Hi allThis all applies to FSX demo2 - pretty sure it should work in the retail too. You've probably noticed that when you turn the sound off (key: Q), the frame rate ups by a sizable chunk (about 6-7 fps on my box). So that got me thinking about how processor intensive it is to render the sound.But then it struck me - shouldn't my sound card (accelerator) be doing all this? I have been using my on-bard audio (on an Asus A8N), but I had an older budget Genius Sound Maker 5.1 (cost me like the price of a couple burgers) in my cupboard. So I plug it in, set up windows to use that instead of the onboard, and presto, my FPS are up from 13 (sitting on the runway at the demo default starting spot with gray and rainy weather) to a whopping 19 FPS. And the Genius card sounds a little better than the onboard audio too!Seeing as sounds cards are pretty cheap these days (you can find a nice one for $15-$40 on Amazon), maybe this is a good cheap upgrade option to consider?

Anythin that off loads CPU cycles onto something else like a dedicated processor is going to help. HAs anyone tried using two sound cards yet? - one to route ATC to headphones, the other for general aircraft sounds. I belive this is a newly introduced feature?Allcott

The soundblaster x-fi cards are supposed to give the user a 15% framerate boost over normal or onboard cards so they say. They have the most advanced sound processor around these days and take an enormous load off of the cpu. When i upgrade to a core quadro later this year or early next year ill be getting one myself. Onboard sound is the quickest way of robbing cpu power.

I was trying to activate that feature when I made this discovery (I thought my old genius card would be for the headphones) - I couldn't find the option for it in the setup. Will look later, but it may only be in the release version.

Thanks so much for this tip! I saw something in passing the other day about onboard sound robbing CPU cycles, but it didn't actually address the performance hit. That would be a good upgrade for my aged machine! Does it also reduce the crackling problem?

I didnt have crackling with my onboard, but I can take an educated guess and say that if the onboard audio were starved of a steady data stream (which would happen if the cpu has to do the sim and the audio), you would get crackling. What I can say for sure is that with the PCI sound card I am using now, there is no crackling or other sound artefacts - its allll good...

Yeah, this is pretty typical. Onboard sound usually uses the CPU to do all the "heavy lifting" and the sound chips do just the D/A conversion. This steals cycles away from the CPU. Seperate sound cards (like the Audigy or X-Fi, or others like that) have a full DSP chip in them that does all the processing, and this offloads that extra work from the CPU which can help in high CPU stress situations (like FS.)My 2 biggest recommendations for FSX are:1) have at least 2 GB RAM2) seperate sound card is a good thingOther than that, obviously, the more CPU you can throw at it the better. If you have an older Pentium 4 or a lower end socket 754 or 939 Athlon64, see if your motherboard can support a faster CPU. Those chips should be cheap now since they're older. Max out whatever your machine can handle.--2002cbr600f4i

>Anythin that off loads CPU cycles onto something else like a>dedicated processor is going to help. >>HAs anyone tried using two sound cards yet? - one to route ATC>to headphones, the other for general aircraft sounds. I belive>this is a newly introduced feature?>>>AllcottI'm gonna get a gerbil, a salad spinner and a couple of rubber bands and hook them all up to my CPU. Hopefully this will eliminate stutters in the VC. ;-)btw, if you try this tweak and something blows up, let's just hope it's not the gerbil :(

>HAs anyone tried using two sound cards yet? - one to route ATC>to headphones, the other for general aircraft sounds. I belive>this is a newly introduced feature?Yes. It's very cool. We even have it working here with real aviation headsets (Bose noise-cancelling). It's eerily similar to being in a real-airplane.

Before anyone goes off and purchases a dedicated sound card, I suggest that you do the sound on / off check (ie. Q) within FSX and see if you actually get a noticable boost with sound off. If you do, then an upgrade to a dedicated sound card will be worth it, otherwise stay with what you have if your sound processing overhead is otherwise neglible.The reason I say this is that my experience across a few systems has been different to date, in that I was getting neglible FPS drop in the first place with sound enabled and adding a dedicated sound card didn't make any difference in this regard. Maybe I have been lucky with low overhead onboard sound on my last few systems, but others may truly be a burden. As always with these things, YMMV but at least you can check your potential mileage with this one before you spend any money.Gary

>>HAs anyone tried using two sound cards yet? - one to route>ATC>>to headphones, the other for general aircraft sounds. I>belive>>this is a newly introduced feature?>>Yes. It's very cool. We even have it working here with real>aviation headsets (Bose noise-cancelling). It's eerily similar>to being in a real-airplane.where did you get an adapter for the headset? I have some Flightcom Denali's that'd I'd like to use, but I've never heard of an adapter to plug into my headphone and mic jacks...

Thanks, Gary!Another good tip!

"Other than that, obviously, the more CPU you can throw at it the better. If you have an older Pentium 4 or a lower end socket 754 or 939 Athlon64, see if your motherboard can support a faster CPU. Those chips should be cheap now since they're older. Max out whatever your machine can handle."Yep, mine is a P-4 with a 2.0GHz CPU, 400FSB. I can get a 2.8GHz for under a $100. Think it's worth it? I hate to put too much into this machine knowing I'll probably build one next year.Also, I have only 1 GB ram. Would I be better off to buy the RAM or the CPU? Or do I really need to do both?I am buying a new HD to put FSX on. I'd really like to do a dual boot system to cut out a lot of those background processes, but don't want to buy another copy of XP just to do it! (Can't find the originals...maybe didn't even have them as XP was pre-loaded on the machine).

One thing I have noticed with FSX demo2 muting the sound makes no difference to FPS unlike fs9 which gained a little with the sound off.Pretty impressive considering FSX has 5.1 sound, (which Is so good BTW)I'm using a SB Audigy card.John

>"Other than that, obviously, the more CPU you can throw at it>the better. If you have an older Pentium 4 or a lower end>socket 754 or 939 Athlon64, see if your motherboard can>support a faster CPU. Those chips should be cheap now since>they're older. Max out whatever your machine can handle.">>>Yep, mine is a P-4 with a 2.0GHz CPU, 400FSB. I can get a>2.8GHz for under a $100. Think it's worth it? I hate to put>too much into this machine knowing I'll probably build one>next year.>>Also, I have only 1 GB ram. Would I be better off to buy the>RAM or the CPU? Or do I really need to do both?>>I am buying a new HD to put FSX on. I'd really like to do a>dual boot system to cut out a lot of those background>processes, but don't want to buy another copy of XP just to do>it! (Can't find the originals...maybe didn't even have them as>XP was pre-loaded on the machine).>Hmmm.. That's a tough one... You really need to do both if you can swing it. From what I've seen FSX really like having > 1GB RAM to play in, and obviously more CPU is better. Just be sure that your MB really will support the faster processor (check the MB manual or the web page for that manufacturer for that board, it should say what the supported CPUs are.) If you can find an old P4 Northwood, those things were well known for good Overclocks, so you might be able to push it pretty high (like to 3.4 or something like that, with proper cooling of course.) I'd really suggest both here.I have to say, I'm amazed at all the complaining on these forums from people running what are 4+ yr old system technology machines because they're not getting incredible FSX performance. Gaming on a PC requires you to either constantly upgrade to play the latest games, or dump your system every 2-3 years and buy a new one (even sooner if you don't buy a high end one). It's not like this is something new... it's been like this since the first PC's came out!-- 2002cbr600f4i