I'm buying a new PC soon for the whole purpose of improving FS performance (I'm sure no one else has ever done that!), and in anticipation of the big day I've been reading up in the forums on different ways of tweaking FS9. One of the methods I've read is dedicating a HD partition to FS9, but most messages leave it at that, as if the rest of us mortals know how to do that. So would someone be kind enough to write a beginner's guide to HD partitioning, including such topics as how much room to devote to the partition, what files (if any) need to be in both partitions, etc. I'm assuming, of course, that this will yield some noticeable benefits to FS9 performance. (If it's a big waste of time, please be sure to mention that up front!)And please remember to keep it simple. If you start talking about raid0 and IDE (like I've seen in other forums), please explain what that means and how it affects things (I'm lucky if I can even spell IDE!). And while we're at it, it would also be nice if someone talked a bit about compressing FS9 files, as I've also seen some people talk up the advantages of doing this, though without actually explaining how to do it. Ideally, someone with knowledge of both partitioning and compressing would talk about the benefits (and drawbacks) of doing both, as well as how to actually do it. And that's it. I hope this thread develops into a good guide that will benefit those simmers hoping to get the most out of FS9.sergio

Sergio,I sympathise with you, unfortunately you be up for some reading. Try grabbing the "idiots" bok series (if they have one for that).While I will tell you that compression is generally not a performance booster (because of the decompression that must take place); but that does depend on your operating system, hard drive setup & chipset I guess. In all my testing though, I've never realised any tangible gains from it. I'm not able to speak to your hard drive problem without know:1) How many hard drives you have2) What chipset your motherboard incorporates3) What Operating System & version your using exactlyI would go for that book or keep researching a bit. I'm not about to throw a bunch of confusing terms at you.....If you get it right though, you will realise tangible benefits from re-partitioning.Cheers & good luck.

Does partitioning really depend on chipsets?? Geez.. i was hoping it wouldn't be that fussy. Anyway, the chipset is the intel 925X Express with ICH6R. This is the new chipset for using the new PCI Express feature of the X800X Radeon video card. The OS is the good old reliable WinXP SP1, and it would be just one hard drive 160GB serial ATA with 8MB Databurst cache. As for improving performance with compression, take a look at http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=search. I can only go by what others say about this as I haven

If you are buying a computer then the hardrive is probably going to already be set up. Most computer vendors usually have one or two partitions setup on the computer. The largest, usually C: is the normal partition where you have all your programs and files. The smallest, usually D: is where they store your recovery software, especially if you don't get a recovery CD. If the hardrive dies, then you have to rely on the vendor to fix your problem since you don't have the recovery CD.If the above is correct, your only option is to use something like Partition Magic (PM) to make more partitions on your hardrive. Otherwise, you would have to use Windows partitioning software to repartition the entire hardrive, then reinstall Windows and the other applications you purchased on the computer. PM and other programs like it have been known to cause problems resulting in the requirement to completely repartition/reformat the hardrive.If you do consider using PM, I recommend carving out a 10-15GB partition for the second copy of the OS (Windows), flight simulator and any flight simulator addons you intend to use.Here are a couple of sites that may help you:http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/usi...d/multiboot.asphttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/tr...c/ls/013102.aspW. Sieffert

If the hard drive already comes partitioned, then that would be a first. All the PCs I've ever bought have come with one drive, C, and recovery disks. Assuming that to be the case, and assuming that I'm going to use partition magic to create a second logical drive (D), let's start from there.Question 1 - Do i need to install the OS on both drives?So as not to get ahead of myself, I'll ask one question at a time... I'm in no particular hurry.Thx

No, you only put the OS on one parition.

Before I ask the next question, I'd like to get some more input on one point, namely, whether this is worth it or whether it's just an exercise in partitioning and nothing else. Houseofpain says in his reply that he's never realized any tangible gains, yet he also says that if I do it right that it can be helpful. My concern is that if someone who seems to know what he's doing better than I hasn't gotten any benefits, what hope do I have?Any other inputs on whether this is really worth it? Can anybody who's done it tell me if there's been a noticeable improvement?Thanks, gracias, merci, danke

I didn't see any noticeable improvement. The reason I partitioned my drive was safety... should I have to reintall the sim I can reformat it's own drive without disturbing my OS partition or the partition that holds all my other apps.Greg

