New DELL : Will FS9+add-ons run incredibly well on this?

[Guest av84fun]

<>Save your $$. I just flew out of ORD and LAX i.e. lots of water and dense scenery (including photoreal scenery at LAX) and got 39.6-39.8 locked at 40 with full 3D default clouds from 500-10,000 agl. Smooth as glass...and I did it in the DreamFleet C310 which I couldn't even fly with my former P4, 1.7,512 rig.Sure you can CREATE a scenario with all sorts off add-on aircraft and scenery that would bog down a supercomputer I suppose but this thread asks whether the specified Dell system will work well with FS9 and the answer is a resounding yes! Regards,Jim

[Noel 4,499]

I do most of the time too, but admit you see it drop into the low teens on occasion. I'm almost always smooth as glass too, but occasionally dense cumulus will hit frames enough to cause loss of fluidity. I fly alot around water, so the issue is that NO MACHINE can handle full everything all the time. At least, that is my conviction. I can tell you right now, if your rig is doing 39.6, mine will be doing at least 31 or 32. And when mine is doing 12, yours is doing 16-17 probably. Put another way, if I am occasionally seeing low teens, you are seeing 39+, this is a 300+% increase in total throughput. No way. When you look at benchmarks on that P4 3.8 570 you are seeing increases in the neighborhood of 25-30% tops over the 3.5 I am using now. This is in other DirectX games. Or so it would certainly seem. Fact is, we do create scenarios that do, on occasion, bring in a cluster of processing demands that can take down any machine available to the commoners. It's just my opinion, but I'd still bet $$ on it.The other reality as we all understand is: one flight doth not establish an any situation analysis. And this is my only point, that there are situations that will take your machine down. Bring yours to the next convention, and we can get our wallets out and start betting!All in good fun, Noel

[Guest byoung]

Let's hope the performance and optimization are at the top of MS objectives for FS 2006.Barry

[Sartanius 399]

>I haven't yet tried to bring the rig to its knees with massive>amounts of (in my case, unwanted AI traffic) or too many cloud>layers etc.) But I can do steep turns over ORD or LAX and with>the fps locked at 45, I get a MINIMUM of 44.6.av84fun: My system would perform just as you state (and does) if I eliminate AI and tone down cloud details. However those features add the type of realism to this experience that I greatly enjoy, so flying without them isn't an option for me. I am willing to endure the occasional stuttering when taxiing and texture popping at altitude since environmental realism is a very important component for me. Outside of those problems the sim is totally smoooooth and a joy to behold!DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB)2GB DDR SDRAM74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) & 120GB SATA (D: )ATI Radeon x800 XT (Catalyst 5.1)Audigy 2 ZS Sound (latest drivers)MS Force Feedback 2WindowsXP Pro (SP2)DirectX 9.0c

[Sartanius 399]

>I think I understand your note although I find it mildly>amazing. The impact of FS generally on PCs defeats almost all>of us in one way or another, doesn't it? Unbelievable!Yes, very unbelievable. But I can live with this. Even with these problems the experience is better than it's been with previous versions for FS. For me it just keeps getting gooder and gooder :)>I am seriously wondering what kind of improvement I shall see>switching from my existing DELL P4 rig which is 2.53Ghz and>has a Ti4600 card. Having done massive amounts of tweaking>over a prolonged period of time, and having switched off anti>aliasing once again in 1600x1200 res, I generally get rather>decent performance in most modes and with most add-ons. Cap>is 22fps and it stays there till I hit dense cumulus when it>falls to a range of 6 to 12 as I pass through the soup.I believe you will be happy with the improved performance but don't expect a huge magnitude of difference. I believe the most noticable improvement will be smoothness followed by better performance in dense cumulus. The overall "look" visually will seem much better as well, at least it did for me. >My goal in getting a super high end P4 like the stuff I>outlined above would be to ensure something totally>smoooooooth even if frames are not necessarily 75/sec. But I>would hope for at least 30 fps all the time, if not 40. I do>find it slightly appalling that clouds can still impact a>hi-end PC with a massive video card such as yours. You will get your 30FPS all the time with occasional dips into the 20s in dense clouds. Clouds unfortunately will still bring the most powerfull rigs down.>And yeah I get your point, FS9 is still satisfying with your>rig. But it's like, whoa! when does this sim work beautifully>all the time and with everything?>>Answer: It probably can't be done.>>Or am I going overboard the other way now? (!)I actually believe it can't be done also, but folks chime in frequently stating "perfect" performance, all sliders maxed, full AI, etc. with FPS in the 50s. Again, go figure :) Oh, and BTW, my XPS Gen 3 is vitually silent. No noise problems at all and the CPU sits on a cabinet about 1.5 feet to my left at shoulder height. Yes, many complain about XPS noise... but I'm definitely not one of them! I love this computer and I believe you'll love yours! DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB)2GB DDR SDRAM74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) & 120GB SATA (D: )ATI Radeon x800 XT (Catalyst 5.1)Audigy 2 ZS Sound (latest drivers)MS Force Feedback 2WindowsXP Pro (SP2)DirectX 9.0c

