FS9 and Quad-Core!

[BoeingGuy 0]

Hello everyone,As you can see in my specs, I have a Quad-core Q6600. In my system, FS9 DOES take advantage of quad-core without any tweaks! I tested it out and got an affirmative answer:In the task manager setting affinity to only 1 core (Core 0) yielded ~35 FPS in Chicago O'Hare on a rainy day, with all settings, including traffic, object/cloud draw distance.Setting affinity to all 4 cores bumped up the average to ~55-60 FPS. I also noticed in the Performance tab in Task Manager that all 4 cores were under quite a load.Can anyone confirm this?BoeingGuyPS, for dual-core users, try this out: http://flyawaysimulation.com/postt21628.htmlAlso, this is with FS 9.0, not 9.1. EDIT: I believe it also works with 9.1.

[Old Bill 0]

As Bugs Bunny would say," Ya got Me Doc!" Where the Heck do you set Core affinity in Task manager. Or maybe this is only a Vista virtue.Bill :-hmmm :-hmmm :-hmmm

[BoeingGuy 0]

Hi Bill,Go to the processes tab, right-click the FS9.EXE process, and hit Set Affinity.... That's it!BoeingGuy

[Guest Nealoc187]

>Hi Bill,>Go to the processes tab, right-click the FS9.EXE process, and>hit Set Affinity.... That's it!>>BoeingGuyI've never noticed any difference in my FS9 performance when changing the affinity. Also, FS9 came out long before the first multi-core processors were produced so I'm not sure how microsoft could have programmed it to take advantage of a technology that wasn't yet available.That said, if you're getting better performance with it - stick with it. I would, even if I don't understand it.

[dolph98 24]

I can confirm that FS9 runs better with four processors than it does when set to run on CPU0 only. It is not coded to use 4 processors specifically, it is just inherently faster on all four because of the way the Q6600 system does things. There are white papers on the Intel site out the gazoo. I don't quite understand it myself. I don't use affinity anymore (I did when I had my Prescott) but I do set priority to high.dolph

[Guest Nealoc187]

>I can confirm that FS9 runs better with four processors than>it does when set to run on CPU0 only. It is not coded to use 4>processors specifically, it is just inherently faster on all>four because of the way the Q6600 system does things. There>are white papers on the Intel site out the gazoo. I don't>quite understand it myself. I don't use affinity anymore (I>did when I had my Prescott) but I do set priority to high.>dolphHave you noticed any tangible increase in FS9 performance with high priority? I haven't been able to detect any difference with that either.When I run FS9 on multiple cores, my overall CPU utilization seems to remain the same (just distributed over all cores) as it does when I set it to only one CPU.

[Old Bill 0]

With Task manager running, I checked the affinity on several processes that were running. They were already set for CPU1 & CPU2. I have never set the affinity for any of these processes since I installed this new MOBO and Processor. Yet here they were runing on my core2 system like they never were run on my old P4 CPU. I assume I'll have to have FS9 running to be able to check he affinity for it. I'd be willing to bet it's set for both cores. Something I have never done. Oh! My head hurts.Bill :-bang :-hang *:-*

[Guest tatest]

Well, I don't have 64-bit Vista, and don't have quad-core, but have some experience that may be relevant.I was using single-threaded applications on 64-bit multi-processor Unix systems 9-10 years ago. On those, when your application makes system calls, the OS may run them on another processor. In a graphics-intensive application (mine was 3D earth modeling), something more than half, of the CPU cycles will be to the graphics API, which the OS is free to run on another processor. Same for disk access, keyboard and controller inputs, audio processing.I don't expect much in the way of multiprocessing management from XP, but Vista was written when multiprocessing had become a known environment for PCs. If MS did their job right, Vista should be at least as good as those old Unix systems, offloading system tasks to other processors.It is possible, when you lock an application to a single core, that you also lock its system calls to that core. That would be self defeating, if what you want is maximum graphics performance, to force D3D to run on the same processor as FS9.

[Guest Nealoc187]

>With Task manager running, I checked the affinity on several>processes that were running. They were already set for CPU1 &>CPU2. I have never set the affinity for any of these processes>since I installed this new MOBO and Processor. Yet here they>were runing on my core2 system like they never were run on my>old P4 CPU. I assume I'll have to have FS9 running to be able>to check he affinity for it. I'd be willing to bet it's set>for both cores. Something I have never done. Oh! My head>hurts.>>Bill :-bang :-hang *:-* As far as I have been able to tell with my systems, every single process that I've ever checked the affinity for has been set to run on multiple processors if they are available.

[Guest iphitus]

FS9 is still a multithreaded application, so receives some benefit from a SMP system --just not as much as an application designed with SMP systems in mind. It also benefits, as there's more CPU time available, so less competition with other system processes and applications for resources.

[dolph98 24]

No, not any notable improvement in speed. Anyway, I don't close down my antivirus or any other process when I fly, but I set the priority so FS9 gets the attention over anything else. I think.

[Kosta 122]

>Hello everyone,>As you can see in my specs, I have a Quad-core Q6600. In my>system, FS9 DOES take advantage of quad-core without any>tweaks! I tested it out and got an affirmative answer:>Do you have any patch installed relevant to multi core usage for XP?

[Guest bluesman666]

HiAnyone know how to get fs9 in Windows mode ?ThanksDave

[Guest flightsimmernick]

bit off topic but if you mean run FS9 in vista in XP combatibility mode:Right click FS shortcut on desktop PropertiesCompatibility tabTick - Run this program in compatibility mode for:Windows XP (Service Pack 2)

[BoeingGuy 0]

Hi,I have Windows Vista, but I have not installed any multi-core patches. The OS automatically recognizes the number of cores.Regards,BoeingGuy