----------------------------------------------------------I think that you benefit from this, only if you have a Quad-Core CPU.If this is not correct, and you can enjoy some benefit with a dual, than someone running a dual with the JOBSCHEDULER MASK will most likely answer your post.Mitch

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Being that I did not pay too much attention to previous Quad-Core procs', In making the above comment, I didn't take into account that the only four-core proc's to date with the ability to engage hyperthreading, are in fact the i7 line, so if indeed this FSX performance boost has everything to do with enabling hyperthreading in conjunction with using the JOBSCHEDULER MASK set to 85, then only will those that run FSX on an i7-based system will see this apparent general performance boost.So, I correct myself. Not just any proc with four cores will jump the rope. It looks to be a hyperthreading perk.Mitch

Mitch,Happy to hear that the JobScheduler/85 continues to work at a higher trees setting. My impressions of this thread are:1. Acknowledging that MSFSX will not use the HT cores (Per Nick and Microsoft)2. Despite our best efforts, background processes continue in WindowsThen it would appear that if you have an i7 chip (with hyper-threading) and you enable hyper-threading:1. a setting of 85 in the jobscheduler will force MSFSX to only look at the "real cores" and 2. the virtual cores that have now been enabled as a result of HT being on are available to run other processes.Apparently, the error in our thinking in the past was that a job scheduler of 255 would give us the thread collisions; job scheduler of 254 would continue to give us thread collisions; and that if we turned off HT and went with 15 we allowed nothing for background processes and 14 would remove one "real" core from the processing. Sounds like HT on and job scheduler of 85 assigns all four "real" cores to the MSFSX task and leaves four "virtual" cores for other processes.And it also would suggest that this would not work for anything other than the i7 chips. So maybe today I will get some time to go flight simming..............and I'll try it.Kingfish

Kingfish, Mitch and All,I have a standard (i.e. not overclocked) i975 CPU and was suffering from great looking graphics (thanks Nick!) but pretty bad stuttering.I have no idea whether hyperthreading is enabled on my system or not (can't find it on the BIOS pages), but there are two things I've tried which have helped considerably...Firstly, I have set the Jobscheduler/InfinityMask to 85, and secondly, I've started to use an amazing little program called Gamebooster to turn off unnecessary background programs whilst flying FSX.Not sure which has helped the most, but what a difference!(Do a Google search for Gamebooster - it's free and works with Vista as well as XP - very similar to EndItAll but fully reversible after closing FSX).....I love this forum - thanks guys!Toni.

Kingfish, Mitch and All,I have a standard (i.e. not overclocked) i975 CPU and was suffering from great looking graphics (thanks Nick!) but pretty bad stuttering.I have no idea whether hyperthreading is enabled on my system or not (can't find it on the BIOS pages), but there are two things I've tried which have helped considerably...Firstly, I have set the Jobscheduler/InfinityMask to 85, and secondly, I've started to use an amazing little program called Gamebooster to turn off unnecessary background programs whilst flying FSX.Not sure which has helped the most, but what a difference!(Do a Google search for Gamebooster - it's free and works with Vista as well as XP - very similar to EndItAll but fully reversible after closing FSX).....I love this forum - thanks guys!-----------------------------------------------------------------------YOU GO, GUY! :) You probably do have hyperthreading enabled in your BIOS, if you, yourself, did not disable it. Your builder would have not disabled a powerful technical feature set of your i7, as delivered. If so...I'd be DARN surprised! You are probably joining the 85 Perk Club, and I don't mean age, lol! BTW, Toni...you have the Beast Combo. Start cranking up all the Graphic BAD-BOYS...and enjoy. I did over the last two days...and no kick-in-the-pants through FPS! :) Yeeee-Hah! Thanks for the head's up on Gamebooster. I'll certainly take a look at it. You are most right, this forum RULES!Post Edit: Toni, when I said to crank-it-up...that's with the understanding that I have my 975 overclocked to 4.011 GHz. Get your chip to around 4.0 GHz and you will see the performance that all are reporting at that proc speed. Like the 85, 4.0 Ghz or greater seems to be another 'magic FSX bullet'. Mitch

great... more money I shouldn't spend. Now time to buy an i7 to finally get a smooth FSX flight