[JSACKS 0]

Jim:You raise a potentially key point: actually, what ARE the advantages of a twin drive Raid 0 set-up for FS9? The response time of 10,000 rpm drives is a full third less than the standard 7200 rpm HD. So does a Raid 0 set-up provide a still faster and smoother sim?Thanks to all for comments. Really great thread going here. This is what the forum is all about!Thanks again and cheers for now,JS

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi JS and everybody else, I'ld second any remark about the AMD64's superior performance vis-

[Noel 4,499]

Jim I was the firmest of believers in trying to improve sim performance with a better HD subsystem. I put in Cheetah 15K.3 drives that, in their day (and still are actually) were certainly impressive performers, with average read times of around 5.8 ms and pretty much the lowest CPU utilization rates. Not sure it did a whole lot for me as for FS9, but I needed the drives for Gigastudio anyway, plus they are warrantied for 5 years. HDTach is showing *transfer rates* of around 80mb/sec, which is not highest end I don't think anymore. Unfort I have a U160 controller, so that limits the drives somewhat, probably not though in anything but the most demanding server environments.Noel

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

You'll love it. I have this system now. I have FS9 locked at 30 FPS and even with Simflyer's stuff it only drops to 25 a few times or so. Running under heavy cloud build-up with AS2004.5, my system might drop to 22 FPS, but then jumps back up to peak at the 30 ceiling any other time, in the air, on the ground, upon approach to the numbers...no matter!You'll love it. It was the best purchase I have made to date. The unit has worked flawlessly since it arrived!I have never thought that I would buy a pre-configured box. I have always built my own before this purchase. Would I buy Dell again? You bet. No complaints.Enjoy!Cheers!Mitch R.

[Guest av84fun]

<>Sorry but I can't admit to that. The lowest I've seen is mid 20s and that was because I had AOL running in the background!Other than that, I've not been below 35.<>Benchmarks on what machines with what exact specs and what exact programs installed? The only benchmark I care about is how my own rig is running which is exactly how I have characterized it.<

[Guest av84fun]

DITTO in every respect...except I haven't seen the 20s yet. The only diff in our rigs is that I have the x850.Isn't it FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!(:

[Guest av84fun]

<I am severely techno-challanged JS and the techies will laugh at this but my rudimentary understanding is that the cpu reads and writes to both drives simultaneously and therefore you get a faster action than you would get from a similar drive running at the same rpm.But, whatever, it works.Regards,Jim

[Guest Tim W]

Thst must have cost you a fortune! I upgraded my system just before Christmas and I looked at pretty much the same Dell setup you have, minus the speakers and with no monitor and an X800XT 256mb PCI card, it came to nearly 4000 euros! (In Holland)I had to reduce the spec to a Gen 3 XPS 3.4Ghz instead which was expensive enough!Mine runs FS fine, I'm sure you will be well pleased. I am not sure the ATI card is as good as an Nvidia though. Certainly not for multi monitor support. I run 2 monitors and if I drag panels over to the 2nd monitor the cursor starts flashing and strange things happen. I never had this with my old TI4800.Good luck with it.http://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair1.gif

[JSACKS 0]

Tim:In the U.S., there are DELL delas like you can only dream about in Europe. If you have the right coupon here, it costs about one half of what you paid. Anyway, I haven't bought it yet and am not yet fully positive about doing this deal.Regarding the video card, I feel safer/happier with nVidia myself because I know that stuff and it works brilliantly for me. It seems a lot of folks have had challenges with ATI Radeon cards in FS on various levels.JS

[Guest Tim W]

Hi JS,It's a lovely system nevertheless. And looks good too. Go on tell me how much are they asking for that system in the US then?Cheershttp://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair1.gif