Hi sergio,If you ask me there's a few good reasons to install FS2004 into it's own dedicated partition.The first is fragmentation. Fragmentation is real, it's not just a figment of someones imagination. And the largest amount fragmentation usually occurs on the partition that your OS is on. This won't be the case for someone who has created a partition dedicated for Digital Video editing, encoding, ect. and will be creating and deleting huge files on that partition. But for the normal user it's ususally the partition your OS is on. If you defrag your FS2004 partition then it wil stay defragged much longer than if it were on the same partition as your OS. And it's easier on your OS when you go to defrag the OS, because it doesn't have to deal with the vast number of files that an FS2004 installation throws down on your hard drive. You may not see a big difference in performance due to file fragmnetation, but the difference is there nonetheless. And if you ask me this is a couple of good reasons that it's best to have FS2004 on it's own dedicated partition.Another is kind of along what Greg mentioned just above my post. Only I kind of look at the other side of the coin. If there's a reason for me to have to refomat and reinstall it's usually the OS, not Flight Simulator. I have spent more time installing and customizing my FS2004 than I have my WinXP. I might spend a few days on tweaking WinXP and installing it's drivers and app's and so forth. But my FS2004, OMG!! If I have to reformat and reinstall WinXP then my FS2004 partition is left alone and waiting for me just like I left it before my OS went bad. To get it back here is what I do....I have saved my customized 'FS9.cfg' file so I don't have to redo it all over again. And I have backups of my custom scenery.cfg and terrain.cfg files. Those last two files are still left in my main FS2004 folder, but I save backups of them anyway just in case. My FS2004 is installed on my G: drive. When I'm all done with WinXP I go into 'G:Program FilesMicrosoft Games' and rename the 'Flight Simulator 9' folder to 'Flight Simulator 9 Customized'. Then I install FS2004. Then I fire up FS2004 one time to make sure it's initialized(initializes scenery and installs various files and folders to 'My Documents' and C:Documents and SettingsUserNameApplication DataMicrosoftFS9). Then I just delete the 'Flight Simulator 9' folder that was created from this new FS2004 installation. Then I rename the folder 'Flight Simulator 9 Customized' to 'Flight Simulator 9'. The last step is to restore my customized 'FS9.cfg' file to C:Documents and SettingsUserNameApplication DataMicrosoftFS9. Then that's it. I'm done and I'm right back to where I was with all my weeks and weeks of installing stuff and all the tweaking(panel.cfg's aircraft.cfg's, ect.) that I did intact. With the possible exception of have of having to reinstall FS2004 software that uses anti-piracy protection and/or makes entries into the System Registry, such as Flight1, Captain Sim, Flightfactory Simulations, FS Navigator(I think), and software like that.As you can probably see, it is my belief that there is much more to installing Flight Simulator to it's own partition than to do it just as an excersise in partitioning.Cheers,Jim

hi jimthanks for the detailed info. I have to admit I'm not 100% sold on the idea, although the appeal of not having to reinstall FS when WinXP gives me problems is a big plus.OK, on to some more questions on the process of partitioning itself.1) Given that the second partition will be used exclusively for FS and FS related utilities, what file system should I use for the virtual drive, FAT32 or NTFS? Does it have to be the same system as the C drive?2) Can Diskeeper installed on C defrag D? (I think it can but just to make sure)3) Should FS addons that run concurrently with FS2004 like FDC, Ultimate Traffic, FSUIPC, etc, be installed on C or D?4) Given that I love scenery addons and AI traffic, what's a good recommended size for the partition?That's it for now. Thanks to everyone taking the time to answer these questions.

The only reason I recommended putting the OS on two partitions was to make the Flight Simulation side of the dual boot computer independent of the rest of the computer diskdrive.The benefits of having a separate flight simulation partition is you can eliminate the processess that run in the OS, you don't load any Terminal and Stay Resident (TSR) programs that use memory and processing time even if you aren't using them. You only load those programs to this partition that are solely flight simulator related.If you only install the OS on one partition, it is optimized for the total computer systems software and hardware. You can certainly use optimizing programs to shut down processes and turn off TSRs. The problem is over time the Windows Registry gets bloated with useless junk that gets loaded even if the program was removed.W. Sieffert

