Need Computer help in SoCal!

[AndrewPilot 0]

Hi ALL

 

Jim, Thanks for all the observations, we appreciate them.  I am still on the road, but will be home tonight, so planning on working on the computer tomorrow.  I have to load the update disk for the MoBo, so I can get online.  I also wanted to know what you guys recommend for security/spyware programs.  I dislike Norton and Mcafee after two rather painful incidents.  I currently use Avast(free).  I am planning to go" by the book" ( Avsim guide)..thats why I bought two seperate SDD ( one for Win 7 64bit ) and one for FSX.  I think I will use the 1TB drive for normal day to day.  I will get a 2TB drive for backup soon ( was originally going to use the 1TB as the backup/clone drive). 

I will also take your advice and not install FSX onto the default folder.  First my plan is to get the MoBo update done, then get online get a security download, then get all the drivers updated.  Right now I only have the Sata cable on the one SSD connected, so I can install all the OS/Windows stuff on the SSD. 

..then step two, is overclock!!  THEN.....install stuff.  ( what do you think?  )

 

Thanks again for the help , support.

Tony

[Jim Young 2,356]

I also wanted to know what you guys recommend for security/spyware programs.

Microsoft Essentials works well (freeware and an Option install with Windows Update).  I have never used an anti-virus program (computing since 1991) so cannot advise there.  I make sure my Windows firewall is on at all times and I only download from known Sources/Friends/Relatives.  The anti-virus programs literally try to take over your system.

 

@WhiteKnuckle

 

Tom (and Tony/Andrew) - I installed Orbx PNW and Orcas Island.  As I stated earlier, I was getting 150-275 fps with the default scenery in the default Baron with default fsx/display driver settings (LOD_Radius is at 6.5 and TML is 2048 though).  Autogen was Normal.  Well, in the Baron VC fps were always above 50 fps and spot view was constantly above 70 fps and sometimes going to over 90.  But no 150-275 fps anymore.  I went to Seattle (KSEA) and on the airport grounds, I got a constant 35-40 fps and those shot up over 50 fps when I was in the air about a mile from the airport.  It is definitely, for sure, I'm positive much better than my old Sandy Bridge 2600K and old GTX 580.  I might add I saw no stuttering and textures were rendered instantly just like the photoscenery.  I'm hoping life in FSX stays as good as this!

 

Best regards,

Jim

[WhiteKnuckle 11]

 

 

...and got fps in the teens just before landing my PMDG 737 (in the VC).

 

Jim,

 

I think that pretty much answers my question.  And I'll have to try TML=2048 as I've already cranked down the fps to 10 on many of the NGX panels.  But surely you lose some of the fantastic detail of the NGX VC?  Does FSX Acceleration improve the fps in any way as I thought it was just an add-on with more missions and other features?

 

Have you OC'd your 4770K yet?  Amazing results, I can't go over LOD=5 without running into problems, although there are many other factors (AI aircraft really slow things down).  I've cranked back to CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=4 and only using 1024 (with DXT5) clouds in REX.

 

Tony, for AV I've been running McAfee Total Protection (covers 3 PCs) for many years and have made good use of the parental controls.  I've just renewed my subscription but I think this may be the last time.  It's caused me some issues with FTX Lights (possibly fixed now) and recently I changed the settings to not automatically install updates (derrr... Tom).  I don't really know what to compare it to since it's all I've ever used.  I'm interested to know what you go for actually.  I'm now also using Open DNS as the kids both have school net books and I'm not allowed to install anything.  Unbelievable really!  But I digress, this calls for a screeny.

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

Have you OC'd your 4770K yet?

 

Hi Tom!  Yes.  I did it through ASUS's automatic OC in the BIOS.  I set the profile to XMP (which provides for the most optimal settings) and it automatically OC'd to 4.1GHz (think I previously stated 4.3GHz as that is what the BIOS was telling me what the multiplier was showing but now it is showing 4.1GHz.  Perhaps it did some testing with the 4.3 setting and automatically moved it down to 4.1 for better stability.  Needs further research).  I may do some tweaking of this and move the multiplier to 44 or 4.4GHz but busy now trying to reinstall FSX and addons.  I am already getting great performance with 4.1GHz so no rush to explore higher overclocks.  I have one issue with the 4770K in that I read it heats up pretty fast and people need to watch the heat.  In my flights with FSX I have monitored the heat in the CPU cores and they were between 125 and 138 degrees F which I think is pretty high.  I understand the max is 200 degrees F.  I think I need to pump up the speed of my Noctra cooler fans.

 

A major plus so far..... No CTD's!

 

In regards to the PMDG 737NGX VC, I really have no issues with it as the VC renders very fast if I'm going from wing view to the VC and vice-versa.  The best fps are in spot or wing view and that's where I am located most of the time in a flight with the PMDG aircraft.

