Windows7 and FSX on same hard drive

[Dicko 3]

Has anyone actually tested the results in regard to FPS in FSX between FSX installed on a separate HD and on the same HD as the operating system. Thanks in advance Andrew Dixon

[NGX 1]

Nothing to do with FPS. All it does is increase loading times and texture load times, and can reduce stutters slightly. It's because on a dedicated drive there is FSX and nothing else, so the needle doesn't have to shoot back and forth between FSX files and windows files.

[Dicko 3]

Nothing to do with FPS. All it does is increase loading times and texture load times, and can reduce stutters slightly. It's because on a dedicated drive there is FSX and nothing else, so the needle doesn't have to shoot back and forth between FSX files and windows files.

Ok, so it's advantage is smoothness rather than FPS in the sim. Thanks Andrewv Dixon

[NGX 1]

Pretty much. It won't clear stutters all together, but it will help reduce them.

[Gary A 8]

Hi Andrew,I look at it this way; buy the best that you can afford. This takes all the rumor, speculation, ignorance and opinion out of the equation. Is a dedicated drive a requirement? Absolutely not. Is there an advantage? Yes. Will it be noticeable? Maybe, maybe not. Definite mostly inarguable advantage; less fragmentation (= less CPU cycles=better performance), better bench mark scores, better access times, better transfer rates and faster loading. Speculative advantages; possible FPS impact (I can show you a test that say FPS is improved, a test that says FPS is not improved, a forum that says stutters are reduced, a forum that says stutters are not reduced, pick your poison). For the cost of a 1TB or 2TB HDD I sleep well at night not having to wonder about it. There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them! -Richard P. Feynman

[Dicko 3]

Hi Andrew,I look at it this way; buy the best that you can afford. This takes all the rumor, speculation, ignorance and opinion out of the equation. Is a dedicated drive a requirement? Absolutely not. Is there an advantage? Yes. Will it be noticeable? Maybe, maybe not. Definite mostly inarguable advantage; less fragmentation (= less CPU cycles=better performance), better bench mark scores, better access times, better transfer rates and faster loading. Speculative advantages; possible FPS impact (I can show you a test that say FPS is improved, a test that says FPS is not improved, a forum that says stutters are reduced, a forum that says stutters are not reduced, pick your poison). For the cost of a 1TB or 2TB HDD I sleep well at night not having to wonder about it. There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them! -Richard P. Feynman

How true!

[Dicko 3]

Just to be totally clear, when you say FSX on a dedicated drive, that means only FSX or do you mean FSX and all the other programs associated with FSX such as airports, scenery packages FSCommander.If it is only FSX does that mean these other associated programs are installed on the same hard drive as the operating system.This issue is very subjective. I am building a new system and I want the best possible performance using 2 WD 1 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 Hard Drives. My last system comprised of Vista 64 with everything lumped onto a 500 GB Hard Drive. Thanks for your patience Andrew Dixon

[ZachLW 37]

Just to be totally clear, when you say FSX on a dedicated drive, that means only FSX or do you mean FSX and all the other programs associated with FSX such as airports, scenery packages FSCommander.If it is only FSX does that mean these other associated programs are installed on the same hard drive as the operating system.This issue is very subjective. I am building a new system and I want the best possible performance using 2 WD 1 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 Hard Drives. My last system comprised of Vista 64 with everything lumped onto a 500 GB Hard Drive. Thanks for your patience Andrew Dixon

FSX only.

[Dicko 3]

deleted

[Gary A 8]

Just to be totally clear, when you say FSX on a dedicated drive, that means only FSX or do you mean FSX and all the other programs associated with FSX such as airports, scenery packages FSCommander.If it is only FSX does that mean these other associated programs are installed on the same hard drive as the operating system.This issue is very subjective. I am building a new system and I want the best possible performance using 2 WD 1 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 Hard Drives. My last system comprised of Vista 64 with everything lumped onto a 500 GB Hard Drive. Thanks for your patience Andrew Dixon

