Need your Advice and Help please

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Everyone, Im currently using a Dell XPS 710 (CoreTM2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66ghz, 4GB Ram, Nvidia 8800GTX) running Vista 32bit and FSXI use LVD767 or PMDG747, Ultimate Traffic 2, RC4, Graphics X, TrackIR, AES2, and FSX Ultimate Sounds as well as ALL the payware airport scenery EGLL, EGKK, EDFF, KJFK, KORD etc.Everything runs fine for me and Im very happy with my set-up.......................................However as soon as I run Active Sky or Generation X things start to slowdown abit with the occational cough and stutter.So is it possible that I could purchase a lower spec PC, install Active Sky and Generation X (Or any of the above for that matter) and link this upto FSX somehow and run it alongside my XPS.orif this can't be done Would it be better to buy a NEW High spec PC, and if so do you think it would run ALL the above.I hope you can understand what I'm getting at, as I'm not the most knowledgeable PC person in the world. :( thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestionsJohn

[bobbyjack 61]

People have spent a lot of money trying to get FS to run. I suppose if you go to a high end i7 and a monster GPU, you could start to get what you want. Too rich for my blood in this life time. I've never done it, but you can network computers (with a router) and share the load. Hopefuly someone will come along to tell you how it works.Bob

[Fall_guy 1]

People have spent a lot of money trying to get FS to run. I suppose if you go to a high end i7 and a monster GPU, you could start to get what you want. Too rich for my blood in this life time. I've never done it, but you can network computers (with a router) and share the load. Hopefuly someone will come along to tell you how it works.Bob

Thanks Bob for the replyI was hoping someone may have had a similar set-up (2 computers: running FSX on 1 and Scenery on the other for example) but I don't want to go a purchase another PC until I know this can be networked OK and run along side FSX without any problems.Thanks anyhowJohn

[jordanal 70]

Hi Everyone, Im currently using a Dell XPS 710 (CoreTM2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66ghz, 4GB Ram, Nvidia 8800GTX) running Vista 32bit and FSXI use LVD767 or PMDG747, Ultimate Traffic 2, RC4, Graphics X, TrackIR, AES2, and FSX Ultimate Sounds as well as ALL the payware airport scenery EGLL, EGKK, EDFF, KJFK, KORD etc.Everything runs fine for me and Im very happy with my set-up.......................................However as soon as I run Active Sky or Generation X things start to slowdown abit with the occational cough and stutter.So is it possible that I could purchase a lower spec PC, install Active Sky and Generation X (Or any of the above for that matter) and link this upto FSX somehow and run it alongside my XPS.orif this can't be done Would it be better to buy a NEW High spec PC, and if so do you think it would run ALL the above.I hope you can understand what I'm getting at, as I'm not the most knowledgeable PC person in the world. :( thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestionsJohn

Hi John,Look at my boxes below. My FSX rig always gets the newest parts and then I take the second generation parts and upgrade my FSX Client rig or another family member's PC. My FSX Server rig does one job and one job only, FSX and games. My FSX client rig is my genral-use PC for everything from burning CD's and DVD's to personal financing, e-mail, etc... You can easily run HiFi's ASA/ASX/AS on the client and connect over the simconnect-client software that is included on the FSX Deluxe DVD. This simconnect pipe is new with FSX. Previous versions of FS used Pete Dowson's network utility called WideFS/WideClient which is installed with his FSUIPC utility but activated through a seperatly purchased key. All the other utilities on my FSX client, such Radar Contact, FS Flight Keeper, TopCat, and FS Commander require this older WideFS connection. So I run both Simconnect and WideFS on my FSX client box to accomidate both old and new FS utilities.My point is, yes, it's very easy to network utilities on remote boxes to offload the CPU cycles from the FSX rig. You can't offload scenery or AI for example to a remote box however. You can use a second instance of FSX on multiple PCs and connect them together using a network program called WideView to run multi-screen elaborate home-cockpits, but each FS instance requires the exact same load of software and multiple licenses of each add-on.So, put your money in the game PC, then use your next-best parts for a Simconnect/WideFS client to help even more.Hope this helps...

[Art_P 6]

So is it possible that I could purchase a lower spec PC, install Active Sky and Generation X (Or any of the above for that matter) and link this upto FSX somehow and run it alongside my XPS.

I have Active Sky Advanced and run it on a laptop networked with my FSX desktop. Instructions are included with ASA. However, I don't find that ASA causes a big hit to FSX performance and suspect that settings within Active Sky may have more impact such as reducing the maximum number of cloud layers, etc.

