What would be ultimate hardware setup

[janpitor 2]

+1 Jason. No point building a Cray super computer if FSX won't utilise it. All and SSD will do is improve your loading times. Texture loading may be slightly improved but I'd be surprised. Better off with a Velociraptor or something similar. Defragging will make a world of difference!!

If you have ssd for FSX you don´t have to defrag (actually you can´t) and texture loading is virtually instant. That makes a huge difference. I´d rather go for a lesser video card and into an 32GB SSD for FSX. If you pick GTX 480, you can have even 2 ssds Edit: I have the win ssd in Ahci mode, but for textures is better to have the second ssd in ide mode.

[christo95 0]

If you have ssd for FSX you don´t have to defrag (actually you can´t) and texture loading is virtually instant. That makes a huge difference. I´d rather go for a lesser video card and into an 32GB SSD for FSX. If you pick GTX 480, you can have even 2 ssds Edit: I have the win ssd in Ahci mode, but for textures is better to have the second ssd in ide mode.

Hello! Can you explain a bit more? Is there a big improvement? Because I have always heard AHCI is better than IDE. Christopher Schilly

[onody123 0]

Dear JohnS, For FSX mainly the CPU is important. A few years ago a started with a 3.0Ghz processor and ATI graphics card, and now I ended with a i7-2600k @ 4,7Ghz and chose Nvidia GTX480 card. For FSX you must go for Nvidia cards, I do not know the reason why the Nvidia cards work much better in FSX than the Ati cards, but it is like that. I tried FSX at 3.0Ghz, later at 3,8Ghz (i7-870) and now at 4.7Ghz and that really makes the difference. I run FSX at unlimited fps, but using an external fps limiter set to 30 and I have in almost every time 30fps even with 737NGX, CS767. PMDG747X. I have many add on airports mainly from Aerosoft, the worst case I get 20-22 fps, but only when I fly to EGLL or LFPG. I use all the FSX tweaks recommended in the 737NGX manual, but the most important for me was to set usepools:0!! I tried many buffer pool settings, but by deactivitaing it I got much-much better frame rates. Peter

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I use REX and imported some new cloud and water textures. I had forgotten to shrink the textures per cmpbellsjc 's thread. I was at Friday Harbor getting all types of stutters and frame rate reduction. (We're talikng 2 FPS with clouds and a lot of water) After I remember to compress the textures I was getting my 60 FPS again, but it was still humbling.

Can you please refer me to that thread?

Yeah.. I'm interested too

If it's the thread that I am thinking about where I talked about the water textures it's here, about half way down. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/347390-favourite-rex-settings/Sean Campbell

[Ioan92 63]

I think a single core CPU overclocked to something like 10 GHz and cooled with liquid nitrogen could make it run like we all want. Even with the 2600k at EDDF with no traffic but everything else maxed with the 747 I'm getting 30 FPS and it lowers as you point to the city and the terminals to about 20. For some its bearable but for FPS veterans with the trained eye it's a pain to bear.

[nikki1986 0]

I have a pretty good setup for max option: Alienware Area 51Intel i7 990x extreme edition cpu (hexacore) @ 3.47GHz o'ced 4.0 GHzDual Nvidia GTX 480 2.0 GB SLI config12GB DDR3 RAM260GB SSD1TB SATA HDDDual Drives: Blu-ray and DVDCreative Soundblaster X-FI 7.1 stereo-surroundWindows 7 Home Edition 64 bit I run FSX and NGX flawlessly! 100% I'm waiting to see what software can crack my system and make the mechanical fans move. None so far!

Edited September 22, 2011 by nikki1986

[CrashEd 8]

If you have ssd for FSX you don´t have to defrag (actually you can´t) and texture loading is virtually instant. That makes a huge difference. I´d rather go for a lesser video card and into an 32GB SSD for FSX. If you pick GTX 480, you can have even 2 ssds Edit: I have the win ssd in Ahci mode, but for textures is better to have the second ssd in ide mode.

When you say texture loading, do you mean before entering the cockpit whilst everything is loading? If so then I'd say yes, definitely. And it would probably be the only reason I'd buy one. In terms of in flight texture loading I don't think it will boost fps performance in terms of texture loading. It may improve 'blurries', but then I've pretty much eliminated them on my rig by using cleaver fsx.cfg tweaks. Agreed, you should never defrag an SSD! And you should never run too many banchmarking tests as continuous (contiguous?) read/write cycles will degrade the performance...

Edit: I have the win ssd in Ahci mode, but for textures is better to have the second ssd in ide mode.

Interesting! Why is this the case? Might have to try this if I ever get around to buying a couple of them...

[THRUSTER57 0]

+1000 !!! ( and the massive improvement you get for doing the defragS is 100% FREE )

Hello Geoff, my system reports C and D drive 0% fragmented and System 16% fragmented, is this good clean and tidy or not?mine says it is auto defragments every week?thanksjames.

[CrashEd 8]

0% fragmented is good and anything more than that is obviously going to be worse. Try and get the drive with FSX on it as close to 0 as you can. If you rely on the the drive auto defragmenting then make suret hat it actually carries out the defragmentation. It wont do any hard to run the defragger manually if you are unsure. I can highly recommend putting FSX on a different drive to your system drive. Ultimate Defrag from Disktrix (I am by no means affiliated with them btw) is excellent and well worth the money. It allows you put files that are less used (music, photos, documents) on the slower area of your drive (the inner sectors) and higher perfomance files (System, FSX) on the faster parts (outer sectors). It will also make sure that the files are contiguous so that then are read in sequence (makes read times a lot quicker). But for now a good, simple defrag wont do any harm (on a standard HDD )

[victorlima01 4]

If it's the thread that I am thinking about where I talked about the water textures it's here, about half way down. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/347390-favourite-rex-settings/Sean Campbell

Thanks Sean.

