COMPLETE FSX INSTALL AND TUNING GUIDE

[A36 Apache 0]

I run Vista 64 with FSX Acceleration and the addons - FScene4X, GenesisX, UTX, XGraphics, ASA, WOAI and PFE. I moved from the default location to my D: drive without incident (Copy & Paste), but I did leave the old files behind (renamed the FSX directory) just to be on the cautious side. I used FSX_Reg_Utility to modify registry entries (it was very easy) and I have not run into anything that needed special attention.

[dhwang 0]

I know. You didn't answer the question. :( The thing is: I am rather lazy. So when I install programs to my D; drive I simply change the proposed C to a D and that's it. So all my games and so on end up on D:/Program Files. I just wonder if Vista treats that folder the same way as the C:/Program Files folder.But well, maybe I should avoid problems and install everything into D:/Games or something like that. :(

Sorry. I hope I can answer it right this time. To OS, C:\Programs Files is the default ROOT folder where programs will install. So app1 might install to C:\Programs Files\App1 and apps2 might install to C:\Programs Files\App2, etc. If you only change the drive from C: to D:, make sure the installed folder is something like D:\Programs Files\AppX, not just D:\Programs Files. I suggest you follow Nick's reply and make a new folder. It is better not to put all the eggs (apps) in one basket (folder).

[Guest UlfB]

I am adding to this guide as I get time and there is a dated change/addition list at the end of the posthttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041Everyone is welcome to use the information without duplication and please do back up your current FSX.cfg file should you wish to experiment with settings

Nick,Thanks for all the good advice!I previously used FSX on a Vista 32 system and on that system I got very good graphics in FSX without using nHancer. I did build a new pc a couple of days ago and am now running Vista 64. Using the same settings with Vista 64, I get terrible graphics in FSX. I use the same graphics card, BGF 8800GTX, as I did with my old pc. I installed nHancer and set it up with help of your instructions and I now get very good graphics and FSX still run smooth as silk.

[Guest Nick_N]

Nick,Thanks for all the good advice!I previously used FSX on a Vista 32 system and on that system I got very good graphics in FSX without using nHancer. I did build a new pc a couple of days ago and am now running Vista 64. Using the same settings with Vista 64, I get terrible graphics in FSX. I use the same graphics card, BGF 8800GTX, as I did with my old pc. I installed nHancer and set it up with help of your instructions and I now get very good graphics and FSX still run smooth as silk.

Great!Glad it helped :(

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Hello Nick thanks for taking the time and effort to put these instructions out for us. I just have one question please :(

My Documents is never located on my C drive so I never have to worry about losing the data in it or from FSX. I change the location of My Documents, My Favorites

How would I go about changing the locations on Vista Home Premium? I really find the defaults irritating and Vista seems to love splattering stuff all over the place :( Thanks :(

[Dougal 165]

How would I go about changing the locations on Vista Home Premium? I really find the defaults irritating and Vista seems to love splattering stuff all over the place :( Thanks :(

Be very carefull when moving the default user files in Vista. I speak from bitter experience! If not done in the correct way, then it becomes almost impossible to correct the subsequent errors that happen, without a clean reinstall!I found this site to be very useful for such things: http://www.howtogeek.com/Seems it's even more difficult in Windows7......

[Guest Dimitri Aloko]

thanks a lot for your guide, completely changed my FSX for the good, visually AND in terms of performances.This is really well explained. The funny thing is that when I choose to max fps at 30, everything runs slow, and when I dont set any max level, everything's smooth :( bravo !Dimitri

[Guest Nick_N]

Be very carefull when moving the default user files in Vista. I speak from bitter experience! If not done in the correct way, then it becomes almost impossible to correct the subsequent errors that happen, without a clean reinstall!I found this site to be very useful for such things: http://www.howtogeek.com/Seems it's even more difficult in Windows7......

Ya!That workshttp://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...a-the-easy-way/However I do this when Windows is first installed and make sure that moved system folder location is registered before installing any software. That way if there are any software titles which may register My Documents as a file dump location the new location is registered automatically without problems. I have never come across a problem after moving it but I have heard of people having problems moving well after the fact of installing a system.As for moving it after everything is intalled, I can not comment. I have never done that. I have not allowed the registered location of the primary My Documents and a few other choice folders to be in the OS tree structure in probably close to 10 years

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Thanks for the feedback Dougal & Nick. After reading them I have decided against it. On my old XP system I had completely customized it and changed all the default locations. I just bought this new machine and should have thought of this when it was brand new. However I have now done long and painful installs of FS9/X along with all their attendant addons and I dont wanna risk messing things up! Im downloading EASEUS Disk Copy as I type this just to be safe. Time to image-backup the lot!

