Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Emile

Every Little Bit Helps

Recommended Posts

Hello,I read a long article on another forum by Mike McCarthy - it was about things to do to your computer that will help FSX. The main issue he addressed was DEFRAG. I have tried many defrag tools but I am now sold on one - Ultimate Defrag. It is the first one I have used that not only allows for Name/Folder Defrag but also allows folder and file manipulation into higher speed access areas of the drive. Along with the High Speed Access positioning, it allows selection of what it calls Archive files - these are areas/folders,files that are accessed infrequently. These can be selectively moved to the slowest access areas of the drive. His article suggests moving certain windows and FXS folders to the high speed access area. There are other suggestions but I found this one made the most difference on my system for FSX (AMD64 3500+ with 2 gigs of ram and two Nvidia 6800's in SLI). I also rely on Tweakfps for FSX to help set up the CFG file. I run this at the "IFR with AI traffic" setting. Most of the inportant sliders in scenery are almost at the top except for Autogen (middle).KSEA (my test area) with a default Baron runs at 20fps (up from 11). Helos at Hawiian locations run at 24fps (up from 16). My numbers may not be exact but the performance is much better. My goal for FSX has always been a "no stutter" 10-11 fps as a minimum. I believe that I am now above this - except for all of my Eaglesoft FSX addons which still seem to labor in FSX. They have the worst performance on my system and I have to turn sliders down (not to off but still down) to run them (Liberty and SR11). My FS9 runs at about 60FPS with Eaglesoft addons at 25fps. Just a comparison here.Hope that this helps someone - Cheers,Ron Sagel

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Seadog

Thanks for the news. I'd like to read the actual article. Could you post a link, or at least name the forum and thread name, please?-Seadog

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest dswo

Once you move files to a high-speed area of the disk, do they stay there? Or are they vulnerable to being moved the next time you defrag?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I use Diskeeper and im happy with it, but i decided to try out this "holy grail" ultimate defrag. No difference what so ever in fps, and honestly, why would there be.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hello,Interesting question - I'm no expert but does that imply that defrag has no affect on performance? In my case, it does. It is not staggering but once I moved the FSX areas that are accessed from my drive most ofen (scenry,texture) to a place where the heads require the least travel to access them my performance is better. I have used other defrag tools (O&O and Perfect Disk) but they did not provide the tools to specify relocation of specific files. I used this technique because the performance of my FSX was right at the line where I coould not use it due to FPS. I can now fly it from any airport(very close to "the line" at the big ones but it works.Ron Sagel

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

>Once you move files to a high-speed area of the disk, do they>stay there? Or are they vulnerable to being moved the next>time you defrag?You can set those files to not be moved the next time you defrag.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case


Rhett

7800X3D ♣ 32 GB G.Skill TridentZ  Gigabyte 4090  Crucial P5 Plus 2TB 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

>I use Diskeeper and im happy with it, but i decided to try>out this "holy grail" ultimate defrag. No difference what so>ever in fps, and honestly, why would there be.Because part of the issue with FPS and FSX is the fact that FSX spends a lot of cpu cycles looking for files.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case


Rhett

7800X3D ♣ 32 GB G.Skill TridentZ  Gigabyte 4090  Crucial P5 Plus 2TB 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hello R. Sagel,I read Mike McCarthy's article on Ultimate Defrag, and I can say that it was kind of a rambling treatise. I came away from it feeling bombarded by a mass of information--but nothing really stood out in it to me.So what is the step-by-step method to using UD with FSX? I take it is this:1. do a "consolidate" defrag first (????)2. do a defrag where you set up FSX, SCENERY, etc. dir's as high priority (????_3. do a defrag where you set PICTURES, MP3, etc. as low priority4. set up FSX, SCENERY, etc. to not be moved (???)RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case


Rhett

7800X3D ♣ 32 GB G.Skill TridentZ  Gigabyte 4090  Crucial P5 Plus 2TB 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest RonB49

>I use Diskeeper and im happy with it, but i decided to try>out this "holy grail" ultimate defrag. No difference what so>ever in fps, and honestly, why would there be.It's exactly because of this statement, "and honestly, why would there be" that I have been hesitant to post my experience with Ultimate Defrag. I installed and used FSX for about 2 weeks before I ran the first defrag and moved FSX to the outer tracks. I noticed an immediate increase in frames. Not earthshaking but enought to be noticable on my mid-range system.After installing some FSX add-ons, I did't really notice that the FR suffered but performace wasn't great. Knowing that my new add-ons weren't contiguous to FSX, I ran defrag again and again directed all of the FSX stuff to the outer tracks. And again I saw a frame rate increase.Why is this so? Any answer that I would give would be pure speculation or a wild guess. Perhaps it is because (as someone else on this thread stated) speeding up access frees FSX to devote more CPU cycles to image rendering. Whatever it is it seems to work for me.I don't know if there is still a trial version of Ultimate Defrag available or not, but if there is you wight want to give it a try.R-

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hello,What I have done : I have 2 HDDs,1/ I declared all files on HDD2 as "archive" , run UD ---> all files moved to middle of the HD 2/ I created a new "page file" (full size) on HD2, page file is now on the "performance" part of the HD23/ removed "page file" from HD1.4/ declared FSX scenery (located on HD2) as "high performance", run UD ; FSX scenery is next to Page file on HD2.5/ declare FSX folder on HD1 as "high performance", all other files as "archive" , run UD, FSX at HPerf position...Now you can still add files to the HPerf" position.I have beter FPS and smooth game in FSX.


Emile EBBR Z590 Aorus Elite, i9-11900K 3.5Ghz Nvidia RTX 3060, 16 GB Mem, SSD 1Tera + other HDDs, Dual Boot . Win11 Pro X64

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...