Kingfish, Mitch and All,I have a standard (i.e. not overclocked) i975 CPU and was suffering from great looking graphics (thanks Nick!) but pretty bad stuttering.I have no idea whether hyperthreading is enabled on my system or not (can't find it on the BIOS pages), but there are two things I've tried which have helped considerably...Firstly, I have set the Jobscheduler/InfinityMask to 85, and secondly, I've started to use an amazing little program called Gamebooster to turn off unnecessary background programs whilst flying FSX.Not sure which has helped the most, but what a difference!(Do a Google search for Gamebooster - it's free and works with Vista as well as XP - very similar to EndItAll but fully reversible after closing FSX).....I love this forum - thanks guys!Toni.

-------------------------------------------------Toni, was that GAMEBOOSTER set up program from 10 bit...and was around 936 KB in size? Was your version 1.2.2? I did a viral scan on it with showing 2 files and no malware. Just wanted to ask you about the size BEFORE the 'double-click', ;0Thanks,Mitch

FSX is a weird er... program. And computers are even weirder things... The ONLY thing that helps my i7 920 and GTX285 perform at it's best is the [bUFFERPOOLS] Poolsize=490000000 tweak and the FPS_Limiter. Without those FSX is one big hickup. But all other guides and tips and tweaks and tricks and addons do NOTING for FSX on MY (!) rig. The AffinityAMask does nothing for me. NickN's systemguide does nothing for me (I've tried it a few times and noticed no difference at all. Not ONE fps gained compared to a standard Vista install. I did the complete guide a month ago because I thought I had to be missing something... But with or without guide FSX performed the same). Defragging does nothing for me (in fact, it makes things worse on my computer!) Gamebooster does nothing for me (I never ever noticed a difference in any program after killing resident programs.) Etc. etc. To be honest, I think a lot of 'tips' are placebo's. ;)All I am trying to say that you've got to give every tip a try and see if it works for you. But you should never post a topic saying 'This is IT'. Because in FSX-land nothing is IT. ;)

-------------------------------------------------Toni, was that GAMEBOOSTER set up program from 10 bit...and was around 936 KB in size? Was your version 1.2.2? I did a viral scan on it with showing 2 files and no malware. Just wanted to ask you about the size BEFORE the 'double-click', ;0Thanks,Mitch

Yes - that's the one. Was runnng V.1.21 but it upgraded itself to 1.22.Cheers.Toni.

FSX is a weird er... program. And computers are even weirder things... The ONLY thing that helps my i7 920 and GTX285 perform at it's best is the [bUFFERPOOLS] Poolsize=490000000 tweak and the FPS_Limiter. Without those FSX is one big hickup. But all other guides and tips and tweaks and tricks and addons do NOTING for FSX on MY (!) rig. The AffinityAMask does nothing for me. NickN's systemguide does nothing for me (I've tried it a few times and noticed no difference at all. Not ONE fps gained compared to a standard Vista install. I did the complete guide a month ago because I thought I had to be missing something... But with or without guide FSX performed the same). Defragging does nothing for me (in fact, it makes things worse on my computer!) Gamebooster does nothing for me (I never ever noticed a difference in any program after killing resident programs.) Etc. etc. To be honest, I think a lot of 'tips' are placebo's. ;)All I am trying to say that you've got to give every tip a try and see if it works for you. But you should never post a topic saying 'This is IT'. Because in FSX-land nothing is IT. ;)

J van E,I was frustrated like you when I first started. After following his guide, I get perfectly smooth flight with a basic FSX install +Acceleration and no addons. Once I added UTX.GEX,REX, UT2 and some payware heavies, it changed the ball game a little bit. If you can't get great performance using Nicks guide with a basic FSX install there is another issue with either your OS install or hardware or drivers. I will say this, if you follow Nicks guide you need to follow the NHancer instructions VERY carefully and make sure that everything matches up. If there is even ONE thing not configured correctly in Nhancer it can drastically reduce performance and make FSX a slideshow. The rig you have should perform equal to or even better than mine. I don't know how much difference there is with a 285 vs a 260 in FSX, but most folks here seem to think that a 285 should give around a 10-15% increase in performance so you should be in a fairly happy place. You should post your system specs and include some details on where the sliders are in FSX, what your FSX.cfg looks like and post a CPU-z screenshot and I bet folks can help you out.I have my I7 OC'd to 3.2(pretty conservative OC) and I have my 260/192 running at 646/1292/996 and I have the affinity setting at 85. I have removed all the other tweaks from the cfg file. I am seeing pretty good fluidity everywhere except KORD with 90% traffic levels in UT2.

