Take a system with a 8400 and 2 Gb RAM and a 8800GT. Will there be a difference in FS9 FSX performence between Win XP and Vista (64 bit)? If so which is faster?The same thing but with 4 Gb RAM instead of 2 Gb?

Running FSX in Vista 64 would eliminate any possibility of out of memory errors that some folks have had issues with because you have more memory space to deal with. If you're going the Vista 64 bit route, you might as well install 4GB RAM just because its so inexpensive now. I did not notice any appreciable difference in performance with FSX between XP and Vista 64.

>Running FSX in Vista 64 would eliminate any possibility of>out of memory errors that some folks have had issues withIs this a problem only in Vista 32 or also Win XP?>because you have more memory space to deal with. If you're>going the Vista 64 bit route, you might as well install 4GB>RAM just because its so inexpensive now. >If I would get Vista it will be Vista 64 with 4 Gb RAM. Otherwise Win XP Home and 2 Gb RAM.>I did not notice any appreciable difference in performance>with FSX between XP and Vista 64. What about FS9? And DX10 preview? Does it work better and more stable than Win XP?

DX10 is only in Vista.....I use Vista 64..I tell no difference in speed...It has not given me any problems so far..... But it insists that to do a reformat the OC must be removed from the CPU or it can go NUTSO.......

Just stay away from that 8400. That one's for business office machines. The 8800GT/512 is the way to go. The 9800GTX is going below $200 soon, however: 1) It's HuGe and will need lots of room in your case. It will need 2-3 harddrive racks to be evacuated And block 4 (vertical-style) mobo SATA plugs.2) It needs pOweR.3) It's a great wintertime room heater, not so nice in the summer.4) I'm (still) seeing no difference between the 9800GTX and my current 8800GT in FS.

Maybe he means the Intel E8400?In any case, there will be some big price decreases in the future due to ATI's release of the 4850. It might be a good idea to wait a bit and see where the prices end up.

Ahhh yes, now I see it. I concur with all previous. 1) Go with Vista 64 to forestall those OOM issues. I'm running Process Monitor on a 2nd LCD with FSX running. I'm seeing greater than 2Gs of Vmemory in use All The Time. That'd cause an OOM in a 32 bit op system. I'll be setting up a PMDG airplane flight into a big addon airport soon. 2.5Gs of Vram is the highest I've seen yet with the default airplanes. I'm sure PMDG and I can take out that 32 bit system's max 3G (switch) limit. I'll bet I can hit the 64bit op system's 4G limit too. Stay tuned. 2) Physical ram loads for - Just FSX - run 1.7G+ too. With only 2Gs of physical ram installed, the op system (32 or 64 bit) would 'starve out' FS to allow itself enough ram to function as an Operating System.Run Vista 64 and 4Gs-O-ram. Reasons 1 and 2 are why.

>Maybe he means the Intel E8400?>Yes he (I) meant the penryn Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz 6MB FSB1333 Boxed (with cpu-cooler!) Socket 775. What other '8400' are there?>In any case, there will be some big price decreases in the>future due to ATI's release of the 4850. It might be a good>idea to wait a bit and see where the prices end up.Wait how long? Weeks? Months? At any rate it would be best if I could wait until August or September if possible. But my current system has showed signs of severe trouble. But I might be the cause of that on track.

>Ahhh yes, now I see it. I concur with all previous. >>1) Go with Vista 64 to forestall those OOM issues. I'm running>Process Monitor on a 2nd LCD with FSX running. I'm seeing>greater than 2Gs of Vmemory in use All The Time. That'd cause>an OOM in a 32 bit op system. I'll be setting up a PMDG>airplane flight into a big addon airport soon. 2.5Gs of Vram>is the highest I've seen yet with the default airplanes. I'm>sure PMDG and I can take out that 32 bit system's max 3G>(switch) limit. I'll bet I can hit the 64bit op system's 4G>limit too. Stay tuned. >>2) Physical ram loads for - Just FSX - run 1.7G+ too. With>only 2Gs of physical ram installed, the op system (32 or 64>bit) would 'starve out' FS to allow itself enough ram to>function as an Operating System.>>Run Vista 64 and 4Gs-O-ram. Reasons 1 and 2 are why.One thought here. When I tested out FSX on my current system at the time it was released I never experienced any OOM issues.Another question that needs to be asked is if my HD is big enough. Got two IDE of 250 Gb and 60 Gb. I think I have read that only installing Vista will take some 60 Gb, true? Then if I add both FS9 and FSX with addons space might be running out.BTW I read a article in the May issue of Computer Pilot about upgrading to Vista. They wrote that they recommended 2 Gb of RAM and 'moving to 4 Gb appears to make little difference, but is useful if you need to to switch to other application)'.Also they stated 'FSX has considerably fewer issues with Vista than FS9'. Is Vista best for FSX but Win XP best for FS9 maybe? My current systemAMD 64 3200+1 Gb RAMNVIDIA 6600GT 256M DDR3Two IDE HDWin XP Home OEM

>>Maybe he means the Intel E8400?>>>>Yes he (I) meant the penryn Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz 6MB>FSB1333 Boxed (with cpu-cooler!) Socket 775. What other '8400'>are there?There's the GeForce 8400 series video cards. It took me reading your post a couple of times to figure out you were talking about the E8400 and not the video card.