 

SP2/Acceleration include the option for DX10 Preview.  Testing by the Microsoft development team indicates a difference of 10 fps with DX10 enabled.  I have found similar results but a lot of people do not like DX10 as they fly with aircraft and scenery made for previous versions of FS.  I fly FSX with the same settings for both DX9 and DX10.  I'm a little disappointed that PMDG placed a statement in their Intro manual indicating DX10 should NOT be enabled for performance reasons.  It has been proven by several, including me, it has the best performance for FSX.  More about DX10 can be found in the DX10 forum as it is important to note that most of the anomalies that came with the original SP2/Acceleration for DX10 have been fixed.  Don't want to hijack Tony's/Andrew's OP so will stop here with further discussions.

 

@AndrewPilot - In your post 31 you indicated step two would be to OC and step 3 would be to install FSX.  I would install FSX first.  You are starting out at 3.5GHz which is very fast (and think with Turbo enabled, you can get 3.9GHz).  That's good enough for now.  Install FSX/Acceleration and it's time to get down to some serious flight testing!

 

Best regards,

Jim

[vgbaron 3,632]

Jim -

 

This thread has some interesting comments on Haswell by NickN:

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/gtx-780-settings-discussion-haswell-revealed_topic46112_page1.html

 

Vic

[Jim Young 2,356]

Jim -

 

This thread has some interesting comments on Haswell by NickN:

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/gtx-780-settings-discussion-haswell-revealed_topic46112_page1.html

 

Vic

Thanks Vic.  That link is certainly interesting especially since I have a link to NickN where he says NI settings only work in DX9 and not in DX10 - http://www.simforums.com/forums/nickn-nividia-inspector-sli-settings_topic41980.html.  I have found the default settings in fsx and the display driver work best for me.  I will however take a look at his suggestions but I fly exclusively in DX10.  I'm confused.... again.  What a complicated world we live in!

 

Best regards,

Jim

[vgbaron 3,632]

LOL Jim - complicated is putting it mildly! I've got a 980X at 4.4 and a 3770 at 4.7 - I've had it. Both FSX and P3d run just the way I want them and other than bragging rights, I have no need to do another build.

 

But it is fun tho!! 

 

Vic

[WhiteKnuckle 11]

CPU cores and they were between 125 and 138 degrees F

Crikey, I nearly fell off my chair, then realised you're talking Fahrenheit. It'll be interesting to see the effect on temps as you up the frequency. I'm pretty happy with high 60's\low 70's C (140\158 F) which is what I'm getting currently with HT disabled and winter ambient temps.

 

I'll have to research the DX10 option in a bit more detail I think.

[AndrewPilot 0]

Ok  What a busy Day.

 

Got the updates done on the computer and went to remove and reinstall the Corsair cooling block with better thermal paste before I started running the stress tests...and the GTX770 Video card died!.  So had to run it back to the store to get a replacement. 

So then I worked on overclocking and ran Aida 64...got a 4.6 multiplier right from the start..but then I read on another website that with these overclocked machines ..people were only getting a very small FPS increase on games like " crisis" and " far cry"  ( Whatever that is)..so I decided to go back to stock on the CPU .....THEN.... I read what N. Needham said on the other forum and decided to put back in the overclock...

So now my CPU is running at 4.5  GHZ and has temps below 80-83 while running AIDA 64.   ( at 1.225 volts)

Then I installed my new FSX Gold edition ( the one that would not register previously..and low and behold..it registered!!)  whew!

i then got all three monitors working in panorama mode..very nice!

Few a flight shut it down and did a defragment.

The visuals are impressive, but I still see a lot of rendering going on.  For example only the scenery very near the airplane is in great detail, while maybe a few miles away I can see the simulation drawing in the scenery/buildings etc....

Also I notice when I'm in DX10 preview mode I do get a lot of shimmering flickering of the runway?!

 

I have not put on anything else but FSX and the GOld acceleration pack.

I do hear that Real Environments Extreme is a must have..what do you think?  I was thinking of getting that as well as a California Photoscenery add-on...and eventually the PMDG 737.  Andrew loves Just Flight 757 Captain, so we will put that on soon too.

 

Thanks

Tony

[WhiteKnuckle 11]

I wouldn't wait to get the NGX as it really is a superb simulation, especially when coupled with the FS2Crew add-on.  I haven't got any photoscenery but I hear it can be quite hard on frame rates.  You may want to look at some of the FTX products and REX I can also recommend.  I have my clouds set to 1024 but with your machine you can probably run higher.  You can adjust some of the FSX.cfg file settings and see what that does to your frames rates.  Just remember that the Texture_Max_Load will reset to 1024 if you change the display settings within FSX.  Here are a selection of my settings.

