Hello all fellow simmers,

 

First of all, let me say im a newbie in the forums, im no expert what comes to hardware but have some knowledge to tweek fsx etc.

 

Recently I had to format my hard-drives of my current PC and re-install everything from scratch. This has taken a week or so, (and its not completed yet) as I have other things to do than sit in front of my PC 24/7. Now when I have installed FSX and tweeked the cfg etc - im feeling something needs to be done in order to boost my frames a bit. Because of this idea, I thought, maybe Ill give a try at the forums, maybe someone can point me into the right direction. My ultimate plan was to just update some parts of my PC and avoid the need to change the MOBO & Processor.....

 

my current PC:

 

Rampage III Extreme

i7 960

Corsair Dominator-GT 6 GB, PC3-12800, 1600 MHz, 7, Non-ECC, Kit Of 3 

Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536 MB 

Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 Zilver/Zwart,

Cooler Master Silent Pro M850 850 Watt, 20+24 Pins, 80

WD Velociraptor 600 GB, 10.000 Rpm, 32 MB, Sata III/600 

WD Caviar Black 640 GB, 7200 Rpm, 64 MB, Sata III/600 

Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120 Mm, 1150 Rpm

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

 

Software:

FSX

FS Global 2010

GEX + UTX

REX

Active Sky 2012

Addon Airports (aerosoft, flytampa, fsdreamteam)

EZDok

FSUIPC

TOPCAT

Aivlasoft EFB..

PMDG aircrafts

 

Currently im not using any AI traffic, also cars & boats are disabled. No way Im able to run max settings, but would be nice to reach at least almost max settings...

 

Now, my question is really that is there any way I can boost up the system, without the need to change the MOBO & Processor? I have tried to OC this rig, but that did not help, the temps got way too high....

 

What if I would buy new graphic card and SSD drive? would that make any difference?

 

I have read many many topics about tuning the PC, but obviously, each case is different. I have understood that adding more RAM would not help either....?

 

Anyway, would be nice to get some comments, im sure many of you are saying, oh, yet another home simmer who does not know what to do.... but then again, I quess these forums are here so that we can help out eachother..

 

Anyway, thanks for your patience and will appreciate any comment

Cheerio!

Thomas

 

Your graphics card may not be up-to-date, but I'm not sure it's the bottleneck of your system.

 

There are certain settings which don't help visual appearance too much, but put some huge load onto your system: ground shadows, autogen, blooms, AI traffic. You could try´switching off ground shadows and reduce autogen step-by-step to normal or even below that.

 

 

 

My idea, in general, is to forget about all those maxed-out settings.

 

I run my FSX with sliders, by and large, 3/4 to the right and AI traffic way below that (20%/20%).

 

It looks good to me and fps are satisfactory 95% of the time.

Does your rig have a cpu cooler on it, one other than the intel one? If not you might want to get a H100i and oc the machine to somewhere near 4ghz.

I guess to re-iterate the point snowinairlines made your only real option to increase frame rates is to overclock your CPU, if thats failed in the past because your cooler wasn't up to the job then you'll have to consider upgrading your cooler. 

Hi Olli, Snowingairlines & PieEater,

 

many many thanks for your replies. I forgot to mention that it also includes Prolimatech Megahalems RevB CPU cooler.

 

The thing is that I can live with no AI traffic if needed, but I do want to have nice graphincs and im definitely going to FTX Global once its released and then can throw away fsglobal 2010 & utx+gex. I can also easily live with constant 20fps, that is smooth enough. But once it goes to 13-15, its a night mare.

 

Would the H100 help me to OC my system to decent levels? Because when I tried earlier, I think I got something around 3,6 - 3,8ghz and did not notice really any improvement. So I quess that I need to go over 4ghz, but I also understood in some forums that my rig cannot be OC enough to make a difference and that I should have a different MOBO with 1155 socket so I would be able to choose different processor (like i5 2550K or i7 3770K) and OC it more.

 

The thing is that the cpu costs still 350 eur plus the mobo , so its again 500 eur deal to make, plus coolers etc....

 

Do you happen to have any information, whether i can make out more from my current rig, or should I save the money and plan to go for i7 3770K etc....

 

I really appreciate all your comments, many many thanks!

Cheers

 

Thomas

Since you can live with what you have, I would wait for Haswell, and everything else's prices to go down.

Thanks for the reply, will do that as there are plenty other things to spent money in the coming months.... (Dash 8 just released, PFPX & T7 to come.... )

 

Cheers!

Thomas