Howdy!I sure did! I thought that I would REALLY see what was giving me any performance increase. Remember, I didn't know what I was going to see at that stage of my update I DID have the third memory module on the desk, but had hoped not to use it. Hey..$130.00 in my pocket is better than in Crucial's, lol!I put in one gig (now two in the system) and I didn't notice any true FPS increases. Up one or two, then right back down to the pre-two scene. I got a little worried...like...I paid all this money and NO EFFECT in FPS except a little teaser? Not power for the buck!I did have faster side loads as Geofa has also noticed.I then said "oh well...here goes another $130.00, (smile) and put the third one in.Started the computer, and wham...screens loaded like lightning. Background programs in half the time.I then crossed my fingers and put FSX up and running.After sitting there for one minute, panning, viewing left-right, then taking the Lear to the nearest runway just to get off the ground....BOOM...I had my 18 pretty much no matter the view or whether on the ground at KDTW, or at altitude. I then cranked up FSX's weather engine, and no frame drops other than a rare 14 in heavy build. I then put in Auto-Gen at NORMAL and no hit to my 18. Jeez....I then later in the day got real brave, lol, and notched it up to DENSE. I lost 3 FPS, but big deal? It was smooth as silk, and the sim really now looks great!!!!!I sat a moment longer, got out of FSX....typed 'My GAWD' and the rest is history, :)I can't explain going between 2 and 3 for such a night and day system performance and FSX performance gain. I just know I almost broke my lower jaw on the desktop! I leave that to the system engineers and software engineers to explain. It CERTAINLY was worth the $270.00 (around with tax) for not only FSX gain, but the total system in general. Pages on the web for instance is instantaneous. The upgrade was worth every cent.Long live, Crucial, :)

That explains to my total satisfaction why the BOOM hit after my XP Pro system got fed another gig.Thanks for tracking this stuff. 3 gigs huh? This makes sense from what I am seeing with my system.Thanks again,Mitch R.Content FSX'er.

Trust a fellow FSX'er.Slap the RAM in. Also remember if you need pairs going in, if you only upgrade to two gigs, you will always only have that 4 512's.To go beyond means that you just wasted memory for you will have to then buy 1 gig boards.That is of course if you need to match the memory in the A and B channel. I struck it 'rich' with this simple upgrade. I hope you do too!Mitch R.

Hello Jason,I am...now.I guess that my thread is VERY controversial. I only know what is happening on MY systemFSX is as fluid as FS9 (still run it.) This with 3 gigs in my XP Pro system.I now can get 18 FPS with 50 percent commercial,33 percent ROAD Traffic, scenery sliders all to the right including water. All shadows, no bloom, weather at one notch above default, etc. Active Sky 6.5 and 3rd party A.I are also in this mix.It looks and runs great, now.No stutters. Before the memory upgrade, I had 'em. I just lived with 'em.I hope that mileage will be the same for everybody else, but as we all know, each system is unique. The user has to decide on what monetary resources he/she wishes to dedicate to it all.Take care,Mitch R.FSX and FS9 user (depending on mood, lol)

I just checked my system out.At idle upon the desktop just over half a gig usage.With FSX running, 1.33 gigs.Still though, I did not see my performance I have now until my system had 3 gigs available. For a 130.00 extra...it was worth it. It saved me thousands! ;)Mitch R.*****************Hot off the press,I just did a MEMORY test and before it would run, the program informed me that XP does NOT report all the memory used PER APPLICATION as it has a limit factor, and that I was to run ***three copies of the program*** simultaneously to have ALL my three gigs tested and reported!!!So....perhaps 1.33 gigs is NOT TRULY how much RAM is being used in TOTAL by FSX and XP....it could indeed be more. Would not Microsoft be able to shed light upon this, being that XP is their baby...It's starting to get interesting, lolMitch

>Hi To all:>>This is my spec PC >>Intel Pentium 4 Processor 3.2Ghz @ 800mHz with 1MB Cache LGA>775>Prizion 2GB DDR RAM PC.3200 400MHz Dual Channel>120 GB Seagate SerialATA 150 Hard Drive // 7200rpm>nVidia GF6600GT - PCI-Express 256MB DDR.>>And with that I do have FPS about 5-9 with most slider at less>then half way, except Traffic AI at 75% and Scenery at>detailed, and Airport cars at high.>Do you guys think by adding an extra 1GB or RAM that will>help.>Any help will be much appreciated.>>Thanks>Walouigi>My PC is more or less the same as yours and I have added 1 Gb more memory (2Gb total now) and with some tweaks in the .cfg file, I get mostly 20-30 FPS.Stelios

