I just received/built a new system for my birthday. I have the following:AMD 4200 Duel CoreEpox MboardeVGA 7600GT 256Mb320 MB Sata ( FSX gets its own partition)1 Gb of Corsair MemoryFull CH gearCan anyone with a similiar system help me out with settings. I know that every system is different, but I am looking for a starting point in my custimization. Appreciate the help.Dreamflyer

BUMP

Best starting point is to let FSX set your initial settings and give that a try.Every setup is different, so just try increasing things a bit at a time, taking into account all the things you've read about that drag the performance down.Dreamfleet Project ManagerGreatest Airliners - DC-8Greatest Airliners - 727 Whisperjethttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...BANNER_PAUL.jpg

Suggested starting point...?I've got a much lower-end system than you (Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz, x1650 Pro 512 MB, 1GB PC3200). If find that FSX looks and plays great with the following settings (no tweaks except for the fiber and poolsize cfg lines).1280x1024x32AA checked (4x set in video card settings)AF selected (8x set in video card settings)Highest texture qualityAdvanced animations onDetail radius largeMesh complexity 80Mesh resolution 7xmTerain textures 1mWater 2.x lowScenery complexity denseautogen off (I'd always been "autogen or nothing" until FSX, when I find it looks better without it)Airline traffic to 25%, GA off, airport vehicles low, road traffic off, ships and boats 15%.highest quality aircraft setting (except for self shadows (off))If I want to run bloom (and I go back and forth), turn resolution down to 1024x768 (with 4x AA, it barely makes a difference), mesh complexity 50, resolution the next notch down (I don't remember...150something), traffic off. Then I can run bloom at the same frame rates (locked at 22). Actually, I find that bloom messes up the fps counter. I can say "15" but looks just as good as 22 with bloom off. Must have to do with the multi-pass thing.Earl

>I just received/built a new system for my birthday. I have>the following:>AMD 4200 Duel Core>Epox Mboard>eVGA 7600GT 256Mb>320 MB Sata ( FSX gets its own partition)>1 Gb of Corsair Memory>Full CH gear>>Can anyone with a similiar system help me out with settings. I>know that every system is different, but I am looking for a>starting point in my custimization. >>Appreciate the help.>>Dreamflyer>No expert here, but from what I understand, fastest disk access times are for files on the outermost portion of the hard disk. Any additional partition is created physically more towards the center of the disk, actually slowing read times. So, I am not sure I would go with a separate partition for FSX. A good defrag would be better. There is also a defrag program out there that allows you to move whatever files you want to the outer portions of the disk for faster access. It was worth a few fps for me. There is a lot more detail here:http://www.disktrix.com/ultimatedefrag/ultimatedefrag.htm

Thanks Everyone for the advice. One of the things I am trying is to keep FSX on its own partition so that I can keep it defragged. I have DiskTrix's Ultimate Defrag and love it. I have scenery and autogen subdirectories set to the highest priority and it is scheduled to defrag every night. I am going to start experimenting tonight to see how changes affect performance. Does anyone have an idea for a baseline flight or mission that works good for measuring performance?

>Does anyone have an idea for a baseline flight or>mission that works good for measuring performance?Make your own. I use Heathrow, one of the westbound runways that takes you over the castle...default 'fair weather'...midday...and USE THE SAME AIRCRAFT WHEN BENCHING. (I use the A321)Then I make my changes, compare, etc.I chose heathrow because 1) it's in a big city, so it will tax FSX performance to the max2) it has AISee, if figure if I can get acceptable performance at Heathrow, I can get acceptable performance anywhere in the sim. That's why I benchmark there.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

Before you mess with the settings, add another gig of RAM, FSX loves RAM and it makes a huge difference.

Definitely agree with the extra gig of ram. Very important!Lee

Agree too .. add another 1GB of RAM, and you will be very happy.Good luckRobert

No doubt-2GB of RAM will suit you better (it's pretty much the best starting amount for any Core Duo/AMD dual core, besides anything to do with FSX)I would also recommend going to 512MB of video, when you are able (at least an NVIDIA 7900 or similar ATI depending on your preference)

>I have scenery and autogen subdirectories set to the highest>priority and it is scheduled to defrag every night.I don't think that will matter, unless you are constantly adding files or making lots of changes, a single defrag after install should do just fine. The PC doesn't move files after they've been written/defragged unless you change them somehow...Defragging a fairly static install won't help much, if however you keep adding changing sceneries etc.. then you should really only need to do it right after the changes...

Good luck. I don't think a 4 GHz processor with all the cores in the world, 4 Gigs of RAM, and 2 GeForce 8800 GTX cards irunning in SLI mode is going to teach this dog new tricks. But hopefully, I'll be proven wrong. http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD