My big machine died some time ago and am now about to have my new machine delivered on Tuesday. Here are the primary specs:HP Pavilion d4995t customizable Desktop PC Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit) Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q6700 (2.66GHz) 4GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM (4x1024) 640MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, 2 DVI, TV-Out 802.11 b/g USB Wireless LAN card & USB external modem 1TB 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s dual hard drives (2x500GB) LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive 15-in-1 memory card reader, 3 USB, 1394, audio Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer I plan on a clean install of FSX immediaely followed by Acceleration.Here are some assumptions that may not be correct; if not, please let me know:Acceleration will take care of allowing full use of all RAM (or do I need to get that program that modifies the fsx.exe to force it?)DX-10 will be fully enabled via Acceleration?Any hints or suggestions on other things that I need to look out for / anticipate?

Hi Tom,DX10 preview is enabled via a check box which requires an FS restart to be 'fully enabled'. DX10 seems to be slower in FPS terms for some (including me) but not others. It will be interesting to see what happens for you. The .exe mod is part of 'SP2' in Acceleration I believe.

Acceleration will take care of allowing full use of all RAM (or do I need to get that program that modifies the fsx.exe to force it?)Accel/SP2 is fully >2GB aware and with Vista x64 you're in business.DX-10 will be fully enabled via Acceleration?As stated, just select the checkmark next to DX10 preview in the graphics settings page of FSX.Any hints or suggestions on other things that I need to look out for / anticipate?Any suggestions from us should be taken with the utmost caution :-lol Oh, and let the family know when you're about to begin the adventure so they can avoid the language associated with frustration. :-grr :-fume :-mad Regards,Jim Karn

TomI recommend you don't set up a raid set, but rather keep the2 disks separate and put all your FS on a non-C disk and keepthe other for everything else + page file. Faster for small files this way.RegardsTom

If it's an Intel chipset, Intel's Matrix raid function might be available. The matrix storage function allows a user to setup a raid 0 and a raid 1 on the same two physical drives. Sounds like magic, and I'm convinced it is.I have a 3 drive raid 0 running. Megascenery flights load in 15-20 seconds. Sure bests the 2-3 minutes it used to take. With this latest generation of 7200 RPM drives, "Raid 0" has really come of age. I'm getting 300MB/s xfer with < 7ms access times. The day of the Raptor is Over. Also, for a $50 CPU (air) cooler, that Q will easily go 3.6Ghz. 24/7. Set it and forget it. With these two adjustments, you won't even recognize it as the same machine. For instance, when I first got my new rig (Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz), I'd click over for the next Avsim forum page and nothing would happen . . . I thought. But I'd look closer, and it Was the next page. Woah, what's up with this. I finally discovered the update occasionally happened coincident with a blink (yea, like what our eyeballs do on occasion) and I simply was not seeing it. I've still never actually seen this happen, and I imagine I never will! This stuff is getting spooky. These vendors are real tight about letting us into "their" bios setup screens. But if you can somehow wangle it, try to get control of that machine. The way HP has it setup, it's providing only (about) 60% of the performance of which it is capable. You've got a rocket ship in there. Let it loose. Hardware is a terrible thing to waste.

Yup, I just un-raided my WD Raptors and believe I see a slight improvement. Now I'm not using raids anywhere, on any PC.Tom, if you can swing it, you'd be a little better off putting FSX on a WD Raptor for the speed. I'm running 2x150GB and lov'em.