FS9 is on my "C" Drive and weighted down with add-on scenery and aircraft which has noticable slowed booting and reaction times.I'd like to speed things up and, in particular, I'd like to improve the frame rate of the PMDG 737It occurs to me that I may achieve these goals by installing FS9 onto my "D" Drive IN ADDITION TO it's installation on "C". I'd then use this second installation just for the PMDG 737 without any add-ons.Can it be done without creating problems with the original installation?Cliff

You can certainly install it on a drive other than C:... mine's on E:. However, I've no idea whether you can have two different installations on the same PC... there may be too much shared data (registry variables, user config files, etc) for it to work.

Hi, there

Thanks guys..........I might give it a try.Regards,Cliff

In particular, having FS on a drive separate from your OS and Virtual memory swap file *MIGHT* give you some performance benefit, and having FS on a separate drive makes it easier to keep if defragmented and error-free, but the disks are rarely performance bottlenecks with todays machines...

I'm not quite sure I would go that far; I have too much experience (sad to report) in HDD configurations with respect to FS9.Depending on the chipset you use, you may have SATA & PATA co-existing (like the i865/i875 chipsets from Intel & others). The chances are extremely good that you're not currently using the bandwidth available to you for HDD I/O by virtue of the various databus protocols & combinations available in today's hybrid systems.That said, I would emphasise that HDDs remain the biggest bottleneck (depending on application type) that anyone can encounter on any machine....Simply compare the theoretical throughput of the the modern FSB (which is close to reality with fast dual channel DDR), the 8X AGP bus to that of the IDE or even the SATA bus.....the HDD bus transfers don't even come close ! (except to the 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus)...Cheers.

Hi, I agree that the faster the HDD system is the shorter the initial loading time will be, but for FS "core" performance like frame rates, gradual texture blurring of photoreal scenery (which is what I think Gridley meant) the HDD system won

Interesting thread, Cliff!You might let us know here how it works out. I have heard from others here that you will notice when using an installer to install 3rd party stuff that it will always try to default to your original installation. I think most installers offer you the chance to change the path of FS.Bruce.(thinking of trying the same thing, when I get the time :) ).

Why not just use separate .cfg files (scenery, FS9 etc.) and run both options from the same installation?Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

I am planning on going one further. I am putting a second OS (XP Pro) on a second partitiion. I am hoping to get a little faster loading and performance from the lack of all the other day to day stuff that plugs up the registry.Also it'll be easier to fix if I messs it up....:)

I'm impressed with the knowledge you and others obviously have.Unfortunately my computer literacy isn't up to your standard so, after reading these replies, I've come to the conclusion that I should let sleeping dogs lie rather than take the risk of spoiling my current setup.What's occured to me however is how useful it would be if Microsoft were to build this facility into FS2006. In that way less computer savvy Simmers like me could have the option of two installations and keep a "clean" one for special uses.If others agreed that there may be a need for such a facility how do we bring it to the attention of microsoft?Regards,Cliff

Just download Ken Salter's 'FS configurator', available right here in the library, it allows you to edit and save multiple .cfg files, so you can start up with any you like (scenery enabled or not etc...)Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg