Improvements in sim performance

[Guest John_Cillis]

I am not sure where to place this post, since it covers all the sims I use, and some of them are not flight simulators.  I have noticed with the latest series of Nvidia drivers some good improvements in my sim performance.  When I run Windows update as recommended, I go thru a few steps to follow up with the update with my latest video drivers. 

A recent Windows update has really amped up my sim performance and the speed of my system in a big way.  There have been posts about uninstalling such updates and I just want to caution others--do not be a beta tester for someone making such posts, because all of our systems are not mirror images of my system or your system.  All computers are in a phrase I love 'Equally different" in that way because it applies to all my friends here too. 

Sometimes some really bad advice I have gotten here has yielded very positive results, because it wakes up something I was taught but might have forgotten, I call it Zen and the Art of Computer Maintenance.  We in our hobby have to have a Zen attitude, even though I don't know what that means, to work with the challenges that crop up from time to time so we can enjoy our various computer hobbies--for instance if I need a break from flying, because I take every flight seriously, I do not believe in crash landings, so if I have gimped my sim airplane, (insert pregnant pause)....

.......I take a break and go to either a Star Wars sim which is fictional reality anyway, or my fav sims, Road to Knoxville, F1 2019, No Limits Coaster 2, and Trainsim 2019, and finally Jack Nicklaus Golf, since my father and I learned how to Golf from Sam Snead's book and I learned navigation from the Star's, by HA Rey, which removed my fear of the signs of the Zodiac, when I saw the star Sirius, it gave me so much joy, as I really feel we will make it there someday and find intelligent life.

[Paul Deluca 172]

Hey John:  Good to see back in the forum.

[hs118 733]

Hi John,

The Windows Feature update 1903 did improve what is called the "foreground" performance of applications. Not only am I seeing it on my personal computers, we are also seeing it on our client's computers. 

There is no real magic to the performance increase. The processor is not faster or anything like that.

We surmise that it is a combination of better fixes for the BIOS vulnerabilities (Meltdown, for example) in combination with processor allocation between background and foreground operations.

Bottom line, yes, we are seeing some additional "peppiness" too. 

PS good to see you back.

[pracines 823]

4 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

We in our hobby have to have a Zen attitude, even though I don't know what that means,

If you look this up, you would be promoting the Buddhist religion. If you wrote the word Zen In quotes and lower case then maybe there could be room for (mis)understanding. The art of computer maintenance would suffice.

But I would go further to say, first start with a good PC. If one is going to build their own, they need to know what they are doing.

One thing for sure is, I have never seen 1 Jetline Computer customer say anything bad about the product or the service. My (2015) Jetline PC has been going strong through many versions of several flight sims and Windows 10 updates, and it does not fail me. Excellent speed and power through thick and thin.

....no "zen" required. ☺️

[troybilt 4]

Could you give the year of your computer and the specs. It would be of great interest as I have checked out Jetlines internet site a few times in the past. My last computer for flight sim was??? 2014. I have been using flight sims since 1998 and never, NEVER had what I would call a good system. The one I have now is a HP Envy. It was getting so bad that I looked up what was available in compatibility with the motherboard etc.. in there original advertisements. I bought a I7 3770 for it which was an expensinve $400 plus dollars. It was suppose to be an 3770k but I don't think that panned out. It has a turboboost from 3.5 to 3.9 which SEEMS to work. Then from the pea shooting gtx 645 I spent $5oo on a GTX680 which made ALL the difference. WHY DID I NOT BUY A NEW COMPUTER. Answer is it would take 2 months to put back and tweak everything, software and hardware to get working as EVERYTHING now finally purrsssss like a kitten. I am TOO OLD to spend ALL my time on piddling and NO sim time. My next move is to either build or buy $3000 worth of computer. My hardware is a mixture of CH products Saitek and Logitech and Elite Avionics. To get them all to work together was a feat in itself. Steves Dx10, Orbx, Megascenery 100 aircraft. Tweaks, fixes, tweaks, fixes, on and on. I have a 6 page brochure next to me just to remind myself of ALL the addons. I also have an original Microsoft forcefeed back stick. I use two different sticks and only the CH yoke which I have completely altered the Mechanics on the yoke and throttles. I just took apart the CH Throttle and restored it and I have TWO Saitek TPMS which I just took apart the old one to vamp up. The other one is Brand new and has minor spiking??? I am really getting interested in the Honeycomb products as a Yoko is $1000. FS Elite interviewed the creator of honeycomb which I watched on youtube an hour ago. WOW!! they are building Pedals and Avionics he said also complete systems but will not give anytime. THIS IS EXICTING as he said, " new product components and price is his motivation". He mentioned we are using a lot of 15yr old technology and his products are all upgraded new materials and technology for a price that is to hit the MORE AFFORDABLE market with highend quality. Austin Meyer tested the Honeycomb yoke and its on youtube. He said though it was not as high end as the yoko, its quality and FEEL were ALMOST as good. He was extremely impressed. Mind you there is a LOT of plastics compared to Yoko and Redbird etc... you do get what you pay for. Flight simming is still a lot less then the $100 plus an hour I was paying to fly 15 years ago.

[Jim Young 2,356]

3 hours ago, troybilt said:

Could you give the year of your computer and the specs.

Specs in his signature.

[Mace 2,014]

8 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

I have noticed with the latest series of Nvidia drivers some good improvements in my sim performance. 

I read the same thing, somewhere (Anand, Tom's etc.).  I'm usually the last person to do a driver change (or Win update) though, if I have a driver that is working well for me.

Windows 10 is in most ways so much better than Win95/ME/XP was.  Or Win 3.1 for that matter.  I'm still an old DOS guy.  Like the George Jones song, "I don't need no rockin chair...", well, "I don't need no GUI..."

[Jim Young 2,356]

There are still a lot of issues with the latest Windows Update and I always go to the following site to find out exactly what the problems are - https://www.tweakguides.com/

The top article provides some known issues and clicking on site updates provides a very good explanation.

[hs118 733]

9 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

There are still a lot of issues with the latest Windows Update and I always go to the following site to find out exactly what the problems are - https://www.tweakguides.com/

The top article provides some known issues and clicking on site updates provides a very good explanation.

Nice, @Jim Young will bookmark this one. PS I have the quieter audio issue 🙂

[Mace 2,014]

2 hours ago, Jim Young said:

There are still a lot of issues with the latest Windows Update and I always go to the following site to find out exactly what the problems are - https://www.tweakguides.com/

The top article provides some known issues and clicking on site updates provides a very good explanation.

I used to keep Mr. Ghazi's "TweakGuides Tweaking Companion" for reference.  Thanks for pointing that site out to me again.

[Jim Young 2,356]

I also have his site pinned in the graphics card hardware forum.