Having to do a reinstall, after spending so much time tweaking and configuring would probably have put me on a Flight simulator hiatus due to my patience.

 

That happened to me. I had an extensively hand-tuned FS2002, with custom AFCADs tweaked using the old "radius" system for gate parking, long before there were AI "installers" available. I had replaced all the Landmark and Orbit planes with country-specific airlines, over most of the world.

 

My hard drive crashed. I gave up, put the yoke and pedals in the closet and left them there for 8 or 9 years.

 

I bought an external USB backup drive. Now, 3 times a week, a program wakes up at 2 in the morning and backs up my entire hard drive, saving all the new or changed files to the backup drive. So, out there beyond where any internal disk crash could hurt it is a copy of my entire FS9 directory, all my add-ons and even my saved flights. All the photos from the digital camera, too, and the Turbo Tax files. That's a lot of security for about a hundred bucks.

 

It's been said many times. It's not if your hard drive will crash, it's when your hard drive will crash. And there's no good answer.

It's been said many times. It's not if your hard drive will crash, it's when your hard drive will crash. And there's no good answer.

 

I keep a complete back up of FS9 on a external hard drive. Payware and keys etc on DVD. I update the back up once a month to keep it current. This system serves me well. The last time I had to do a complete new install (OS problem and had to format) it only took a day to recover FS9 and most of that was do to installing the payware stuff. Even so I still get the shakes thinking about what I would loose if the external drive crashes. About 75GB of down loads and another 75GB of personal work; scenery, paints, GMAX, gauges, panels and more other stuff than enough. Geez! I think I just talked myself into a new external drive just to back up my back ups.

 

I did have a WD hard drive go bad about ten years ago. It sounded kind of like a VW beetle I had with a connecting rod going out.

 

Regards,

Mel

I think I just talked myself into a new external drive just to back up my back ups

 

You may lough or not - I do have a backup of my backup.

(I have a backup which "mirrors" my FS2004 up to date on a second hard drive inside my PC. I have another monthly backup of my FS2004 on an extrernal hard drive - stored in my bedroom...) -_-

Annnnndddd I have aboslutely no back ups of my Flight Simulator, after my recent scare and these posts I guess it's time to invest. Though I dont have a clue where to start, i'm guessing purchasing a decent storage device is my next step.

 

A Western Digital Drive go bad Mel? I dont belive you

A Western Digital Drive go bad Mel? I dont belive you

Yes you do, . . . . . . yes it did.

 

In all fairness to WD I have two raptors used in raid0, total 500Gb and they have performed flawlessly for years now.

 

I use a external Seagate 750Gb for my backups, downloads and all of the other FS related stuff and as mentioned I also put my payware stuff on backup DVD(s). Geez! I just realized I even still have some FS2002 stuff tucked away on CD somewhere.

 

My method is pretty straight forward. I created a folder on the external, oddly enough, named FSCOF backups. In that folder I created another named FS9 with month / year added. Inside that I added a folder to hold the Application Data / Microsoft / FS9 folder, another for the FS related file from Documents and Settings. Then I simply copied the entire contents of the FS9 root folder to the FS9 month / date folder. At the end of each month update anything that I have made changes to. For example, if I have added new aircraft or AI I would delete the old aircraft folder in the backup and copy the entire newer aircraft folder in its place. The same process for any other folder that contains any changes. With the updating is finished I do a complete system defragmentation. I also keep a copy of the Effects, Gauges, Modules, Scenery, Sound and texture folders from the original clean install.

 

There are, of course, other methods that I am sure work equally well. Including software that does the work for you. I'm just a hands on kind of masochist.

 

You may lough or not - I do have a backup of my backup

 

No Harald, I would not even think to laugh. Anyone who has had to start over and try to recover what they lost and the effort to get FS9 back to the way they had it knows better than to laugh. I remember all to well spending about nine months rebuilding FS9 once and that was enough to motivate me to do everything possible to save myself from the agony again! I am seriously considering a second external that I would create my extra back up on then disconnecting the power and usb just to insure minimal wear on the drive. I would recommend what you are doing to anyone who asks.

