I'm not sure whether anyone here actively does this, but out of curiosity i decided to overclock my GeForce FX5900 (128mb) to see what/if any difference in FPS it may yield.First, in FSIM 2004 I set up a static position with parking brakes, clouds, dynamic scenery, observed the FPS (15 to 15.5) and saved the flight.Next I downloaded Riva Tuner, and overclocked my GeForce from its factory defaults of 400Mhz GPU core and 700Mhz memory to 500Mhz GPU core and 975Mhz memory. A very significant increase mind you, and I did not just shoot straight up for those numbers, I did it by 10Mhz increments for the GPU clock and then tested its stability. It proved stable and the GPU temperature remained below 60*C and eventually the aforementioned numbers were as far as I went.Nevertheless, after loading my FSIM and the selected flight, from the same viewpoint (of course), the FPS remained absolutely unchanged.What's interesting is that my 3D cloud percentage was at 30% by default, and after changing it to 100% the FPS did not change either! Hell, even after turning on Anti-aliasing my FPS remained unchaged still! at 15-15.5FPS.And so I went ahead and downclocked my video card back to its factory defaults, since pushing it to the limits did not prove to be of any advantage, and as I sit here I can't help but remain puzzled as to why the FPS has not changed.Go figure! Perhaps these are the CPU limitations, who knows.2.17Ghz AMD Athlon XP 2700+Kingston 512MB DDR RAM (333Mhz/FSB PC2700) single moduleeVGA GeForce FX5900 SE (128MB DDR/8X AGP)SoundBlaster Audigyhttp://www.materialized.com/temp/cpu/cpu.htm

So far I know, FS (not only FS9) is much more CPU dependant. If you overclock your CPU, you will see (significant?!) change.I know that my P4, from 2.53 to 2.85 or 2.95 (depends how i set it), can bring me few fps. And I'm not talking now like 10 fps, but rather 2-3 maybe 4 fps in some cases. And this really counts on very heavy sceneries.I think people are mistaking thinking that graphic card really brings much. On my old system, I had Geforce 2, and P4 [email protected]. And then I bought Radeon 9500. I didn't really see much of difference. Until I got the new CPU. Then my fps skyrocketed. I think it's just both, and one cannot work without another. But still, CPU is more important in FS :)

Hi, Word Not Allowed is right - what your test has proven is that your grafic card isn

I found that once you get above the 2.7 to 2.8 Ghz area, CPU performace did little (I've had the opportunity to play with a 2.8 and overclocked it to over 3.1 and I noticed nothing) As mentioned though, if you have a good CPU, the video card can be the bottleneck..Also on a sidenote, I have turned down my overclocking to reduce the heat (2.4 was at 2.9 now running 2.7) and I notice nothing significant for performance loss.Chris

Well, as I said, I did notice some little boost, bot nothing significant.To say like this:CPU2.53 Original - to 2.85ghz - difference, no heat, all nice, no crash - to 2.95ghz - no difference to 2.85, heat skyrockets (Voltage) - to 3.10ghz - no difference to 2.85 and unstable + heatRadeon 9500 modded to 9700 (non-Pro)275/270 original - highest possible setting 343/296 - change to any higher freq. setting gives NO BOOST - since it *can* be overclocked, keeping it at 325/285If you want to test the limits, use 3dMark. Either old one, 2001 or 2003. I use 2001 I think, and it gives me pretty neat accuracy. Shows me if artifacts appear, and can be measured pretty harsh. And for CPU, I use the CPU Stability Test (just google it).I say, if it can be overclocked (without stability lost), why not? Surely worth even 1%... :D

I'd like to know if there is a tutorial to overclock CPU's. I know, no one wants to claim responsibility if you screw something up, but I'd like to try it sometime. I have a stock P4 Dell/Intel 2.53, 533fsb. Anyone want to offer a suggestion?

Read above.If you just want to OC it, there's not much to it.Go to your BIOS, and crank slowly up...meaning in like 5mhz increments or so...You will also have to boost your CPU Voltage gradually, as the FSB goes up. I wouldn't suggest going more than 1.700V, because there have been reports that above it's the death for the P4 (there's some special "name" for this, but I don't remember now off hand). I'm running stable at 1.675V.So, I would suggest you go first up with the Core Voltage to 1.650V, and then see how high you get with your FSB. Start like 140mhz, then 145...you get the picture. See where you get the black screen, when it doesn't boot up any more. If you have stock cooling, and nothing added, mostly probably at around 155mhz it will shut down. Don't get scared, cuz that's normal. It's an internal CPU protection.If that happens, that something goes wrong, do a manual shutdown, press the power button longer than 6 seconds. Wait AT LEAST 10 seconds - that's the time it needs to reset itself - and then power again. It will go automatically into BIOS, and let you select the freq. again. The thing also, even if you find freq. with which you can power on, it must not be the freq. on which Windows will boot. So you gotta check both actually.And then end, when you finally find something that seems stable, run CPU stability test mentioned above. And download motherboard monitor (free), to monitor your heat (read on the website how to set it up). You will see temperature rising up to 65C... It should NOT go over 70C. 75C is the max operating temperature for the P4. And over 70C you are killing your CPU.After you've found FSB that actually gives you stable temperature and operating, you're done.Just as a sidenote, this description is how MY computer is reacting, I've done lots of overclocking and never burned anything. And also, recetly I bought the Arctic Silver 5 (a thermal compound), it helps cool the CPU, and it costs like 3.90 EUR. :)Very unlikely that you'll burn something, but just in the case you do:DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT responsible to any damage you might cause to your CPU or any part of your system through what I wrote. :)And if you got any questions, you can drop me an email from the board.