Hi Again sergio,I highly recommend that you use WinXP SP1's NTFS. It is a much more robust filesystem and I think it even has some journaling capabilities(self-recovering, not so many problems with the filesystem when your power goes out or you are forced to just power the system off due to a hard lock-up of the system).Yes, Diskeeper will defrag any partition/volume on your system. For Diskeeper I recommend that you just make sure you have the latest version of it. And if doing a 'boot time optimization' such as 'Defrag and Consolidate Folders'('Put all folder together on the volume' is the actual name in Diskeeper) that you do a 'chkdsk /F' before and afterwards.If Ultimate Traffic is like MyTraffic2004, then it must be installed into FS2004. FSUIPC is a small .dll. It must be installed into FS2004's Module folder. There are some addons That I'm sure you could install onto C:. Perhaps FDC, but I don't know. I have used S-Combo for the Request For Pushback 747 and it was installed on my C: drive. I also install FSBuild onto C:. Some things like this are up to your personal preference.What's a good size? Good question. Since you like lots of addons(such as sceneries, aircrafts, paints, utilities(FSNaviagtor is one example)) then it should be quite large of course. I also like a lot of addons. My motherboard went bad a little while back and I had to order a new and different motherboard, ram, cpu, heatsink and fan, and then put it all together. Before my old system went bad I had a 42 GB partition for FS2004, and I was beginning to run out of space! Haha. Mostly due to the fact that I had a ton of aircraft, and repaints and sound packages installed for them. I went ahead and got a larger hard drive for this newer system as well, a 250 GB! I made my FS2004 partition 75 GB's. ;)I also purchased FS-AOM(FS Addon Manager) so I could easily Zip up my customized aircrafts with their extra paints and all as a package. Then I can remove those aircrafts from FS2004 if I want. This has two advantages. It allows FS2004 to start up faster, and when I'm in the sim if I go 'Select Aircraft' the menu comes up much faster because it doesn't have to read in all those 'aircraft.cfg' files. The other advantage is that zipping them up saves on disk space. If I ever want to use one of those aircrafts then I just fire up FS-AOM and have it unzip the package back into FS2004.As a last note, something I just feel like mentioning I guess... I had spent so much time on customizing all those aircrafts on my old system that I hooked up my old Hard Drive on my new system as a slave. Then I copied all those aircraft over from my old FS2004 installation on it to my new FS2004... the Aircrafts in the 'Aircraft' folder, all the gauges from my old 'Gauges' folder, the 'Sound' folder, the Effects folder... ect. For example I had, and since I copied everything over I still have, 57 repaints installed for the default DC-3. :+ I would read on the forum here what sound package was good for a certain aircraft(s). There was no way I was going to remember which sound packages I had downloaded go with which planes. So my customized aircrafts with all their repaints, sound packages, panels, ect. are now all in my new FS2004 installation and packaged up by FS-AOM. If I had FS2004 installed on the C: drive on my old system and the the filesystem for the C: partition went haywire for some reason, there would have been no way for me to recover all that stuff. I am paranoid about having a filesystem problem on the partition that my WinXP is on because I used to have problems with older versions of Diskeeper when doing the boot-time optimization 'Defrag and Consolidate Folders'. It didn't have a problem with other partitions when it came to this particular boot-time optimization, just the partition WinXP(the OS) was installed on.Now, with Diskeeper 8.0 Build 478 I there is still something a little screwy when using the boot time optimization 'Defrag and Consolidate Folders'. At least on my older system that went bad and this newer one. After this optimization there will be a filesystem error, but 'chkdsk' is able to fix it and then everything is ok.I hope I didn't bore you to death by babbling on too much sergio. :7Cheers, :-waveJim

Another justified question in this context might be cluster sizes. Is bigger better? Experiences, ideas and inputs welcome... Sergio, I hate to be a party pooper, but why get such a brand new platform? If you're looking for a decent sys FS-wise, you're better off with a powerful Northwood or may want to consider an AMD64 IMHO. Early adopters sometimes pay a 'unreasonable' price. Mainboards and bios' need to mature... Etc. Hope you don't mind. Good luck, cheers and kind regards everybody Jaap

Jaap,I looked into getting an Alienware with AMD 64, but without the monitor it was going to be lots more than the Dell with a 19" LCD! I dont know, maybe its worth it, but I just cant afford to shell out $4000+ for a "gaming" PC (I really shouldnt even be buying the Dell but...)As for the partitioning, I gotta digest all the info in the replies before I ask more questions :-eek

hi againI'm back with more questions, as you would expect!I'm leaning toward installing the OS on both partitions. It seems that if I have the room, that it's the best way to go about squeezing the most out of my PC. 1) Does the WinXP license allow for the installation of the OS system twice (or however many times) on the same PC? (I would ask MS, but they would take a month to answer and charge me $50 for the info to boot! :-sae )2) How much disk space does WinXP take by itself?3) If I have an OS on both partitions, do I get the choice of which one I want to boot up from every time I turn on the PC?4) Any tricks you can suggest to lean the OS for the FS9 partition of any unnecessary stuff? (I've already gotten some ideas from the blackviper site on some windows services that can be safely turned off)thxsergio