FSX is a weird er... program. And computers are even weirder things... The ONLY thing that helps my i7 920 and GTX285 perform at it's best is the [bUFFERPOOLS] Poolsize=490000000 tweak and the FPS_Limiter. Without those FSX is one big hickup. But all other guides and tips and tweaks and tricks and addons do NOTING for FSX on MY (!) rig. The AffinityAMask does nothing for me. NickN's systemguide does nothing for me (I've tried it a few times and noticed no difference at all. Not ONE fps gained compared to a standard Vista install. I did the complete guide a month ago because I thought I had to be missing something... But with or without guide FSX performed the same). Defragging does nothing for me (in fact, it makes things worse on my computer!) Gamebooster does nothing for me (I never ever noticed a difference in any program after killing resident programs.) Etc. etc. To be honest, I think a lot of 'tips' are placebo's. ;)All I am trying to say that you've got to give every tip a try and see if it works for you. But you should never post a topic saying 'This is IT'. Because in FSX-land nothing is IT. ;)

----------------------------------------I totally agree. This latest 'exploration' ie: 85 as the setting in the JOBSCHEDULER MASK, is just one of the (to coin a phrase from a previous post...) myriad 'recipes' to get you smoother down the road. By using it, it has worked for me. I already had great performance from my rig without the need of the JOBSCHEDLULER MASK, but was curious, and in being so, found a way to make my banks and turns have even more fluidity. I guess the most important lesson of all, is that nobody should take lightly the phrase we all say in jest; 'Your system mileage may vary!'. Caveat Emptor. :)P.S. About this or that TIP being perhaps a placebo-effect, after all-------for before I printed out Nick's XP Tune-up...and went down each page check-listing after having attended to what needed being changed/altered in my XP Pro, FSX was a no-go. After? It ran, with FPS in the mid-twenties (but...with not satisfying graphics, of which was the limitations of my hardware, not his guide). It was flyable...with a LOT of user-imagination. I guess, I had a lot of pent-up expectations that were more than met by my present rig, which is partly behind my prolific boosting of the i7975/GTX285 platform. I ask everybody to just bear with me, LOLOLOLOL. Sooner or later...the posts will stop, lol. I know that some wish SOONER, rather than LATER..and I appreciate that! :) I'm honestly working on that...lol!Mitch

Yes - that's the one. Was runnng V.1.21 but it upgraded itself to 1.22.Cheers.Toni.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks Toni, I'll give it a go, and see what it does. I always like looking around the next mountain....:)Cheers!Mitch

J van E,I was frustrated like you when I first started. After following his guide, I get perfectly smooth flight with a basic FSX install +Acceleration and no addons. Once I added UTX.GEX,REX, UT2 and some payware heavies, it changed the ball game a little bit. If you can't get great performance using Nicks guide with a basic FSX install there is another issue with either your OS install or hardware or drivers. I will say this, if you follow Nicks guide you need to follow the NHancer instructions VERY carefully and make sure that everything matches up. If there is even ONE thing not configured correctly in Nhancer it can drastically reduce performance and make FSX a slideshow. The rig you have should perform equal to or even better than mine. I don't know how much difference there is with a 285 vs a 260 in FSX, but most folks here seem to think that a 285 should give around a 10-15% increase in performance so you should be in a fairly happy place. You should post your system specs and include some details on where the sliders are in FSX, what your FSX.cfg looks like and post a CPU-z screenshot and I bet folks can help you out.I have my I7 OC'd to 3.2(pretty conservative OC) and I have my 260/192 running at 646/1292/996 and I have the affinity setting at 85. I have removed all the other tweaks from the cfg file. I am seeing pretty good fluidity everywhere except KORD with 90% traffic levels in UT2.