 

Best regards to all,

Mel

Just curious for another data point, what kind of settings did you settle on? Or was there anything groundbreaking specifically for you?

Just curious for another data point, what kind of settings did you settle on? Or was there anything groundbreaking specifically for you?

 

I am not quite sure to whom you were directing the question or exactly what the question was. If the question was for me, please be kind enough to restate it for me and I'll be happy to answer if I have one. I don't want to second guess anything and perhaps answer a question you didn't ask.

 

Regards,

Mel

Then I simply copied the entire contents of the FS9 root folder to the FS9 month / date folder

 

Hello Mel,

 

If you had to restore this file, I assume you would reinstall FS and then copy this folder over the one that would be created.

 

From my understanding, every texture and scenary used at the time of back up would be saved.

 

I do have two questions if I may:

 

1. You're losing a lot of the registry entries for aircraft and terrain config programs,(I'm working on the assumption of a operating system loss) the current entry's in the Scenery.CFG I'm guessing would work, but in order to make changes to products that have a "configuration Wizard" you would not to reinstall those products correct?

 

2. Does this cause any start-up errors with, lets say, payware aircraft wanting .LIC files that no longer exists on the HDD.

 

With question number 1, if you indeed need to reinstall those addons to get those configuration exe's associated with the specific third party product working again, does it save space to NOT back up the addons you will only need to reinstall anyway?

 

Is it more important to back up just the installers and .lic keys then?

 

With limited space (85gig external drive) what do you consider essential in backing-up?

 

Thank you very much for all your help and the patience you have taken answering my questions.

 

Steven

 

 

I am not quite sure to whom you were directing the question or exactly what the question was. If the question was for me, please be kind enough to restate it for me and I'll be happy to answer if I have one. I don't want to second guess anything and perhaps answer a question you didn't ask.

 

Regards,

Mel

 

No, it was for GimbleRates to see what steps he took to get FS9 performance he was satisfied with since I'm always curious to hear specific success stories.

Steven,

If I needed to do a fresh install and rebuild FS9; Remove (uninstall) FS9, check the usual locations and manually remove any orphaned FS related files. Next I would do the fresh install of FS9. Next I would re install all of my payware aircraft, scenery, such as UT, airport, basically anything that creates a registry entry or has a interface with FS9. Don't forget to update FS9 to FS9.1 at this point. This insures that everything has a new and functioning registry entry and a current address for FS9. Once that is done you are safe to remove any file folder in the new FS9. I will use the Addon Scenery folder for example and assume that you have a payware airport or two you have just re installed. I would delete the new Addon Scenery folder, go to my back up and copy and paste my Addon Scenery folder from there in to the new FS9. Once that is done and the new scenery.cfg. file in the FS9 root folder is overwritten with your backup you are back to having what was lost. This works the same for any of the folders inside the FS9 root folder.

 

Question one: As long as you are using the same operating system and hard drive letter ie "C" and installing the payware the same as previous. I recommend reinstalling everything that you previously used a products installer to install. Just be certain to install to the same location as before. The back up Scenery.cfg will be accurate that way.

 

Question two: That is why you need to reinstall the payware into the new FS9 first.

 

With question number 1, if you indeed need to reinstall those addons to get those configuration exe's associated with the specific third party product working again, does it save space to NOT back up the addons you will only need to reinstall anyway?

 

As long as you have made no changes / tweaks to those then you are correct. But by all means back up the payware and keys as many ways as you can.

 

With limited space (85gig external drive) what do you consider essential in backing-up?

