FSX-MS Nick Needham's PC tweaks

[idahosurge 2]

I have used Nick's Win7 guide, FSX guide and Haswell guide with excellent results.

 

In the past I used his Win7 guide and FSX guide on a i7 950 system and a i7 980X system, all with excellent results.  Nick also told me how to OC my i7 950 and that instruction carried over to my i7 980X.

 

Whether or not you want to take and implement all of his advise or not is up to you, but I am one of many who has used all of his advice and have had three i7 systems running with excellent results.

 

Everything works together for the greater good, if you follow all of his advice for setting up Win7, FSX, your hardware and overclocking your hardware you get the best results.

 

If you just use his advise for setting up / OC the hardware and skip the Win7 and FSX part then you will not get the best results, the choice is yours.  As is the choice not to use is advice, if you do not use his advice and you are happy with what you have, then great!

[Jim Young 2,356]

Jim, regarding JJ's advice, did you use an adaptive voltage, and avoid synthetic stress tests, or switch to fixed?

JJ recommends adaptive but avoiding stress tests that will increase the voltage, potentially too high.

One of JJ's recommendations is to set the Profile to XMP, change the core multipliers to 42 (or whatever overclock you want), leave everything else at Auto, save, and that's it.  That has worked for me very well but going higher than 42GHz is not possible.  I'm currently looking at another video (as I get time) detailing JJ's overclock up to 4.8GHz.  As NickN said (somewhere), a 4.2GHz overclock with the Haswell i7 4770K is equal to 4.6GHz on a Sandy Bridge overclocked system and right now I just want a very stable system so I can fly and enjoy the hobby.

 

Best regards,

[martin-w 3,235]

One of JJ's recommendations is to set the Profile to XMP, change the core multipliers to 42 (or whatever overclock you want), leave everything else at Auto, save, and that's it. 

 

Best regards,

 

 

Oh right, you'll be running at adaptive then.

 

You could also just flip the TPU switch on the motherboard of course.

 

As it doesn't run any stress tests, just relies on the Asus generic voltage, it may be a tad higher than you'd otherwise need.

 

Do you have the four way optimisation for your board, in Ai Suite? That will run a stress test as it auto overclocks. It can be stopped at any point, it's not necessary to let it overclock to the max. I usually overclock in the UEFI, but for lower overclocks it's pretty good, doesn't deserve the bad reputation many label it with in my opinion. 

[stans 703]

I think I have found a simple thing that improved loading times and overall smoothness in FSX.  I cleaned out my aircraft hangar. 

 

I was having problems with slow loads, constant loading and sometimes reloading of scenery after it had just finished loading.  I left all of the stock FSX aircraft, I know you don't want to be removing those from the sim, but all of the add on aircraft that I had accumulated, evaluated, lost interest in and abandoned were evidently taking up an enormous amount of disc space and slowing the sim.  I must have removed over two dozen aircraft, each with three to six liveries.  After removal, I defragged my FSX drive and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements.

[newtie 533]

 

 

so I went back to the overclock recommended by JJ at ASUS

 

Who's JJ at ASUS?

 

Mark

[Jim Young 2,356]

Who's JJ at ASUS?

 

Mark

I'm trying to keep this topic on-topic but here's your answer - http://rog.asus.com/tag/jj/

 

 

 

Do you have the four way optimisation for your board, in Ai Suite? That will run a stress test as it auto overclocks. It can be stopped at any point, it's not necessary to let it overclock to the max. I usually overclock in the UEFI, but for lower overclocks it's pretty good, doesn't deserve the bad reputation many label it with in my opinion.

 

Thanks Martin for the excellent info!  I do not have the ASUS Suite III installed anymore.  I did at one time and it took me a long time to get rid of it.  But, in any case, I would like to keep this topic on-topic and not about my system.

 

Best regards,

 

 

I think I have found a simple thing that improved loading times and overall smoothness in FSX. I cleaned out my aircraft hangar.

 

Well, this is about NickN's tweaks but reducing the amount of aircraft and scenery loading will dramatically increase loading times and make fsx run smoother.  This is why I recommended last year that everyone with photoscenery download the utility SceneryConfigEditor and then you can use that to enable only the scenery you will be using during a particular flight.  Photoscenery loads if it is enabled whether you are flying over it or not.  So, if you have photoscenery for Europe and flying in the US, you'll have the stuff in Europe loading and running while you are doing your flight in the USA.

 

Best regards,

[newtie 533]

This is why I recommended last year that everyone with photoscenery download the utility SceneryConfigEditor and then you can use that to enable only the scenery you will be using during a particular flight.

 

I found tremendous value with this app.

[bogace 0]

I recently used Nick's recommendations and surprisingly I now have a slower system. Most people are happy with his tweaks so it must be something I made and it happened after I tried to tune Win7. Iam not sure how I managed to do that but I am frustrated right now and don't know how to rollback all the changes I've made. Maybe formatting would be a better option for me... :(

[DickB 6]

Not saying this is your problem, but Nick does emphasise that you need to follow his guide exactly i.e make all the changes in precisely the order stated. Skipping steps can definitely cause issues.

[bogace 0]

Dear DickB, please do not get me wrong, I am not blaming anyone here. I also stated that it was probably my mistake but I tried to follow the exact flow and now seeking a possible solution to roll back. 

 

Its the nature of human kind I guess. we just try to have more and more all the time, although we have much at hand.

 

Maybe I should try to rechange everything following the opposite order. Ddo you think something at the services might cause such a problem?

[DickB 6]

I certainly don't have the skill to say, but my guess is that reversing the procedures may not put you back to square one.

 

You might try asking Nick himself over on Simforums. I've always found him very helpful.

[martin-w 3,235]

Yes, precisely what I did, to the letter of the law, some time ago.

 

Guess what, by just using my common sense my system runs great, just as good.

 

Yes, much of his advice is useful, but all of it, in precise detail... no, not in my opinion. Same applies to the obsession with defragging. In my opinion, after I tested, and friends tested, snake oil, a placebo effect.

 

The individual in question has made a great contribution to our hobby though, which is admirable.

 

I have no problem with others following such advice if it works for them though. Just my experience, my opinion after many years of building PC's and simming..

 

It's very easy when we have limited technical expertise to jump on the band wagon, follow the words of the presumably wise to the letter, believe absolutely everything, believe everything uttered MUST be 100% correct. You know what, that's never the case in regard to ANY expert. It's then very easy to convince ourselves, once we are in that mind-set, that we actually see the benefits. Do we, definitely, objectively proven? That's the question to ask.

 

Keep it simple is my advice. And use common sense.

[bogace 0]

Well, thank you guys for all the comments and advice. I guess I shall ask Nick as Dick pointed out. And yes, I feel I should have been more conservative messing up with all the things but you know how it is...

[OldMaintChief 7]

I do a "image backup" of my Win7 drive before making any changes to the OS. Make a copy of any file changes in FSX. I use Nick's suggestions on 3 computer installs all had better performance. What is exactly the problem?

 

Dave

[DickB 6]

The other tip I would offer for the future is to use a disk image backup tool like Acronis and take a complete backup before making any changes, so you can restore your system to what it was before. That has saved my bacon on a number of occasions.

 

Good luck !

 

Edit: looks like Dave beat me to it !