky, Traffic at 25% , and some other stuff I have +- 20 FPS .I attach my fs9.cgf so that you can see the settings.Hope it helps

Hi Edwin,I've seen a setup with 13 monitors where the scenery spans 12 of the monitors (jpg attached) Don't know how it's done or who pays the power bill but there you go. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/132642.jpgRegardsRobert

Hi Robert,Thanks so much for that. I believe that such a set up is done through the use of a piece of software called WideView, which allows computers other than the main FS machine to render the 3D images on each monitor. I think that's the only way frame rates would not be impacted much because there would be 6 CPUs and GPUs doing the rendering and not just one.What amazes me about the set up is not necessarily that the guy has 6 computers available (I figure I probably have enough old hardware around to piece together 1-2 on top of the three I already have) but the space required for that many monitors, especially when so many of them are CRTs!Edwin

Hi GuysRobert....Now that is the kind of set up I am thinking of! You must be able to read my mind. I wonder if we'll all be flying this way by say FS12 or maybe FS15. I must say that I would be happy with just the bottom 3 displays and perhaps a further 2 or 3 for the cockpit/wing views. Perhpas this guy has solar panels powering it all up!The other thing I would hope for is better base scenery from Microsoft. Some of the greenery on our beautiful planet is not well represented in FS9 altthough there are some great add-ons to fix this.Edwin....I'm going to try out FS9 on the notebook this weekend just to see if I can get better FPS on dense sceneries. I love to fly over cities and admire the architecture. Have just tried my luck at translating Russian over at AVsim.Ru and there is some excellent Moscow Scenery on there. The landclass is fantastic. With the HDD RPM speed, well I was thinking of running FS9 from an external USB Seagate Barracuda 200BG 7200RPM 8MB Cache HDD or my other Western Digital Caviar Firewire HDD also 200GB 7200RPM 2MB Cache. I wonder which would be the best option for frame rates etc? I was thinking in terms of keeping the virtual memory on a separate drive, well away from FS9. What would you suggest with the equipment I have at my disposal?Emile....If I can fix it all up I will also try out a separate display for my gauges and the other entirely for scenery. I suppose when I think of a small 15" display half taken up with gauges, then there isn't much left for the scenery.Have a great weekend folks wherever you are flying.Scratch1964