That last gig is a waste of money. I would think that your experience is more an indication of the speed of your memory. I would guess that with the configuration your system is in now you are actually running your memory at the correct speed. With the configuration that you were having problems with your memory wasn't running at the correct speed.Adding more memory above the memory that you are using doesn't do anything. Trying to work magic with the swap file configuration when you have more than enough memory to meet your demands won't do anything either.I'm running FSX at with decent performance with an Athlon XP 3200, 1.5 Gig, and a BFG 7800 GS OC. I increased my memory from 1 gig to 1.5 gig. It didn't speed it up. It just stopped it from slowing down. I believe if I added another 1.5 gig I would just have a bunch of free memory not being used. I tried to make my FSX use as much memory as possible and I only got it to 1.4 gig. It normally is 1.1 to 1.2 for me.Bruce

>RE: http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm>>I should warn you guys that some of the information on that>page could be a little better.>>For example, he talks about setting maximum and minimum values>for the size of the page file. Later, he discusses>de-fragmenting the drive. You should know that if you take>the maximum, and use it for both max AND min size you will>lock the pagefile at a specific size... thus eliminating>fragmentation altogether.>>btw: More memory isn't what boosting your frames here, that>much I can tell you for sure. The only time it's going to>boost your framerate is if you didn't have enough memory to>begin with until the upgrade. If you had one gig in your>system, then sure, more ram = better overall performance plus>a few extra frame rates because everything needed is in memory>now and not being swapped. If you had 2 gigs and are now>running four, there is something else that has led you to>believe you have increased frames.>>When I am running FSX, 1.3GB is used, Windows bumps that up to>1.7GB, leaving .3GB to play with. This whole time, my page>file is only commited to 2-300MB and sits dormant the whole>time FSX runs... so really, page file will do nothing for you>if you have at least 2GB.>>Also, something to add to performance enhancing Windows,>having three separate drives will REALLY increase your>performance a whole lot. One drive to boot from and store the>OS, one for the game, and one for your swap file. A step>farther would be to actually make sure your drives are on>different channels, (if you are using IDE.) For example,>having two drives on the same IDE ribbon is most surely>holding back some performance, as the IDE low-level functions>actually deal with a single drive at one time. I'm not sure>about SATA though, I've yet to do any testing with that, been>a while. Personally I think that SATA did away with the old>channeling problems of IDE, but I never actually read up on>it.>>Something else that is being missed.... how hot are you>running? Is FSX pushing your system? Sure it is, if all you>can get is 10fps over a major city then you can rest assured>that your machine is as hot as it can get. Check it out,>evaluate your cooling if needed.... especially chipset....>can't stress that enough.>>hey Key,Agree 100% with everything you said. Some of the info was also a little dated but the section about removing a swap entirely was what I was going for.You are 100% correct about separate controllers too. I run my swap on a dedicated drive on my secondary RAID controller all by her lonesome. Raid-0+1 on my primary controller, Single drive on the second...-PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledAMD FX-57 @ 3 gigsAsus A8NSLI-Premium2 gigs Corsair XMS PC3500LL 2 3 2 6 1TXFX 7900 GTX 690/1750XFX 7800 GTX 515/135024 inch Widescreen LCDDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1khttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7800 GTX 515/1350 Raid-0

Mitch, this is not hot off the press, this is exactly what everyone has been telling you... This is the /3GB switch others have mentioned. MS already shed this light, we know already, this is why some people moved to a 64 bit version of XP, the memory limitations are no longer an issue with a 64 bit O/S.I am glad you are happy but I don't see how an extra gig has magically bounced up your FPS. Can ANYONE confirm this because I have never in all of my years of simming seen memory affect FPS, just load times, FPS is a CPU/GPU issue UNLESS you are changing the SPEED of your memory, not the amount.Like I said, I am glad it worked for you but I would not recommend others to run out and spend 1,2,3 hundred dollars without a little bit more validity to your comments. You just verified yourself you are only seeing 1.33 gigs, considering FS as an application on XP can use up to 2 gigs based on the architecture of the O/S, 2+2 is not equaling 4 right now.-Paul

As mentioned previously it would be helpful for Microsoft to comment on all this. They are the ultimate authority on how it works - I would assume they would have to know. If they don't however, then just say so. Why are they reluctant to comment here?Very frustrating indeed!