[maximus92 0]

Hi Nick,Good article. My question is about SLI. I know FSX isn't optimized to use it, but I don't see the problem of leaving it enabled. Enabled or disabled, at least for my system, I've seen no noticeable difference in performance (actually I seem to gain 2-3 fps with it enabled.) Seems like a pain, to me, to disable it for FSX, then have to re-enable it for say COD4 or another game that utilizes it. Why not just leave it enable and be done with it?Well, it looks like I'll have to reinstall FSX. I had to go from a 2 drive system to a one drive system recently, had to put one drive in my daughter and step-daughter's computer. So, having one drive now, I guess the consensus is to put FSX on it's own outside of either Program's folder, ie. C:\FSX.Jason

[Guest Nick_N]

Hi Nick,Good article. My question is about SLI. I know FSX isn't optimized to use it, but I don't see the problem of leaving it enabled. Enabled or disabled, at least for my system, I've seen no noticeable difference in performance (actually I seem to gain 2-3 fps with it enabled.) Seems like a pain, to me, to disable it for FSX, then have to re-enable it for say COD4 or another game that utilizes it. Why not just leave it enable and be done with it?Well, it looks like I'll have to reinstall FSX. I had to go from a 2 drive system to a one drive system recently, had to put one drive in my daughter and step-daughter's computer. So, having one drive now, I guess the consensus is to put FSX on it's own outside of either Program's folder, ie. C:\FSX.Jason

Hi Jason.. thanks for the feedback on that.Recently I too have been seeing reports here and there of the newer cards and drivers in SLi starting to reflect a very small perf advantage in SLi with FSX. I also think that is coming about due to newer processors and hardware with driver technology taking an upswing. In the past that was not the case unless the user was taking SLi advantage of higher resolution and AA and even then SLi was pounding the processorI will be editing the list to note that.If you feel the system is working better with SLi simply edit the profile for its use.Nick

[maximus92 0]

Your welcome. I have 2 8800 GTX 768 meg cards in SLi, with a Athlon64 X2 6400+, running 8 gigs of Patriot Performance ram, on a ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe nforce 590 mobo, and all seems fine with SLi enabled.Seems I may have solved my one drive issue. The "boss" (and I love it) has let me order a new drive tonight, a WD Caviar Black 640 GB 32 meg. Can't quite justify a VelociRaptor yet. So, back to FSX on a separate drive goodness. I also utilize the second drive for all my games, I haven't found any issues with doing that, wondering if anyone else has. Now my external drive handles my "User" folders. Seems I'm spread out all over the place. :( Jason

[Guest Nick_N]

Your welcome. I have 2 8800 GTX 768 meg cards in SLi, with a Athlon64 X2 6400+, running 8 gigs of Patriot Performance ram, on a ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe nforce 590 mobo, and all seems fine with SLi enabled.Seems I may have solved my one drive issue. The "boss" (and I love it) has let me order a new drive tonight, a WD Caviar Black 640 GB 32 meg. Can't quite justify a VelociRaptor yet. So, back to FSX on a separate drive goodness. I also utilize the second drive for all my games, I haven't found any issues with doing that, wondering if anyone else has. Now my external drive handles my "User" folders. Seems I'm spread out all over the place. :( Jason

Divers have resolved and enabled SLi multimonitor support as well.. I think there are changes taking place which may be trickling down to helping with perf at the same time. I personally do not run SLi but from time to time I do try it to see if any changes have popped up. The last time was about 6 months ago so when I get time I may give it another whirl and see what crops upAt this point I am calling what I am reading a YMMV situation until I can confirm the change is there At the same time if someone is purchasing a system for FX 'specific' and not for other games which take full advantage of SLi, even with a 2-3FPS gain I cant see the cost outweighing the result unless the desire it to run very high resolution is there.. even then, its an expensive venture as those higher res images (in my opinion) are not impressive enough to justify the cost. Thanks again for ringing in on the subject :(

[Gumps 0]

Divers have resolved and enabled SLi multimonitor support as well.. I think there are changes taking place which may be trickling down to helping with perf at the same time. I personally do not run SLi but from time to time I do try it to see if any changes have popped up. The last time was about 6 months ago so when I get time I may give it another whirl and see what crops up