You could set a partition to the maximum size of what I expected FSX with all installed add-ons was expected to be. That would probably be no more than 300GB for the most extensive user. My FSX install is only around 30GB. I do not have a partition set. Install FSX to the first 300GB partition. Install anything that naturally wants to install to that FSX installation there as well. You can then use the remaining space for storage. Example, I use GEX, GEX is a downloadable file of some size. By default GEX would want to download to my C:-drive I would redirect it to my storage drive. When installing GEX it would automatically find my FSX directory (in my case E:-drive), I would let it install there. It would ask me if I wanted a backup and if I did, it would want me probably install it on my C: drive, I would redirect it and install it on my storage drive. Example2, I use Cloud9 for scenery, it wants to install to my FSX directory on my E:drive so I let it. Example3, I use ASE for weather, it wants to install to my C:drive so I let it. Programs; anything that runs i.e. ASE, FSINN, Squawkbox, run from C: Anything that needs install to FSX, scenery files, planes, e.t.c install to FSX. Anything that is just storage, i.e. installation programs for scenery, backup files, family photos e.t.c on the storage drive. OS and all other games or programs from C: What you do not want is to run anything from the second partition on the storage drive because of reduced performance. Here is what you are doing: The outside edge of the disk is the fastest, so you want to keep everything you can on that outside edge.By creating two partitions and installing FSX on that outside partition you are guaranteeing FSX the fastest part of the disk. What ever crap you stick on the second partition does not matter but you do not want programs to run from the second partiton because if they do, the head of the disk has further travel (actually disk density comes into play and the disk is less dense the further in you go) to read it. While it has to move further it takes more time so it is slower. Worse if you have a program running from it while you are flying because now it has to leave the FSX disk and go into the second partition to read. Putting stuff in storage leaves more room on the C: drive so programs have more of the disk edge to run from so other games and programs can run faster to.

[Roller 0]

I got my hands on a 750 GB Black Caviar, way too much for FSX only, so this is good news. Also has anyone tried the SRT technology available with Z68 mobos for FSX drives? It's basically using a small (20-64GB) SSD as an additional cache for an HDD. This doesn't quite reach SSD speeds, but allegedly gives a major performance increase to an HDD.

[NGX 1]

Gismo. Won't do very much for FSX. Was researched in the PMDG forums a little while ago.

[alainneedle1 97]

Hi Andrew,I look at it this way; buy the best that you can afford. This takes all the rumor, speculation, ignorance and opinion out of the equation.

Hahaha, so true, look at my sig., I got the best money could buy when I built my rig, take this baby for example http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820227520 I got it because it's fast, it's for FSX only and I did not want to deal with any SATA bottleneck, did I go overboard with this...YES....but I've never looked back. Only one rule applied to FSX and still true as of today, get the fastest hardware you can buy (or afford), I remember when the QX6850 hit the market and everybody said that this CPU was eating FSX for breakfeast..... I had one and I fried it, look at what we can have today, still some of the guys keep tweaking on the 2600K at 5.1GHz with rams at 2133MHz..... Like I posted in another thread I am as guilty as all of you (tweakers) for tweaking, I tried this + that - this and more... it was never to my liking until got the rig I have and stoped tweaking, the only thing I have is TBM at 120, that's it, is FSX perfect...naaaaaa but a lot better without the tweaking, with all scenery's sliders to the right, seriously, here...

Getting back to the OP question, if you can affard a SSD for FSX go for it, buy only what you need as far as GB, if you fill up any HD at more the 50% of their capacity their performance will diminish, you can fill up a SSD up to 90% before losing perf.

[VirginAus737 0]

I got my hands on a 750 GB Black Caviar, way too much for FSX only, so this is good news. Also has anyone tried the SRT technology available with Z68 mobos for FSX drives? It's basically using a small (20-64GB) SSD as an additional cache for an HDD. This doesn't quite reach SSD speeds, but allegedly gives a major performance increase to an HDD.

It does the same as an SSD just not to the same extent. It will only help with texture load times if you fly in that area a fair bit. It caches it to its cache and puts it away for some fast loading but if you fly in a place where you rarely fly, you will get slower load times unless it begins to go to the cache. If you just want something to boost your whole system then SRT is a very good choice.

[Roller 0]

Thanks for the helpful and prompt answers all. So SRT caching only for the windows HDD.