Reinstalling FS2004: How do I go about doing this?

[Benjamin J 751]

People have probably talked about this all the time, but since the info seems scattered all over the place, I still opted to just ask it again. The situation is as follows: I reinstalled Windows. Everything I need often is now installed, and includes most of my normal productivity apps. I now want to install FS2004. I think the install may end up being over 20GB, so I'm hesitant to install it on my C drive. Since I use a laptop, the C drive isn't too big, and I don't have any other internal drives. I do have a big external drive that has a dedicated partition for running FS2004. However, now that I'm anyway reinstalling, I was wondering if people could advise on what the best place is to install FS2004: C drive or the external (note that there are no other options!).Once I installed FS2004, I'm of course going to install addons. These include:- REX- GEPro- UT:Europe- FSGenesis mesh- A lot of addon sceneries, such as virtually all the Mega Airport sceneries by Aerosoft, various freeware stuff, mainly of Russia etc etc- Aircraft, most notably: PMDG 747, PMDG MD-11, LDS767, QW757, Wilco Airbus series, Wilco 737, PT Tu-154, SD Yak 40. Possibly more, but I'm undecided yet. Thes will be installed no matter what.- Eventually I will be wanting to install PFE too, but I haven't bought it yet, so I can't install it yet either.Now, can anybody advice on the best order to install stuff? I understand UT, GE, FSGenesis and REX should go first (in this order, too?), and afterwards comes the rest not in a specific order, although I do understand that the aircraft might have to be installed in a certain order too (for example, I know that the PMDG 747 should come before the MD-11, and the Wilco 737 is best installed before all PMDG planes). Can somebody give more advice?

[windycloud 30]

Hi Ben, I think you got it all down. I would think mesh should be at the bottom of all addon sceneries so it should go in first. And don't forget the FS9.1 patch. I would skip the external drive. Have fun and wish you a clean and smooth running FS9 after the work is done.

[hjwalter 25]

Ben,First of all, running FS9 with all the "heavy" scenery/aircraft you wish to install, will be very demanding on any laptop's hardware, will cause very low frame rates and extreme stuttering. So much so that I would strongly dis-advise doing so on any laptop, with or without an external HD. Laptops are generally not fit for exceptionally demanding graphical games like FS9, all the more so with FSX.Most of us experienced simmers use desktop machines with (multi core) CPU's of at least 3.0Ghz, at least 2Gb memories and high end graphics cards, the total of which also call for high end power supply units. Even then, low frame rates and stuttering can very often be an issue especially with "heavy" sceneries, 32bit painted aircraft, complex panels and moderate AI aircraft activity.Installing addon scenery can be done in any sequence but certain priorities must then be alotted to them in the FS9 scenery library, in general e.g. addon airports at the top of the list, then photo scenery, then mesh scenery and Land Class near the bottom, just above the "Default Scenery" and "Default Terrain" entries. Addon aircraft are all installed in the "Aircraft" folder without any particular sequence.I wish you good luck.Hans

[Benjamin J 751]

Hey guys,Thanks for the advice so far! A laptop is certainly not ideal, and FPS indeed are not too great. I guess I manage, but I'd wish it'd be better than what I have. Fact is though, I don't have the money to buy a new computer every now and then, and this laptop simply was more powerful than the desktop I had when I bought the laptop. There is no question about the fact that I do need a laptop for university, so I can't do without. It's my only computer at the moment. In a year or so, I'll probably get myself a new computer, but it will be a desktop. Not so much for the graphical power needed to run games like Flight Simulator, but more because I start detesting the panic surrounding batteries, keeping them in good shape and all, plus of course the fact that you pay more for the same hardware in a different enclosure. I'll so some more inquiries about graphics cards when the time comes, but for now, I'll stick to my laptop.I should say my hard disk is connected to my laptop with a Firewire 800 port. So it's not like it's a terribly slow connection. Do you guys still advice me to put FS2004 on the internal, rather than the external hard disk?