Hardware and Tweaks

Since the Nvidia display problem has been resolved I've thought about other tweaks and settings, specifically the flight3.cfg. For years I've been using a modified L. Doering set up. Basically, this one was made for a Voodoo 3/5 video card and some of the settings may need to be reconsidered. For instance, what will "specular" versus "multipass" effect with a more recent Nvidia or ATI card? There are a lot color tweaks that may not work as intended anymore, tweaks that can be done equally well through PhysX. While everything looks fine as far as I can tell it's a good idea to check whether the command lines are relevant today. Some came with a performance impact and we may risk losing fps without any gain in rendering. Since Nvidia PhysX and nHancer are added to the loop we should avoid redundant tweaks and/or tweaks that cancel each other out.Regarding hardware what works for new sims/games may not enhance older ones. For instance, while most new computers have multi-core processors these days an older application may not delegate work to them all. It's likely to be running on one core only. It's conceivable that a helper application as nHancer could instruct the card to share the load though. Bottom line, older games would benefit more from a single powerful core than they would from a multi-core processor. As a hypothetical example we may decide to go for a dual core 3 Mhz processor rather than a quad core 2.6 Mhz even though the latter has more (combined) power.Regarding video cards and specs it's quite hard to compare and rank them in the first place. Further, all reviews will focus on state-of-the-art / next generation applications that utilize functions an older game won't implement anyway. What we want is 25 + fps with all rendering options maxed out -- heavy weather with no pauses and stuttering or great performance in complicated airport environments. Thus, we want power rather than next generation DirectX compatibility, support for tomorrow's pixel shaders etc. I'm still struggling with lining up Nvidia cards according to performance. I'm sure a lot of people assumed a sequence as I did -- the 7000 series, the 8000 series, the 9000 series. Well a 9000 series card isn't necessarily better than an 8000 series card. Today Nvidia uses other names for their top cards and the alphabet soup doesn't even suggest a series anymore. The computer's power supply will be limiting whenever we want to upgrade a PC. Old rigs may have a 300 watt power supply and that leaves few options. Even last years medium / high end computers may come with 400 - 450 watt power supply and won't be able to run extreme performance cards. I should be able to run a 9800 card on my PC (450 watts power) but hardly the latest ones. How about dual cards? Modern mobos may support two cards running at the same time. If you want multiple displays that's a prerequisite. Power requirements aside, dual cards would hardly complement older sims.A lot of simmers may not understand why I'm discussing modern hardware at all if I want to run an application from 1998. The reason is simple, there was no hardware that could run FU III properly in 98 but now there is. By the same token, those who get the latest sims find themselves in the same situation -- everything's state-of-the-art and mighty expensive but the performance is so-so. Then, when the hardware catches up there'll be even tougher games to play. It's a never-ending story.