I am expecting delivery of a new PC in a few days and will be installing FS9 on its own exclusive drive. I want the install to be as clean and efficient as possible but by the time it's all done there will be a couple of hundred addon airports, area photoreal sceneries, REX, GEPro, utilities and aircraft etc. I wonder if any of you who have done this recently (in my case, not for a couple of years) have any suggestions on the best way to proceed??? I've got a pretty good idea of what I want to do but am open to different ideas like scenery priorities etc.

Cheers

Ian

Hi Ian:

 

Out of curiosity, what are the specs of your new PC? I just ordered a new one as I found that my current AMD Athlon 64X2 5600, 4GB RAM was having trouble with addon airports such as FT KBOS and similar complex scenery's. Sliders were at 80%. Oh, I need to clarify that I'm running FSX. I know you prefer FS9 and after you get it re-installed, you might wish to now give FSX a try. I only recently made the change from FS9 to FSX and principally because of the default scenery. I find it much more detailed than FS9 and that is a major factor for me in the immersion of the sim.

 

Over the years, for problems that I mostly created by myself, I have done countless complete reformats of the OS (XP) and reinstalls of FS9. I maintain a backup HD for both sims and after the core install, simply copy & paste the main folders of the sim, to the new install. Saves a ton of time and restores me to where I was when I got myself into trouble. I know you are proficient enough with the install of FS9. I found that placement of certain scenery's (priorities) did affect whether some scenery static objects from Instant Scenery, showed up at all. I remember that in position # 1 (top of the list) I had AES although AES automatically puts itself there upon installation of the program. Position #2 was where I placed the Addon Scenery folder. I placed all of my UT series programs (USA-Canada-Europe) just above Propeller Objects which was below all my individual addon scenery's, such as 9Dragon VHHX, Boston-Logan, etc. Just my preference, but I listed all my addon scenery's in order of ascendancy, alphabetically. Starting at Propeller Objects, I then listed above it, the three 9Dragon folders and then added scenery's one by one ascending to the Addon Scenery folder which was in position #2. This may all sound very confusing and it may have been totally unnecessary to list them alphabetically, but by doing so I knew in an instant where a particular scenery was located without having to hunt for it, if I needed/desired to inactivate or delete it

 

My order preference for installing of FS9 was this:

 

1. Install FS9

2 Install FS9.1 patch. Copy & paste previous FS9 cfg file which restored my default AC & airport..

3. Copy & Paste World Scenery folder (this contained all my FSGenesis mesh files, WoAI aircraft & traffic files and World texture files)

4. Copy & Paste Main Texture folder

5, Copy & Paste all the remaining main FS9 folders ( Aircraft, Effects, Sound, Addon Scenery, Modules, etc.) C&P Flight Simulator 9 Plans.

6. Fire up FS9 and check ground textures for previously installed UT programs, GE Pro & Flight Environment. If uncertain of textures installing correctly, I then re-installed all the UT programs, GE Pro and Flight Environment. Most times I did not have to re-install them.

7. Install Active Sky

8. Install REX for FS9

 

I don't think there is a process here that you haven't done in the past. Just a straight forward installation. Your FS9 ought to be liquid smooth with your new PC.

 

Good luck

 

Chris

Thanks Chris - good suggestions... The specs on the new computer are pretty good - it should definitely handle anything FS9 can throw at it. Not sure about FSX but I might be tempted to give it another try...

Intel Quad core 3.6 G, dual NVIDIA 1 gb, 500 gb HD, 1 Tb HD, 16 gb RAM, liquid cooling.

 

I do plan on having creating a duplicate on the C drive and then running it from the D drive - so I can cut and paste in the future as you suggested. I'm not going to try that with the existing files though - I've accumulated so much junk over the years I've had FS9 that I really want to keep everything as clean as possible so don't want to transfer anything over except for some things I spend a lot of time tweaking....

Thanks mate

Ian

Maybe invest in an 256GB SSD and create a dual boot system running Windows and FS9 on the SSD.

Makes a world of difference

caffeine and a prayer that everything installs correctly :P :lol:

I've just recently done a similar thing.

 

My advice - slowly, patiently and it all gets there in the end. A few forgotten password issues were all sorted out by the appropriate companys. HiFi Sim and PMDG being very helpful and friendly.

 

Reinstall fatigue does set in after a while - so do it in stages.

 

Now, I have a real plane to catch soon so must dash. See you all in a couple of weeks :-)

Not sure about FSX but I might be tempted to give it another try...