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi John,Look at my boxes below. My FSX rig always gets the newest parts and then I take the second generation parts and upgrade my FSX Client rig or another family member's PC. My FSX Server rig does one job and one job only, FSX and games. My FSX client rig is my genral-use PC for everything from burning CD's and DVD's to personal financing, e-mail, etc... You can easily run HiFi's ASA/ASX/AS on the client and connect over the simconnect-client software that is included on the FSX Deluxe DVD. This simconnect pipe is new with FSX. Previous versions of FS used Pete Dowson's network utility called WideFS/WideClient which is installed with his FSUIPC utility but activated through a seperatly purchased key. All the other utilities on my FSX client, such Radar Contact, FS Flight Keeper, TopCat, and FS Commander require this older WideFS connection. So I run both Simconnect and WideFS on my FSX client box to accomidate both old and new FS utilities.My point is, yes, it's very easy to network utilities on remote boxes to offload the CPU cycles from the FSX rig. You can't offload scenery or AI for example to a remote box however. You can use a second instance of FSX on multiple PCs and connect them together using a network program called WideView to run multi-screen elaborate home-cockpits, but each FS instance requires the exact same load of software and multiple licenses of each add-on.So, put your money in the game PC, then use your next-best parts for a Simconnect/WideFS client to help even more.Hope this helps...

Thanks AlVery informative............Now I understand what I can and can't do. I think I'll have to have a good look at my PC and play around with the settings. As I said in my Post I'm relatively happy with FSX, ...................................but as soon as I load ASA or Generation X scenery and Fly, its only a matter of time before FSX freezes (Out of Memory error).I have my setting ALL less than 50% and have 4gb of Ram and a resonable Graphic Card but something seems to be eating it up.Kind RegadsJohn

I have Active Sky Advanced and run it on a laptop networked with my FSX desktop. Instructions are included with ASA. However, I don't find that ASA causes a big hit to FSX performance and suspect that settings within Active Sky may have more impact such as reducing the maximum number of cloud layers, etc.

Thanks ArtI'll have a good look at my Active Sky settings latter.ThanksJohn

[jordanal 70]

Thanks AlVery informative............Now I understand what I can and can't do. I think I'll have to have a good look at my PC and play around with the settings. As I said in my Post I'm relatively happy with FSX, ...................................but as soon as I load ASA or Generation X scenery and Fly, its only a matter of time before FSX freezes (Out of Memory error).I have my setting ALL less than 50% and have 4gb of Ram and a resonable Graphic Card but something seems to be eating it up.Kind RegadsJohnThanks ArtI'll have a good look at my Active Sky settings latter.ThanksJohn

Two requirements when running addons. 1) FSXsp2 (or lookup hack for fsx.exe) had large_address_aware flag set on the fsx.exe for more than 2GB user-space in RAM. 2) Then you need to either modify the boot.ini for the /3B /UserVA=2560 hack or run a 64-bit OS such as WinXP_x64 or Vista_x64. This will fix up your issues.

[Art_P 6]

I have my setting ALL less than 50% and have 4gb of Ram and a resonable Graphic Card but something seems to be eating it up.

John, you do have Windows Vista SP1 installed don't you? This fixes a problem with Windows eating up ram associated with the amount of ram on your video card. Running ASA on a networked computer would make the ram it uses available to FSX. I havn't had an out of memory error since Microsoft issued Vista SP1.

[Bob Scott 7,745]

John; If you build a new PC, you're going to want to have a 64-bit OS. So let me suggest this...first try upgrading to a 64-bit OS on your current PC. Assuming your 8800GTX has 768 MB of VRAM on it, moving to a 64-bit OS will have the same effect as putting close to another GB of RAM in your PC, because the hardware address mapping scheme in all versions of 32-bit Windows results in reserving nearly a gig of the 4GB of available RAM address space for your video card, making that amount of your 4GB of RAM unusable by the system. As your system is configured now, around a fourth of your RAM sits useless, eating up power but blocked from access by any program. If you can backup your current hard drive, or remove it and attach another clean drive, you can get a free copy of 64-bit Windows 7 RC1, build FS on that platform, and test to see how much difference a 64-bit OS makes. At the very least, you will have slain the dreaded OOM monster for good. RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

[Fall_guy 1]

John; If you build a new PC, you're going to want to have a 64-bit OS. So let me suggest this...first try upgrading to a 64-bit OS on your current PC. Assuming your 8800GTX has 768 MB of VRAM on it, moving to a 64-bit OS will have the same effect as putting close to another GB of RAM in your PC, because the hardware address mapping scheme in all versions of 32-bit Windows results in reserving nearly a gig of the 4GB of available RAM address space for your video card, making that amount of your 4GB of RAM unusable by the system. As your system is configured now, around a fourth of your RAM sits useless, eating up power but blocked from access by any program. If you can backup your current hard drive, or remove it and attach another clean drive, you can get a free copy of 64-bit Windows 7 RC1, build FS on that platform, and test to see how much difference a 64-bit OS makes. At the very least, you will have slain the dreaded OOM monster for good. RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Hi Bob,Yeh, I stumbled across some performance graph in the Vista Control Panel and out of the 4gb of Ram only 1.8 gb was available which really surprised me. As for the 64bit option would my exsisting sotfware and general flight sim apps still run or would I have to purshase new versions?By the way I am running SP2, and Ive also decided to upgrade from ASX to ASA to see if that helps any,................................................I'll let you know how I get on.Thanks to everyone for your Help and Advice (especially the guys over the pond).......its much appreciated.Johnp.s. Ive just read that on my current set-up I can't increase beyond 4gb of RAM so even with my graphic card of 750mb,..........................I think I'm Doomed!!