Hi All,Firstly, I would like to preface this piece with the following information, before the session I was happy with my FS performance the way I had set it up, I had

Interesting because from what you say it would seem that optimising the system is where most improvements could be made for many users, obviously yours was already optimised for your particular setup. I do wonder what might have happened if your FS9 was put on the same HD as the system, but I guess you had noticed an improvement with the present setup before consulting the service or you would have already changed back. I assume the ATI tweaker was removed and made no difference? BTW I use an NVidia card so I am raising this point only for the interest of ATI users.

Hi,Well, I have ALWAYS put my OS on one HDD and my FS one another, for 2 reasons, one of a safety stand point, and the other from a reinstall standpoint, I prefer to have FS on its own physical drive.I was also aware that this "should" result in improved performance, but either way I would say the difference would be neglegable.Yes, the "rage3d" tweaker was removed, I was not actually infact using it, it had been on my system from the beginning and had not touched it, and this also had little or no effect on the running of the sim.The main point I am trying to convey is that you dont necessarily need this service, it does nothing you cannot do on your own with a little bit of investigation, but again, if you are having performance issues, and can't solve them yourself, you can be happy in the knowledge that there is a service that can help.CheersDan.

I have no clue what service your talking about or the reasons you decided to use it....Depending on what HDD configuration you use & how many channels you have available (& further how they are partitioned with respect to cluster size etc...), there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that 2 HDDs are worse than 1. It might beef up your MFT (to a degree that's not even a factor), but that's about it!!!Complete & "professional" hogwash one might say.Cheers.

"I understand that I could get attacked, flamed, whatever for saying this, but this is MY honest opinion, and I would appreciate that people accept that."One can only hope, Dan.While I believe FS-GS's service clearly has a place in this hobby, your report shows that it is not universally required by all simmers. You clearly had your system running well (to your satisfaction) before the service, and your experience affrimed that what you had done works for you. Based upon your desire to pay for the service afterward, that affirmation certainly has value to you.I believe there are two types of simmers who wish to avail themselves of this service... the first are the folks who are not happy with their simming rig configuration, and therefore turn to FS-GS to get it dialed in. Michael has proven that he certainly is good at that.The other type of simmer to use this service is the one who wishes to learn more. Seems to me you fall into this category. Though your rig worked well for you and your knowledge of a good simming rig is advanced, you nonetheless put your money on the line to see if it could be better. And therein came your affirmation.Thanks for your balanced report. Hopefully it will prove usefull to those who are uncertain about taking the leap to Micheal's system unification... no matter which way they decide to go.Cheers,Greg

I'm currently running FS at 1280x1024, 4x AA, 8X AF. I decided to not use full 6x/16x for the same reason as you. The framerate is a bit lower, but more importantly, the image quality is virtually the same. Achieving a good FS experience isn't only about making it look as good as possible, or getting the highest framerate possible. It's also about achieving a balance between performance and image quality. I could show you two screenshots that are "virtually" identical, one with full details and image quality settings, the other with my tweaked settings and twice the framerate.Re harddrives. I have two drives right now. I happen to have FS9 and the OS on the same drive (but different partitions) but that's just coincidence. Had it on the other drive before and performance was no different. I do however notice slightly improved load times by keeping big addon sceneries on a dedicated partition on the second drive. I now have a special Scenery partition optimized for addon sceneries.Surprised he didn't ask about motherboard drivers. I had some trouble with the early NForce2 drivers. Corrected that and gained 4000 3DMarks in 3DMark 2001. So, those can certainly have an impact on performance.

1) At no point during the service was I asked what version of Direct X I was running.2) At no point was I asked what motherboard I had, and whether it had the latest drivers3) At no point was I asked about BIOS settingsThen, IMO, this "servie" has not realized it's fullest potential.No mention of these things above seems to be kind of ridiculous. BIOS settings can have all the difference in the world, as can mobo drivers, etc.. etc..I am not impressed.

>Hi All,>>Firstly, I would like to preface this piece with the following>information, before the session I was happy with my FS>performance the way I had set it up, I had

I think that its not right when a person learns of a better virus program, that they don't share it freely.We should not hold out for profit when it comes to knowing the best virus protection possible.

Well, at the end of the day its up to the indivdual to ensure that they are running the best virus software they can buy.Of course, it would not be difficult to find "the ONLY antivirus program to achieve the 100% Award (for speed and detection of "In the Wild" viruses), in EVERY comparative anti virus test by the virus Bulletin 100% Awards over the last 5 years!", now would it ;)Dan.

Put them all out of their misery: It's called NOD32 and is VERY good. I can recommend it!BestGrahame (EDHL)

interesting, by searching on virus bulletin I came up with this hit, which contains the exact language davowat used in his hint....if this is it, the product would be czech program called avast.http://www.avast.com/eng/company/news/100_...ulletin_a9.html

Wow, the greatest framerate increase in FS9 that I ever acheived from a single tweak came from installing the correct driver for my motherboard.

I don't believe the anti-virus program Michael recommended to me is proprietary info - it's Panda Titanium, which I do like much better than NAV... If' he's now recommending another one, that's news to me.

I'm using the free version of AVG and as long as they keep providing updates for it, this is what I'll continue to use. It has never failed me. But then again, I haven't had a virus on this system in ages anyway. I don't use LookOut! Express (I use Mozilla Thunderbird) so as long as I don't run the attached .exe's that's not a problem. Don't use ActiveX/Javascript/Java either (if a page needs it I don't go there).Norton is pretty good - a bit bloated and certainly too expensive but it didn't cause any problems for me.