[THRUSTER57 0]

0% fragmented is good and anything more than that is obviously going to be worse. Try and get the drive with FSX on it as close to 0 as you can. If you rely on the the drive auto defragmenting then make suret hat it actually carries out the defragmentation. It wont do any hard to run the defragger manually if you are unsure. I can highly recommend putting FSX on a different drive to your system drive. Ultimate Defrag from Disktrix (I am by no means affiliated with them btw) is excellent and well worth the money. It allows you put files that are less used (music, photos, documents) on the slower area of your drive (the inner sectors) and higher perfomance files (System, FSX) on the faster parts (outer sectors). It will also make sure that the files are contiguous so that then are read in sequence (makes read times a lot quicker). But for now a good, simple defrag wont do any harm (on a standard HDD )

Thanks, why would C and D HAVE 0% AND SYSTEM have 16%?. My FSX is on x86 on the C drive.james.

[FSMP 95]

Hello Geoff, my system reports C and D drive 0% fragmented and System 16% fragmented, is this good clean and tidy or not?mine says it is auto defragments every week?thanksjames.

Not sure what you mean by SYSTEM 16% fragmented. IF this is refering to your SWAP DRIVE, then that should be addressed. (1) Make a note of the size and location of current swap file ( assume it is on the C drive)(2) Delete it(3) Make the same size swap drive on the D drive(4) Reboot(5) Defrag the C drive ( will run faster with having a swap drive, so thats why we made a temp on on the D drive)(6) Delete the swap file on the D drive, and re-create it on the C drive.(7) Reboot I would recommend making your new swap drive a FIXED "recommended" size, (not controled by windows)A fixed size swap file is far less prone to get fragmented between re-boots. ** Some Defrag programs will defrag the Swap Drive, but if yours does not, the above is a Manual way that anyone can do it. Auto defrag every week, (at night when you are asleep) is a good option. Also, Defrag BEFORE and AFTER Installing FSX .. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST. ** There is something to be gained by re-booting your computer BEFORE starting an Important FSX session.

[THRUSTER57 0]

Not sure what you mean by SYSTEM 16% fragmented. IF this is refering to your SWAP DRIVE, then that should be addressed. (1) Make a note of the size and location of current swap file ( assume it is on the C drive)(2) Delete it(3) Make the same size swap drive on the D drive(4) Reboot(5) Defrag the C drive ( will run faster with having a swap drive, so thats why we made a temp on on the D drive)(6) Delete the swap file on the D drive, and re-create it on the C drive.(7) Reboot I would recommend making your new swap drive a FIXED "recommended" size, (not controled by windows)A fixed size swap file is far less prone to get fragmented between re-boots. ** Some Defrag programs will defrag the Swap Drive, but if yours does not, the above is a Manual way that anyone can do it. Auto defrag every week, (at night when you are asleep) is a good option. Also, Defrag BEFORE and AFTER Installing FSX .. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST. ** There is something to be gained by re-booting your computer BEFORE starting an Important FSX session.

Geoff, if you go into the accessories folder in windows 7 then into system tools then disk defragmenter,i have 3 items to defrag C,D,AND SYSTEM,it,s the system one that says 16% the other two... nil?james.

[Lawyer+Pilot 126]

So, I am wondering in your honest opinions, what would be the "ultimate" machine to run FSX and PMDG planes. Tell me what would operate with all sliders to max, no stuttering in high density airports (KORD, KLGA, KLAX etc..) No memory shedding, real time weather, traffic at 100%. I am currently running the following: HP Xw 8600Intel Xeon x5450, 3 mhzQuad Core64 Bit Vista BusinessL2 Cache 12 MB8 GB RAM, DDR2-SDRAM667 MhzNvidia Quadro 5600, 1.5 GB I want to know how to kick the crap out of FSX and the 737NGX. I am not having any crashing problems but I get bad FPS in heavy density areas and I cannot run with all the sliders to max. Thanks John

Please re-post in the hardware forum. Hahaha, just kidding. I'm actually surprised that the SAMODS haven't jumped on you for that yet. Anyway, I'm happy with my current setup. No issues whatsoever with the NGX, and I am able to run FSX, NGX, REX, GEX, RC4, and 100% UT AI. At busy addon airports, my frames will occasionally venture down to the 20-25 area, but I otherwise achieve a happy lock at 30 using the FPS limiter. Processor: i7-965 overclocked to 4.07Ghz (Noctua NH-D14 cooler)RAM: 6GB OCZ Gold PC3-12800 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK) at 8-8-8-24GPU: MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition (3072 MB)PSU: Enermax Revolution85+ ERV 1020WStorage: 1) OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SATAII MLC SSD (FSX and Windows 7 64 only), 2) Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 SATA 3.0Gb/sMonitor: HP ZR30W 30in. LCD at 2560x1600 fsx.cfg refined with Bojote's tuning tool / ENB bloom / shader mod 3.0 (settings otherwise according to NickN's guide)REX using OD and 2048 texture sets BUT, my dream rig...

[JohnS 0]

Interesting, I took a suggestion from members here and I removed shadows on ground and shadows on plane. My sim is running amazing !! I am slowly moving sliders to right. I am at Very Dense and Dense on right side and on left I am almost completely maxed out. Great frames at KLGA, KDCA and KATL. This really has improved performance. NGX is not crashing at all, things are looking up. Any additional suggestions regarding tweaks ??