I have 2 hard disk drives (C: and F:, not just partitions) and a curious question: where should I install FS9 for better performance? Some people say Windows XP and FS9 should be in different drives, some people say the same for XP and the pagefile, and some people say that for FS9 and the pagefile. The ideal thing (in my opinion) would be 3 hard drives: one for XP and other apps, other for FS9 and the other for the data (music, documents, photos) and the pagefile.But when you have 2 drives only, what do you recommend to be located in the same disk? Both have the same speed (RPM).Best regards from ColombiaLuis Miguel

Hi,On FJimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

since you are doing a custom install, you can gain more performance by setting the folder structure in alphabetical order. But be warned, you should have a very good understanding of how FS9 works before doing this, as many add-ons will require you to install them manually. On my latop, i have FS9 under the root folder:A_FS9 (so i.e: F:A_FS9)and all my scenery addons under:B_Addons FS9 loads its files in alphabetical order, so once you have that setup, defrag your HD using name sort (i use O&O). I gain a huge performance boost with this setup, and even with hundreds of aircrafts installed, and countless sceneries, fs9 loads quick and i never get stutters; all on an non-gaming laptop. some other quick tips:Gauge files should be kept inside the aircraft's own folder under panels (even though you may have multiple repeats, it will reduce load time)some addons like to place aircraft or scenery textures into the root fs9 texture folder. This might be okay on a fresh install, but as you add aircrafts, it'll cause a huge delay (grey in the VC, and then texture loads) Move those textures into the aircraft's texture folder instead. A good example is Bill Lyon's planes. I install everything into a dummy fs9 folder and move the files in place manually. I know it's a lot of work, but fs9 is an "always loading something" game, so it's a good idea to keep your files clean.Again, be careful before you do any of this. I'm assuming you know how FS9 loads files and how to "fix" stuff when it doesn't work (especially editing panel.cfg, aircraft.cfg, and scenery.cfg). -feng

In conclusion, I should install FS9 in F:AA Flight Simulator 9 and put the pagefile in C:. And also I should put the gauges in the aircraft's panel folder, right?Also another question. Is it possible to copy-paste the information from C: to F: and then make FS9 and its addons work OK (by reinstalling FS9 and then renaming the folders... you know what I mean;) )?Best regards from ColombiaLuis Miguel

Hi,I have 2 large disks (not volumes but separate disks) and created a dual boot system, and thus installed WinXP on both disks and choose during boot which system to start:- FSim (D: )- Apps (C: )The pagefile of the WinXp on C: resides on disk D: and vise versa.The advantages of dual boot is that my FS9-OS is stripped from all apps/services, you name it, which I don't need for gaming.The Apps OS is just a regular XP-version with my standard applications.