I just took delivery of a new "sim computer" three days ago and have just this afternoon managed to make some time to start setting it up. Gah! What a massive PITA this is going to be, but I sincerely hope the end result will be worth the bother.

My main "development computer" suffered a complete failure of the C drive, and I lost several years worth of archived emails. While this isn't the end of the world, a lot of the information I needed (key, passwords, etc.) to reinstall stuff is now gone.

My plan is to get the new "sim rig" running with at least FSX:SE and P3Dv4 running, then rework the "old sim" to be my new development machine. I got Max2012 installed on it the other day, so that's done at least.

This is the new sim computer's specs:

Quote

CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Supreme Liquid Cool SLC8600A Desktop Gaming PC (Intel i7-7700K 4.2GHz, NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti 11GB, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 3TB 7200RPM HDD, 240GB SSD, 802.11AC WiFi, Win 10 Home)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XGXDXZF/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

At least Steam is proving it's true worth since I don't have to mess with CDs/DVDs (which is good because this new "hot rod" doesn't have an optical drive at all, nor is there any provision for adding one, or any more hard drives for that matter! I bought an external USB DVD drive for those things that I'll have to install from such media.

Fortunately, Win10 so far at least isn't being the PITA I had feared. It took only a few minutes to configure it for minimal spying ability, and sort out which monitor was primary, etc. While typing this Steam is busily downloading FSX:SE and ATS. I'll worry about ETS2 later when I have the "old sim" connected back to my LAN so I can transfer my custom mods and more importantly my profile(s). I really don't want to start all over again...

In any case, I'm anxiously looking forward to seeing how well this new machine is going to run P3Dv4 and FSX:SE!

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by n4gix
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Congrats Bill, fine looking machine with lots of horsepower.

Two things I cannot live without on a new W10 system - PCDecrapifier to get rid of the installed garbage and Spybot Anti Beacon to monitor w10 and keep the spying to a minimum.

Enjoy - except for a few quirks, I'm beginning to like W10.

Vic

Good luck with your new machine! 

 

1 hour ago, Hubinsc said:

Congrats Bill, fine looking machine with lots of horsepower.

Well, FSX:SE is screaming along at >100 fps in downtown Chicago with all sliders set on "Ultra" (far right). Of course I haven't installed any 3rd party aircraft or scenery yet either.

ATS and ETS2 are stunningly beautiful with nary a hiccup thus far.

41 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

Two things I cannot live without on a new W10 system - PCDecrapifier to get rid of the installed garbage and Spybot Anti Beacon to monitor w10 and keep the spying to a minimum.

Enjoy - except for a few quirks, I'm beginning to like W10.

Vic

What is interesting is that Cyberpower left off all the usual "bloatware" but did include the disks in case I should be silly enough to install them, which makes the utter lack of any optical drive all the more ironic!

I'll have to suss out Spybot Anti Beacon and get that setup ASAP.

10 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Good luck with your new machine! 

Thanks. I'll be downloading P3Dv4 while I go eat dinner. I can't stay up too late though since I've got to drive 45 miles through downtown Chicago to Evanston, IL so I can be "net control" for the 4th of July Parade, then stick around until about 9:30 so I can handle the communications/coordination for the fireworks!

+1 for Spybot Anti-Beacon

Hey Bill...the France add-on for ETS2 is on sale on Steam until 10AM Wed. 

Don't turn your back on Win10...it'll surprise you, and not in a happy way.

Cheers

 

1 minute ago, w6kd said:

Hey Bill...the France add-on for ETS2 is on sale on Steam until 10AM Wed. 

Don't turn your back on Win10...it'll surprise you, and not in a happy way.

Thanks. I've had France since the day it was released. I'm definitely not happy at all at the moment though...

...while I was in my front office waiting for Steam to finish downloading/installing ETS2, something apparently happened while my back was turned. I walked in and notice black screens (no signal). The computer had shut itself off, and now will not reboot at all. In fact neither monitor is even getting a signal so they remain dark...

Ugh.  Spent all day yesterday recovering from a combination of insults...Win 10 anniversary update borking my SLI video config, and then the FSDreamteam software decided to migrate all my FSDT and Flightbeam sceneries to a new place and structure without warning or giving me an option otherwise, scrambling a very finely crafted scenery configuration that took me months to perfect.

There's gotta be an easier way...

 

If it's new and was delivered to you, there's a good chance some cards were jostled in transit and have popped loose upon heating up a bit when it was powered up, I'd check everything is properly seated on the motherboard.

47 minutes ago, Chock said:

If it's new and was delivered to you, there's a good chance some cards were jostled in transit and have popped loose upon heating up a bit when it was powered up, I'd check everything is properly seated on the motherboard.

Alan, I did that before ever plugging it in. Well, I was being nosy and wanted to see how well it was put together. The soft button to turn it on/off was unresponsive, so I had to switch it off with the power supply's master switch. When I enabled power again, the soft switch lighted up (without me pressing it!) and the computer tried to start. Once past the BIOS message, the screen went dark again...

Well... THIS is truly embarrasing! When the computer shut itself off (I've got to find that setting and disable it!), unbeknownst to me, my 42" TV/Monitor shut itself off after the signal was lost for X number of minutes...

...and I didn't notice. Since I'd set it up to be the primary display, of course I couldn't see anything!

The new machine is up and running. Thus far I have FSX:SE, Prepar3Dv4.x, FSW, and all of my SCS games installed. I also have Max2012 installed, just in case I need it later.

All of them run really, REALLY well, but I have noticed that the 1080Ti does seem to have a problem handling the intense graphical demands. I need to invest some time in learning how to tweak the fan settings to keep it from screaming in agony...

The overtemp "screech" is rather annoying!

32 minutes ago, n4gix said:

I need to invest some time in learning how to tweak the fan settings to keep it from screaming in agony.

Bill, get MSI Afterburner: https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner - as far as I'm aware you don't need to have an MSI graphics card to use it. In the settings, under the Fan tab, you can set a custom fan control curve. Plus, it can show all sorts of useful data about CPU and GPU temps and loads with little-to-no system performance penalty.

Thanks. I've been using this on my "old" sim machine, but couldn't remember the name.

I second the motion for using MSI Afterburner to control the video card fans.  It works great on my EVGA 560Ti SOC.

And I don't think Windows 10 is all that bad.  I have Windows 10 Professional 64-bit on my office laptop and it has been just fine, especially on a SSD.