Hi GuysI just bought a core2quad q9550 and I get very bad performance in fsx.My system was:CPU: Core 2 duo E8400 overclocked at 3,6 GHzRAM: 4 GB of at 800 MHzGPU: Radeon HD4850OS: Vista 64bit sp2FSX AccelerationWith this setup I was getting 31 fps (locked at 31 fps)Now I upgraded my cpu to a Core 2 Quad q9550 overclocked at 3.4 GHz and with the same fsx settings I get around 15-25 fps.When my previous processor was at its stock speed (3 GHz) I still had better performance than I do now.What I did was to delete my fsx.cfg and let fsx rebuild it. Afterwards I added the following tweak on my fsx.cfg but to no avail.[JOBSCHEDULER]AffinityMask=15 Considering that a q9550 is almost 2 x core2duo E8400 and since fsx is cpu bound I thought this was the best upgrade I could make. Do you have any suggestion because I feel I through my money away.Thank you for any help

G'day Stefanos,Sounds like you've done the right thing, but you do need to compare apples with apples. I had a similar feeling when I upgraded from an E6600 to a Q6600. I learned that the combination with other components played a huge part in the overall performance.I've also learned since that the faster processor speed will give you smoother frames, but the extra two cores will enable you to run more background tasks at a higher level of realism (like traffic and weather) without chewing up the first two cores.Try using an Affinity Mask of 14. This is supposed to leave the first core for the O/S & FSX basics and force the other three to do all the real sim work. It seems to work for me but your mileage may vary.Smooth skies.

I'm considering an upgrade from a Q6600 to Q9550 so this post is of interest.Does your Bios need updating? My motherboard will support the Q9550 only after a Bios update.I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Affinity Mask entries were not necessary after FSX SP1 or maybe it was SP2. Maybe someone else can comment on this.

One thing that needs to be said here is that a quad at 3.4 is still running the FSX main thread slower than the dual core at 3.6 GHz. The additional cores will do some good with autogen and texture loading, but the core simulation is still going to run slower. A Core2 quad will be a better solution at the same clock speed than the duo, but here the quad is running slower than the duo. I'm not sure I'd pay money for that...results are likely to be a mixed bag.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Thanks for the replies guys. I'd like you to know that I decided to format my pc and do a clean install of windows 7, fsx, acceleration etc.. Now I have better performance but to be honest not what I initially expected.The only tweak I use is this one[Main]FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.15By adding this line you have smoother performance but more blurries. The lower the value the smoother the flight. I thing that the default value is 0.33. If you want you can go as low as 0,05 but for me it was too blurry.

I had a similar feeling when I upgraded from an E6600 to a Q6600. I learned that the combination with other components played a huge part in the overall performance.

Owi you are right. It seems that my gpu is now bottlenecking my system. I have some stutters but I don't know if my gpu is responsible for that.

Does your Bios need updating? My motherboard will support the Q9550 only after a Bios update.

My mobo is an Albatron pxp35 ver 2. My bios didn't need upgrading (not that there is one :( ). As far as I know it is vary easy to upgrade bios in modern mobos but each manufacturer has it's one way.

One thing that needs to be said here is that a quad at 3.4 is still running the FSX main thread slower than the dual core at 3.6 GHz

I am aware of that. However I thought that a deference of 0.2 GHz wouldn't matter so much. Moreover I said that with my old possessor even at stock speed (3 Ghz) performance was smoother.I guess fsx can handle better limited cpu power (which was the case with my old cpu) than limited gpu power (which is the case with q9550 for me)Cheers