Hi Paul!Well...trust me, I'm certainly not trying to relieve persons of $130.00 :)Whatever happened when I threw in that third gig...happened.I'm running AUTO-GEN at NORMAL and still get 18 FPS along with the other settings I have already published.As for faster memory. I only added exactly what came with my system, for Micron(Crucial) is the supplier to Dell (was when my Gen 3 was built)I had DDR2 533 MHz, as two 512's and now have 2 1GB's along with the original 512's for a total of 3 gigs.All are at 533MHz at CL4.As you say, and as I have seen over the years as well, not every tweak or performance update can be duplicated on every system and configuration.I guess the safest thing would be for someone else who has a Gen 3 Pent 3.4 and wants to gamble $130.00 for the extra gig.Or...everybody reads, smiles, wishes me well, and moves on! :)Thanks for the post. I'm certainly enjoying FSX now, and have no immediate plans to replace the system. The only other thing I might do is for when DX10 comes out, will eye a graphic card or two.Cheers!Mitch

O.K, Could some one help me out here? I upgraded to 3gigs, my Bios reads 3gigs. But my XP does not! it reads 2gigs only, yet when I go to system information it reads 3! All of the 3 gigs are 533. At the begning i had 2X512s and 2X1gigs, then fitted 3X1gig with the same result.Any one can help me out here?ThanksMohammed

>I just checked my system out.>>At idle upon the desktop just over half a gig usage.>That's a little high. My XP at idle on desktop is about 300 mb usage and 21 services I believe. I think you can pare down your XP install a little better if you really wanted to. :)You are having an interesting discussion here about mem usage. One thing that stands out to me, is the statement by Pixelpoke a long time ago, where, when asked "How much video memory does FSX use", he replied, "It uses all that you have.". So it could be that the FSX architecture is designed to gobble up as much as you have got. That means if it detects that you have 256 megs of vid ram, and 2 gb of system mem, it will allocate objects in memory accordingly.I have been testing things with MemStatus. (Granted, I do not fully trust the accuracy of MemStatus, but for sake of argument I'll refer to its results). I am firing up FSX sessions of Heathrow with 100% AI traffic, in other words, I am trying to kill my sys and video ram, and yet, MemStatus reports not using anywhere near the 256 mb of ram I have on my 7800GT. So obviously, the FSX engine is keeping some memory for other things (ostensibly, VC and panel, and aircraft model) and that may be where the PoolSize variable comes in.I'd bet, that if I had a 512 mb card, MemStatus would report me using 200+ or 300+ mb of vid ram in a similar Heathrow 100% AI scenario.Geez I am rambling again. Sorry about that.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Hi Mitch,Glad this has worked well for you.When I loaded the Demo1 of FSX a couple months ago, I decided to add more RAM. I too have 3GB of RAM. For me FSX runs well in most areas.Can you do me a favor? Try a flight from 34R at KSEA (with the sliders you have set). Let me know the FPS at that position. For me, it's around 12-15FPS depending on sliders.Then, fly so you're close to downtown Seattle (just south of the ballparks). Report your FPS. For me, it goes down to about 11 FPS.You should see your FPS jump to high twenties/low thirties when flying West of downtown Seattle.Believe me, I'm not knocking your results. I know they're good. I just want to compare our results.Thanks,JerryG

Yes, you have to keep your RAM in pairs!For instance on my system, I have two 1 GB modules in Channel A, and then have two 512' MEG's in Channel BYou have to keep DUAL CHANNEL with equal size matched pairs. The way you have your present 3 GIG system, you would need another full GIG and then have FOUR GIG's by having 4 (1 GIG) modules.To have 3 gigs, you need two 1-GIG, and two 512 Meg's.Mitch