Excellent news! Don't forget some screenshots ;)

No worries. FS9 screenshot only so far with my favourite aircraft, SSTSIM Concorde, at MMMX in full 8xAA/16xAF/8x transparency AA. If FSX continues impressing the way it has so far with this new hardware, I see the new FSX Concorde version on my shopping list :Big Grin:

Again, early days of testing but FSX impressed me greatly (for the first time!) when pegged against FSXMark07, pulling in a score of 26/65/46. This is with global high config, 8XAA, 16XAF, TH2G windowed at 3840x1024. Contrast this with my last run at the same settings on my Q6600 @ 3.6GHz after installing the GTX460, which yielded a result of 12/34/21. Temp didn't crack more than 42C during the run versus about 60C for the same run on my old rig.Yes folks, that's over DOUBLE :Hypnotized: the FPS of the old setup for min, max AND average FPS and running nearly 20C cooler. I'm wondering whether I am dreaming and that soon I'll wake up to see only 2 FPS more than my old rig and flames coming out of my case. I expected maybe a 50% boost, not this much, but I'm not complaining at all. :Big Grin:

Double the FPS! That's encouraging. I'm using your global high setting but am getting a bit higher FPS at 24/62/40 on my [email protected] with AA/AF set in FSX. I have two monitors at 1024x1280 but I only displayed on one when testing. I'll have to try it with two monitors displaying and see what effect it has. I do not have any other tweaks or NickN optimizations so my image quality is probably not as good as yours. CPU temps are about the same at 60C. Only add-on is x-graphics to an otherwise box stock FSX with acceleration. I haven't had the time to add any other add-ons. Sounds like I shouldn't bother now before I upgrade my hardware. Looking forward to more test results Gary.Ted

Double the FPS! That's encouraging. I'm using your global high setting but am getting a bit higher FPS at 24/62/40 on my [email protected] with AA/AF set in FSX. I have two monitors at 1024x1280 but I only displayed on one when testing. I'll have to try it with two monitors displaying and see what effect it has. I do not have any other tweaks or NickN optimizations so my image quality is probably not as good as yours. CPU temps are about the same at 60C. Only add-on is x-graphics to an otherwise box stock FSX with acceleration. I haven't had the time to add any other add-ons. Sounds like I shouldn't bother now before I upgrade my hardware. Looking forward to more test results Gary.Ted

Interesting that your results on your Q6600 nearly match mine of my new rig. I haven't tweaked FSX, other than changing widescreenaspect to true which does throw a lot more detail into the scene and from memory has a notable hit on FPS. Maybe that and pushing 3x the number of pixels around are taking a large toll. In any case we can theorise all day about it or just run a few benchmarks with similar settings as you plan to do. I'll do a run tonight single screen 1280x1024 with widescreenaspect set back to the default false and will report back here with the result.

Interesting that your results on your Q6600 nearly match mine of my new rig. I haven't tweaked FSX, other than changing widescreenaspect to true which does throw a lot more detail into the scene and from memory has a notable hit on FPS. Maybe that and pushing 3x the number of pixels around are taking a large toll. In any case we can theorise all day about it or just run a few benchmarks with similar settings as you plan to do. I'll do a run tonight single screen 1280x1024 with widescreenaspect set back to the default false and will report back here with the result.

Ted, As promised, I did a run single screen 1280x1024, widescreenaspect=false (default), global high settings, 8xAA/16xAF/8xtransAA and scored 36/96/61 versus your 24/62/40 at same settings except maybe level of AA/AF/transAA. That's a boost of 50%/54%/53% over your rig, which IMO is a respectable return for an upgrade.Nonetheless, you're getting about the same performance at your normal 1280x1024 as I am getting in the triple screen res I run at which I am now very happy with. So if you are similarly happy with that performance level with your setup, maybe it's not worth doing such an upgrade for yourself.Gary

Ted, As promised, I did a run single screen 1280x1024, widescreenaspect=false (default), global high settings, 8xAA/16xAF/8xtransAA and scored 36/96/61 versus your 24/62/40 at same settings except maybe level of AA/AF/transAA. That's a boost of 50%/54%/53% over your rig, which IMO is a respectable return for an upgrade.Nonetheless, you're getting about the same performance at your normal 1280x1024 as I am getting in the triple screen res I run at which I am now very happy with. So if you are similarly happy with that performance level with your setup, maybe it's not worth doing such an upgrade for yourself.Gary

50% is still a good and desired improvement. My system slows down with complex aircraft and I would also like to get a TH2GO. I'll test mine with Dual Monitors after work tonight. Nvidia dropped the horizontal span feature on the 285GTX that my 6800GT had, so I may have to run the test in windowed mode.Ted

I ran FSMark07 last night with dual monitors in Full Screen. I did this by opening another virtual cockpit and moving it over to the second monitor. I hope TH2GO is more efficient than my method because this had a big impact on frame rates. My single monitor performance of 24/62/40 dropped to 14/34/24 using both monitors, each set at 1280x1024. From your results it looks like upgrading should get me the same FPS with 3 monitors that I'm getting now with one monitor. I like the sound of that. Are you noticing increased image quality and smoothness also?Ted

I ran FSMark07 last night with dual monitors in Full Screen. I did this by opening another virtual cockpit and moving it over to the second monitor. I hope TH2GO is more efficient than my method because this had a big impact on frame rates. My single monitor performance of 24/62/40 dropped to 14/34/24 using both monitors, each set at 1280x1024. From your results it looks like upgrading should get me the same FPS with 3 monitors that I'm getting now with one monitor. I like the sound of that. Are you noticing increased image quality and smoothness also?Ted

The worst reduction I have had using TH2G is by about a 1/3 going from 1 to 3 screens whereas you are seeing nearly 1/2 the FPS going from 1 to 2 screens. I'm thinking that your test was more brutal than what you'd achieve with a TH2G. The image quality I am getting is excellent, which I attribute to being able to run higher AA/AF levels on my new video card. This is not so much because the 460 is more powerful than the 8800, rather my 460 has 1GB memory (versus 640 MB on the 8800) and can accommodate higher AA/AF levels at TH2G resolutions without running out of video memory. Smoothness has also improved, obviously in large part due to the 50% increase in framerates, particularly when panning outside the aircraft.I tempted fate last night by loading a few addons that I bought when FSX first came out, namely LDS 767, Active Sky X and Ultimate Traffic X. I already had the latest patches for the first two but the Ultimate Traffic patch I did not have and that sucker was too huge to download late last night (1GB for the patch versus 161MB for the original program - what's up with that?). Quickly fired it up before retiring for the evening with the LDS 767 sitting on rwy 34L at YSSY facing the terminals and the city and FPS were hovering in the late teens, which is not so good. Before I get too excited, I'll download and run that Ultimate Traffic patch and have a play with FSX's settings (currently on global high which is fine for baseline testing but not for real life use) tonight.Gary