:( I think you misinterpreted my post a bit. Or maybe (I guess that's it) I wasn't really clear. :( The thing is: I wasn't complaining and I am not frustrated. I am pretty happy with how FSX runs on my system! What I meant to say is that using and applying all trick and guides etc. etc. didn't add a single fps to FSX on my system (apart from the bufferpools and limiter)! Meaning that on MY rig with a default Vista install, FSX runs just as good as on MY rig with Vista and all kinds of tweaks (killing background programs, changing lots of settings, defragging, etc. etc. etc. doesn't do anything here). So HENCE my remark no one can say 'This is it, this will work for you', because for FSX there are no general rules that will work for EVERYONE. FSX should have been called FSX-YMMV. That was ALL I was trying to say. ;)

Mitch,Happy to hear that the JobScheduler/85 continues to work at a higher trees setting. My impressions of this thread are:1. Acknowledging that MSFSX will not use the HT cores (Per Nick and Microsoft)2. Despite our best efforts, background processes continue in WindowsThen it would appear that if you have an i7 chip (with hyper-threading) and you enable hyper-threading:1. a setting of 85 in the jobscheduler will force MSFSX to only look at the "real cores" and 2. the virtual cores that have now been enabled as a result of HT being on are available to run other processes.Apparently, the error in our thinking in the past was that a job scheduler of 255 would give us the thread collisions; job scheduler of 254 would continue to give us thread collisions; and that if we turned off HT and went with 15 we allowed nothing for background processes and 14 would remove one "real" core from the processing. Sounds like HT on and job scheduler of 85 assigns all four "real" cores to the MSFSX task and leaves four "virtual" cores for other processes.And it also would suggest that this would not work for anything other than the i7 chips. So maybe today I will get some time to go flight simming..............and I'll try it.Kingfish

OK, now we are using our noodle.. Glad to see someone is applying proper logic to this instead of trial/error guess workThe result of using this technique may have value for a number of users but not all. The outcome is problematical to the system in use which incorporates everything in that system from hardware/drivers/software/OS running and possibly the scenery of choice along with influences of FSX settings and/or other edits in the config. I have 4 i7 systems here of various type proc and none of them respond any differently to a value of 85/HT ON over 15/HT OFF or the entry removed from the config completely. As a matter of fact I start noticing stutters with any affinity mask setting which restricts available physical cores which make sense since I usually run a 3/4 100% autogen slider and those cores are needed for that autogen level.I do not do silly things like run edited scenery radius values, run 4096 cloud textures, or especially edit in those autogen limiting lines in my config as they throw the priority system off and change thread use to my cores. Threads to cores other than the primary are all about terrain and autogen.I also do not use Vista or W7 for FSX. I use XP x64 and do not suffer fromi7 stuttersBlack screen of death with payware aircraftstrange menu crashesstrange colored tiles appearing on the ground or in waterCTD'snone of the common issues posted in forums all the time and I suspect many of them are related to Vista/driversAlright, so what you are dealing with and looking for is the common denominator in systems out there which with the value of 85 are in fact respecting the 4 physical cores without the thread collisions on the primary core , which is what you have managed to do here, tune that out and smooth the the screen result. What I would like to know is if the systems showing a difference are all Vista/W7 or are there any XP/x64 systems (CONFIRMED) displaying a positive change (CLUE?)HT has nothing to do with it, nor will HT in any way shape or form increase FSX performance as the application has no means of addressing virtual core threads.If I see enough people confirming a consistent result I will add this to the tuning thread under a i7 entry for JOBSCHEDULER however I can not personally confirm this because I never had any problems with smooth flight and i7 on any system I have built and set up.