 

Hi Ian

 

I had a quad core system, not too dissimilar from yours, before my present i5 one. I tried FSX on it but was not impressed. I had to keep the sliders too much to the left in order to maintain any fluidity. I therefore decided to stay with FS9 and have not regretted the decision - not least because a move to FSX would not be financially viable!!

 

David

caffeine and a prayer that everything installs correctly :P :lol:

 

Lol - having read the title I wondered if I would find a comment like this somewhere, as it really is quite daunting and can be very frustrating at times!

 

Good luck with all this Ian - I last had to do it a few years ago and I had accumulated so much payware and freeware that it took about a year to completely reinstall but in the end it was worth spending the time and doing it slowly and methodically, as I now have a nicely functioning system with few gliches. I remember at the time I had to keep checking and rechecking the relative poistions of different addons in the scenery library because although I aimed to keep sceneries for different continents/countries together, this was not always possible, because, as Chris alluded to, there is a degree of interaction between some sceneries and I certainly found that the priority given to some scenery could determine whether or not autogen / objects / buildings etc showed up in other scenery addons!

 

I think Chris's advice is very good and I too have now copied all my key FS9 folders onto a separate hard drive, which hopefully will help to considerably reduce the reinstall time when the inevitable happens!

 

Bill

Thanks Chris - good suggestions... The specs on the new computer are pretty good - it should definitely handle anything FS9 can throw at it. Not sure about FSX but I might be tempted to give it another try...

Intel Quad core 3.6 G, dual NVIDIA 1 gb, 500 gb HD, 1 Tb HD, 16 gb RAM, liquid cooling.

 

Hi Ian:

 

You should be able to run FSX very nicely with this setup. After you get FS9 re-installed, do give FSX a try. Run your sliders at 80% and see what your frames look like. You can then adjust them up or down from there until you find your sweet spot! Using a combo of the UT programs and the GEX series, you can achieve some beautiful looking ground textures. When my new unit arrives, I plan on adding AS2012 to take care of the top end.

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

Hi Ian

 

I had a quad core system, not too dissimilar from yours, before my present i5 one. I tried FSX on it but was not impressed. I had to keep the sliders too much to the left in order to maintain any fluidity. I therefore decided to stay with FS9 and have not regretted the decision - not least because a move to FSX would not be financially viable!!

 

David

 

same here my fsx runs ok (20-40fps) in DX9 but i prefer FS9 maxed out full settings at over 60fps with 100% AI Traffic with my over $1000 in addons :lol: at KJFK with FS Dreamteam addon and Aerosofts Manhattan plus REX, GE pro, FS Genesis mesh, UT USA and Max AI traffic.......i get over 40fps at takeoff over NYC.

Ian, if you haven't used some of your addons for quite awhile, don't load them. Bloat is the biggest enemy of FS9 or any other action program. You can always add any of them later.

 

Bill W.

I've reinstalled more than a few times and the advice not to bloat is a good one. I ditched a load of pay ware and freeware on my last install with no regrets.

Lots of great suggestions, including the caffeine and prayer. (Does cursing when things don't go right undo the good the prayer does? If so, I'm probably going to be in deep trouble.)

 

I hear you on the issue of "bloating" and am planning to be very, very disciplined and chucking out payware and freeware stuff that I rarely if ever use. I have so many outstanding airports to fly into, and so many outstanding aircraft to do it with, that if I keep to just the really good stuff I could still keep my tiny brain amused with the challenges of new situations every day...

 

I don't know if I will be able to break my download addiction for sceneries and aircraft, but at least for a while I hope to keep this as "clean" as possible...

Cheers

Ian

Passing thought:

How about multiple installs?

Make a vanilla setup (These days this includes what I regard as essentials: a motley collection of base custom textures bringing things up to FS9.5 standard) and copy it out for each fresh install renaming fs9.exe and fs9.cfg files to match.

Not too difficult (only with FS9, I believe not possible with X), and allows custom "time and space" sims.

My latest is a "Russian Sim".

Passing thought:

How about multiple installs?

Make a vanilla setup (These days this includes what I regard as essentials: a motley collection of base custom textures bringing things up to FS9.5 standard) and copy it out for each fresh install renaming fs9.exe and fs9.cfg files to match.

Not too difficult (only with FS9, I believe not possible with X), and allows custom "time and space" sims.

My latest is a "Russian Sim".

Yes, I am planning on doing that. I am planning on putting the "vanilla" install on the C drive so it's always there when I need it. And when I've got the D drive version exactly the way I want it, I am going to back it up on an external hard drive. I hate to tempt the fates, but I figure I'm covering pretty much all the bases that way

Thanks mate

Ian