Hi NickSeeing your reference to multi-monitors...I'm hoping you might have some advice on an issue I'm having with multiple monitors, or more correctly, multiple graphics adapters, Vista 64, and FSX SP2. I posted the details but have not gotten any replies. Vista64 + FSX SP2 + MultiMon Impossible?, "This graphics card does not meet minimum requirements..." In fact, here's the text of that post:=====================After a bit of reading (apparently not enough) I figured it was time to upgrade from WinXP Home to Vista64 for my FSX machine. My machine has 4Gb of ram installed that I wasn't able to employ, and the OOM villain was beginning to knock on my door. I tried Win7 64 but the necessary drivers for some things were missing...and the V64 drivers didn't work. So, new HDD, and new OS.I was working my way through the load list, controllers, touch screens etc. I use TH2go (3 x 1280x1024) and a 1440x900 monitor on a 8800GTX. I run two more 1440x900 monitors from a 7900 GS. Works fine in XP. Worked fine in Vista 64...until I loaded FSX SP2. After the FSX splash screen appears, a dialog box pops up that says, Invalid Hardware or Driver Detected - "This graphics card does not meet minimum requirements for shader support. This product requires a geForce3/Radeon8500 class or better graphics card. Flight Simulator will now exit."I've tried a couple different Nvidia drivers, currently using 185.20. Vista itself seems happy with the extra monitors, so it does not appear to be the issue cited by microsoft having to with "Homogenous multi-adapter". http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929456. It seems tied directly to FSX SP2. Some of my newer addons require SP2, so just going with SP1 doesn't seem like an option.If I disable the second adapter, FSX will start. I even tried disabling the adapter, starting FSX, then enabling the adapter...nice try. It just ignored the 'new' monitors'.I searched the web and found similar reports but no solid solutions.I wonder if there's a way to get FSX to not check...mind it's own business, so to speak. (??)It's not looking real promising but figured maybe someone has solved this. Otherwise, it's back to XP. Geez, I wonder if Microsoft will give me a refund. Ya, right.Thanks in advance for any advice.Noel WE6850 @ 3.88800 GTX + 7900 GSTH2go4Gb RamMSI P35 Platinum Combo MBCH ControllersVista 64FSX SP2====================I've uninstalled FSX SP2, and all is well. This is a real pisser as I'm stuck with buying an OS that I can't use for the purpose I bought it. I've tried a number of drivers, old and new beta, to no avail. I've wondered about trying to get a hold of another graphics adapter, ideally another 8800 GTX like the one I have. But I'm not sure that will work either.I did loadup FSX SP2 on Win7 32 with one of my complex addon aircraft and verified, that with the memory command you supplied in your tuning guide, I'm not having any OOM issues. And the way I was running it, heavy weather, autogen, etc., it would have burped on WinXP. I'd really like to get Vista 64 going though.If you have no comments, well then so be it. I suppose the million dollar question is, does anyone have Vista 32 or 64 running with FSX SP2 using more than one graphics adapter?I can run multiple monitors off one card, but if I activate the second card, FSX SP2 won't start.Noel WBrisbane

[Guest Nick_N]

I've uninstalled FSX SP2, and all is well. This is a real pisser as I'm stuck with buying an OS that I can't use for the purpose I bought it. I've tried a number of drivers, old and new beta, to no avail. I've wondered about trying to get a hold of another graphics adapter, ideally another 8800 GTX like the one I have. But I'm not sure that will work either.I did loadup FSX SP2 on Win7 32 with one of my complex addon aircraft and verified, that with the memory command you supplied in your tuning guide, I'm not having any OOM issues. And the way I was running it, heavy weather, autogen, etc., it would have burped on WinXP. I'd really like to get Vista 64 going though.If you have no comments, well then so be it. I suppose the million dollar question is, does anyone have Vista 32 or 64 running with FSX SP2 using more than one graphics adapter?I can run multiple monitors off one card, but if I activate the second card, FSX SP2 won't start.Noel WBrisbane

Hi NoelI skipped the entire Vista parade and have remained on XP x64 which I intend to do until Windows7 x64 may be released and confirmed. At this point it is looking very promising as it addresses just about all my peeves with VistaAs for your issue... All I can relay is that Vista had MM issues in the beginning and I was under the impression they were addressed in patches and SP updates. I assume you have patched the OS with all its updates? Since I only used the OS for testing and never set it up as my primary OS I have no suggestions for you around the specific problem you are experiencing. Someone else here who has gone through the Vista pains and issues like yours would be better suited to comment than myself.Nick