OK, now we are using our noodle.. Glad to see someone is applying proper logic to this instead of trial/error guess workThe result of using this technique may have value for a number of users but not all. The outcome is problematical to the system in use which incorporates everything in that system from hardware/drivers/software/OS running and possibly the scenery of choice along with influences of FSX settings and/or other edits in the config. I have 4 i7 systems here of various type proc and none of them respond any differently to a value of 85/HT ON over 15/HT OFF or the entry removed from the config completely. As a matter of fact I start noticing stutters with any affinity mask setting which restricts available physical cores which make sense since I usually run a 3/4 100% autogen slider and those cores are needed for that autogen level.I do not do silly things like run edited scenery radius values, run 4096 cloud textures, or especially edit in those autogen limiting lines in my config as they throw the priority system off and change thread use to my cores. Threads to cores other than the primary are all about terrain and autogen.I also do not use Vista or W7 for FSX. I use XP x64 and do not suffer fromi7 stuttersBlack screen of death with payware aircraftstrange menu crashesstrange colored tiles appearing on the ground or in waterCTD'snone of the common issues posted in forums all the time and I suspect many of them are related to Vista/driversAlright, so what you are dealing with and looking for is the common denominator in systems out there which with the value of 85 are in fact respecting the 4 physical cores without the thread collisions on the primary core , which is what you have managed to do here, tune that out and smooth the the screen result. What I would like to know is if the systems showing a difference are all Vista/W7 or are there any XP/x64 systems (CONFIRMED) displaying a positive change (CLUE?)HT has nothing to do with it, nor will HT in any way shape or form increase FSX performance as the application has no means of addressing virtual core threads.If I see enough people confirming a consistent result I will add this to the tuning thread under a i7 entry for JOBSCHEDULER however I can not personally confirm this because I never had any problems with smooth flight and i7 on any system I have built and set up.

NickI must admit that having read (and followed as closely as I can) all your setup recommendations, you're now stating that you don't use Vista to run FSX?Since XP hasn't been available on new-build computers for ages, I assumed your results were applicable to Vista-based rigs as well as XP......So here's the 'bottom-line' question - have you ever tested your own recommendations on an i7 running the Vista operating system and if so, what are the results? i.e. which of your setup recommendations actually work satisfactorilly and for those that don't, are you planning a Vista/W7 'update' to your much-relied-upon guide?Regards,Toni.

NickI must admit that having read (and followed as closely as I can) all your setup recommendations, you're now stating that you don't use Vista to run FSX?Since XP hasn't been available on new-build computers for ages, I assumed your results were applicable to Vista-based rigs as well as XP......So here's the 'bottom-line' question - have you ever tested your own recommendations on an i7 running the Vista operating system and if so, what are the results? i.e. which of your setup recommendations actually work satisfactorilly and for those that don't, are you planning a Vista/W7 'update' to your much-relied-upon guide?Regards,Toni.

If you are speaking about the tuning thread, yes of course.. I had Vista installed for some time in dual boot and verified what I posted in that thread with it.. I would not post something like that without verifying results across the OS'sSince then I have removed Vista as I have no use for it whatsoever I also worked with W7 for a while.. again, no use for Vista renamed however I will say that W7 has improved on Vista in several areas and will make full use of modern Intel HT for the OS processes. Regardless that wont have any substantial effect on positive FSX performance as far as I could see in all my testing as FSX runs equally in frame rate performance on all the OS when compared directly. I saw no advantage to running Vista/W7 over Xp with FSX other than it allows DX10.FSX was not designed under Vista memory and driver standards. It is certified to run on the Vista OS but is not 'optimized' or designed for the OSWhat I have seen is many who were having problems with the Vista/W7 OS and certain payware planes or who were having display issues moving back to XP which resolved those problems. I have also seen a lot of strange perf/crash issue associated with FSX being installed in Program Files in Vista\W7 even with UAC disabled. Instead of dealing with the 'hoops' myself I post the suggestions such as do not install FSX to Program Files, etc,.. but I have never used Vista\W7 for my regular FSX flying. No crashes, no visual problems, no stutters.. why mess with that?The only part of FSX which Vista allows to run over XP is the DX10 preview with SP2/Accel. As far as I am concerned the app runs fine under XP x64 and with far less issuesXP x64 SP2b (SP2b is the same as SP3 for x32) is still sold and MS will be supporting XP somewhat up through 2014 as I recall from the latest support release data at MSEventually I will make a move to a newer OS but I have no need at this time. When I do I am hoping W7 has at least obtained its SP2 patch which is usually what all MS Operating systems require to function with the least problems.

Nick,Thanks again for helping me build my current system.I would like to add that my win 7 set-up is running great. With the exception of a performance decrease at very dense airports and using gray and rainy weather, I'm delighted with win 7. I hope that a new SSD drive will relieve some of the performance decrease in larger airports (KLGA etc.)I do have to use the bufferpools tweak, but my flights are smooth and the sceneries are sharp. I don't have any stutters with the bufferpools entry so I will leave what works alone.I hope that an SSD drive will improve loading and give me a slight boost in texture loading. Overall an excellent system.