 

There are some folders in FS9 that never have their contents changed those are safe to not back up. I would focus on any folder that contains things you have changed. As an example if you have added flight plans and the AI aircraft then you would want to back up your aircraft folder and the Scenery / World / Scenery folder. I think the most important folders would be Addon Scenery, Aircraft, Effect, Gauges, Scenery, Sound and Texture. Addon Scenery so you don't have to re do any freeware scenery and will restore any additional AFCAD etc. files you have added. AIrcraft folder so you will have the same freeware aircraft and AI if any. Gauges so that any freeware aircraft that provided panels other than default will function properly. Scenery folder depends on changes you have made or added to any of the sub folders if any. The Sound folder depends on whether you have made any changes to or replaced any of the default sounds or to the Voice pack file. The same goes for the Effects file. So it really comes down to what changes you have made to FS9 and how important it is to you to not loose them or wish to preserve them.

 

Thank you very much for all your help and the patience you have taken answering my questions.

 

Married forty years, . . . patience is my middle name!

You are most welcome.

 

Regards,

Mel

No, it was for GimbleRates to see what steps he took to get FS9 performance he was satisfied with since I'm always curious to hear specific success stories.

 

Hello Mr.Weber,

 

I also like hearing success stories on performance and have got a lot tips and start points for experimentation with different settings this way.

 

I'll try and share as much as I can, though, this tweaking took place over several months. Sometimes it was a well known tweak or change to FS, sometimes it was a setting/tweak I may have read about in a post or two and decided to apply it.

 

If I don't cover everything here, and I'm sure I wont remember everything from the top of my head, feel free to ask about a specific setup or setting, and I'll be glad to give you the answer.

 

The first step I took in having and to maintain a level of performance and visual quality I was happy with was maintain every aspect of my computer and making sure it stayed in a healthy state. Consistently low fragmentation levels, a uncluttered registry, services that are not needed stopped, making sure the running process of fs9.exe always has top priority etc. Basically just having a healthy pc all around.

 

As for fs9.cfg tweaks, I run a very light tweaked FS9.cfg (I've yet to dive into this again since I've been back into flight simulation.)

 

What helped me the most in terms of performance was being able to let go of Anti-Aliasing and use a alternate method for the Anti-Aliasing. The two shots below are taken with zero AA, both in FS9 and my Nvida control panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My choice was to use a alternate method known as "FXAA", this is also supported right from the control panel in newer nvida graphics drivers. As you can see above, I get little to no jaggies, with almost a zero performance hit on the GPU. It's possible to enable this feature on any card using a "injector" .

 

I've also used the "Nhancer" guide for FSX (It's the fs2004 guide updated for FSX, which are the exact same settings."

 

It got to a point for me, where I had to stop tweaking, stop constantly checking my FPS counter and enjoy the sim. I'm running FS9 on a AMD ath 64 x2 dual core processor 4400+, Win7, 4 gigs of ram, and a GT520. Hardly even a mediocre system by today's standards, but I've got it to run FS9 like a dream. I get more visual flair and better performance than I honestly ever thought was possible, not just due to my computers limitations, but the limitations in FS9.

 

This is why you wont see me go to FSX anytime soon, not only do I not want to run this trek again, but I have FS9 at that point where I refuse to leave it for any other simulation currently. (I still have moments of "WOW"! while running FS9" I'm content,comfortable, and happy with FS9 and the STILL great experiences I have with the simulation.

 

I'm sure I left a whole lot out, but as I said, if you would like more information on any setting or tweak, (I know there are more that I could not think of), I would be happy to answer your question or give you the specific setting.

 

Ps. Although i've settled down on my tweaking if you know of any fs9.cfg tweaks that are considered "must have", please do share.

 

Hope this helps,

Steven

Thank you for the reply. Can you please post your nVidia Inspector settings?

Mr.Weber,

 

I'm not near my FS computer at the moment. When I get back home tonight I'll give you the requested information.

 

Thank you

Steven

Those are some very impressive screen shots. Congratulations on your set up!

 

Mel

Those are some very impressive screen shots. Congratulations on your set up!

 

Mel

 

Thanks Mel,

 

I sent you a PM about how things were going after restoring my airports, I dont know if you have read it. I was checking for anymore files I was missing, and it seems like I have everything except the AB files in the NAME folder, should I replace those as well? What do these files do?

 

Thank you very much,

Steven