 

[GRAPHICS]

D3D10=0

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096

AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0

AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1

COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1

AC_SELF_SHADOW=0

EFFECTS_QUALITY=2

GROUND_SHADOWS=0

TEXTURE_QUALITY=3

IMAGE_QUALITY=0

ALLOW_SHADER_30=1

HIGHMEMFIX=1

ForceWindowedVSync=1

FORCEFULLSCREENVSYNC=1

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

//AffinityMask=84/14 Hyperthreading on/off

AffinityMask=14

 

[bufferPools]

UsePools=0

 

[Display]

BLOOM_EFFECTS=0

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30

WideViewAspect=True

 

[Weather]

CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=4

DETAILED_CLOUDS=1

CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=8

 

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti.0]

Mode=1920x1080x32

Anisotropic=1

AntiAlias=1

 

[sCENERY]

LENSFLARE=0

DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1

IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=5.000000

MESH_COMPLEXITY=100

MESH_RESOLUTION=23

TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=29

AUTOGEN_DENSITY=3

DETAIL_TEXTURE=1

WATER_EFFECTS=6

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

the GTX770 Video card died

 

That's a shocker!  My GTX780 fit on the MB perfectly.  With my old ASUS board and GTX580, the board hardly fit in the PCI slot and it took some pushing to get the clamp up to hold the video card in the slot but nothing was damaged and it worked well.  But I was surprised how easily my GTX 780 went into the ASUS Deluxe MB.  I thought I had made a mistake.  Perhaps you didn't clamp the board down.  It works like the DRAM installations. 

 

 

 

I do hear that Real Environments Extreme is a must have..what do you think? I was thinking of getting that as well as a California Photoscenery add-on...and eventually the PMDG 737. Andrew loves Just Flight 757 Captain, so we will put that on soon too.

 

If you are going to use any default scenery textures, then it is a must that you install GEX USA.  REX is great for themes (sky, clouds, water, land themes).  It also has a real weather function.  I use photo scenery exclusively for the USA and have MegaScenery SoCal installed.  I don't know if they plan on updating the whole State of California with MegaSceneryEarth Version 2 stuff which is the latest and greatest.  They have photoscenery for almost every State except California updated.  It probably will be expensive (like Texas) if they cover the whole State with MSE V2.  With MSE V2 (and MegaSceneryX SoCal, I have my LOD_Radius set to 6.5 and Texture_Max_Load at 2048.  Tom (WhiteKnuckle) has some good settings but I only use the LOD_Radius and TML settings changed.  I had my TML set to 4096 but it didn't do anything better than the 2048 setting (which is HD too).  You have a modern system and CPU and don't need all these things to make FSX work better.  I would check out DX10 technology too in our DX10 Forum.  You'll get some shadows from the sun hitting inside the cockpits and, when you have real weather turned on, you will see white caps and nasty seas, lakes, rivers, and oceans. 

 

I plan on getting serious about overclocking this weekend but, right now, I see no need to overclock as FSX is running well.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[AndrewPilot 0]

Well,

Its up and running!  I bought and installed GEX..and the terrain definately looks better!   We also installed the Just Flight 767 Captain and Andrew really enjoys it.  I have to figure out how to change the perspective with the three monitors.   It just seems like it is quite " zoomed" up close and even all the way back is not far enough out.   Jim did you end up doing any overclocking? 

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Jim did you end up doing any overclocking?

 

Yes, so far I'm up to 4.4GHz using the X.M.P. profile.  I also tried overclocking using the ASUS Suite III and, on the fly I could click on the TPU tab and move the multiplier up to 44.  Then I found out it is constantly running to find the best overclock for the way you run your computer and gaming.  So, things went well for a few days then all of a sudden FSX barely loaded and I was getting fps of 1.  I immediately shut down the system and went into the BIOS and set the XMP overclock.  It is very stable so far and fsx is running great.  I have my fps set at unlimited and over photoscenery I'm close to 100 fps and in the PMDG cockpit kept the fps up to over 30 fps.  At FSDT KLAX, I maintained a constant 30 plus frames.  So I'm happy.  Just might do some more tweaking if I find time.

 

GEX is a great replacement for the default textures. They are optimized for better performance with FSX and I proved that by running FSX with the default textures and then with the GEX textures and fps shot way up.  It was like having a whole new flight sim.  Unfortunately I'm 98% photoscenery now so have no need for it.

 

Haven't gone the 3 monitor setup yet.  My 30 inch monitor works well and provides enough immersion for now.  But I'm tempted....

 

Best regards,

Jim

[AndrewPilot 0]

Well we have flown it quite a bit.

I think I need to bite the bullet and go into the cfg files!

Since we are running three monitors it looks great, except that with the view pulled back as far as it will go, it is till too close.

Too close to the glareshield.  So need to fix that.  Also, I am still not happy with the scenery.     We live in So Cal, so if we takeoff from LAX, SNA etc,, it seems to draw the far away scenery, but then renders the big buildings that are closer, say 2-3 miles from aircraft, later.  So you see these buildings sort of " pop up" as you go.   So I'm not sure how to make that a bit better.   I did put on GEX.  

I would also like to put on Photoscenery for so cal, i think that would look neat. 

 

So thats whats next!

 

Tony

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

I would also like to put on Photoscenery for so cal, i think that would look neat.

 

Great idea!  Just want to let you know that MegaSceneryEarth is planning to release the whole state of California sometime later this month.  But MegaSceneryX SoCal is nice too.  I believe BlueSkyScenery has some freeware (donationware) for California too but not sure of the quality.  There's a lot of talk about it in the AVSIM Photoscenery Forum though.

 

Best regards,

Jim