A 32bit system will OOM at 2G. If a player has the HP to run high sliders with 512G Vcards, these 2G OOMs will be common. For instance, an AMD 2.0/1G/6600GT-256 will never allow the data load to induce even a 2G OOM. An Q66/4G/8800GT-512 will get there on virtually Every flight. That GTX280 will likely threaten the 3G limit in Every flight. I haven't hit 3G yet with the 8800GT-512, but I'm working on it. 2) Physical ram loads for - Just FSX - run 1.7G+ too. With only 2Gs of physical ram installed, the op system (32 or 64 bit) would 'starve out' FS to allow itself enough ram to function as an Operating System.Computer pilot doesn't know. This is what's happening. What Vista issues are those? Unless they can point to something, anything, I'm not sold. Vista's fine. Seems to me Vista bashers just want appear smarter than a really smart . . . anything. You'll be fine with the operating system and FXS on one 250G HD. Use the other for data storage. A Vista install is < 20G.

>A 32bit system will OOM at 2G. If a player has the HP to run>high sliders with 512G Vcards, these 2G OOMs will be common. >For instance, an AMD 2.0/1G/6600GT-256 will never allow the>data load to induce even a 2G OOM. An Q66/4G/8800GT-512 will>get there on virtually Every flight. That GTX280 will likely>threaten the 3G limit in Every flight. I haven't hit 3G yet>with the 8800GT-512, but I'm working on it. >Shouldn't the swap file be used when RAM runs out? Why would the new GTX280 be more affected?>Computer pilot doesn't know. This is what's happening. >>What Vista issues are those? Unless they can point to>something, anything, I'm not sold. Vista's fine. Seems to me>Vista bashers just want appear smarter than a really smart . .>. anything. >I think they meant more work to have function as intended. The author wrote that he ended up with working sims both FS9 and FSX.He also wrote that there was little or no advantage with Vista f

Physical ram loads will swap over to the swap file if necessary, however it's always better to Not have to use the swap file. $35 worth of ram will do that trick. On the Vmemory front, a 32 bit op system will simply shut dowm a program if it's Vm requirement goes beyond 2G - or 3G with the 3G switch enabled.This is a pic of a tool called Process Manager. The "Virtual Size" column shows FSX's Vm number. Note it is 3.4Gs. Even with the 3G switch enabled in a 32bit op system, the program would have shut down at 3G. I would have been able to go to 4G because I'm running a 64 bit op system. The "WS Private" is the physical ram in use. Note that it is 2.6G. A 2G install of physical ram wound have had to go to the page file here. It's better to keep this in physical ram if possible. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/189997.jpgThis was an FSX approach to JFK 13L in the PMDG 744. The IAP is directly over Manhattan. Every setting was full right/on. This was very strictly a 'test flight' and I staggered down final at 3FPS. Note the system ram load is 3.5G. I finally landed and now (simply) have the flight minimized as I write this post and use the computer as normal. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/189998.jpgYou might just consider a quad. Look at those 4 cores crankin'. They all really got a work out this time. Very cool.

>Physical ram loads will swap over to the swap file if>necessary, however it's always better to Not have to use the>swap file. $35 worth of ram will do that trick. >But such a swap shouldn't trigger a OOM. My impression has been that by a OOM problem means that the system crashes and not just a decrease in performence, correct?Otherwise this info means things get tricky (expensive) for me. As I understand it FSX is not going to funcyion correctly if I try to run it under Win XP with 2Mb or with Vista without 4Mb RAM because of OOM crashes , correct. >This was an FSX approach to JFK 13L in the PMDG 744. The IAP>is directly over Manhattan. Every setting was full right/on.Is that PMDG a big performence hitter? For me it seems that New York is big performence killer on FS9 on my system. What is your systen?

Sam, here is a puzzle for ya:Why does it crash? I have no explanation: it crashes always when at touchdown, or 10ft before or just slightly after. Same flight from KATL to EGKK. Tried two different aircraft, PSS 777 and LDS 767, same thing. If I fly with the /3GB switch, it doesn't crash. But using /3GB switch, I can't use my BAV ACARS (online tool for British Airways Virtual).But I am kinda puzzled why it crashed 1,75 GB of usage? Why didn't it wait to cross 2GB mark???http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190003.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190004.jpg