I've just upgrade my PC to run FSX better, but I'm getting lousy performance. My guess is I need to better configure my BIOS or overclock my machine, but I don't have a clue how to do this. Can anyone refer me to a site where I could get some tips? I'm guessing I need an "overclocker for dummies" site. Does anyone know if one exists?My PC specs are:Q6600XFX GeForce 680i LT SLI MotherboardGeForece 8800 GTX Videocard (with 750W power supply)WD 150GB 10K Hard drive.Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Any if I posted this in the wrong place, please forgive me as I'm new to posting.Cheers,Bill

What do you consider lousy performance?What's your clock speed on the processor?What kind of cooling do you have? (need good cooling to OC your processor)I assume you are running latest Nvidia drivers on the 8800. 768mb on the 8800 GTX right?XP or Vista?Where are your settings in FSX? (Autogen, scenery complexity, mesh res and complexity, etc etc etc...)Many people with similar specs to the limited amount you posted are getting pretty good performance... With a little more info, I'm sure you'll get your answer here at avsim :)

>Can anyone refer me to a site where I could get some>tips? I'm guessing I need an "overclocker for dummies" site. >Does anyone know if one exists?I'll spare you the questions and simply provide answers. The first link will guide you through overclocking your CPU, MBD and RAM, the second is a utility to overclock your graphics card, with a detailed users guide on the same page. Official Nvidia 680i Core 2 Duo Overclocking guide:http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/nforce...verclocking.pdfNvidia nTune Overclocking Utility:http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.18.00.htmlGood luck!

>I've just upgrade my PC to run FSX better, but I'm getting>lousy performance. My guess is I need to better configure my>BIOS or overclock my machine, but I don't have a clue how to>do this. Can anyone refer me to a site where I could get some>tips? I'm guessing I need an "overclocker for dummies" site. >Does anyone know if one exists?>>My PC specs are:>>Q6600>XFX GeForce 680i LT SLI Motherboard>GeForece 8800 GTX Videocard (with 750W power supply)>WD 150GB 10K Hard drive.>>Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Any if I>posted this in the wrong place, please forgive me as I'm new>to posting.>>Cheers,>BillNote that overclocking hardware can void a warranty.http://forums.guru3d.com/

Bill, even without overclocking, your machine is quite powerful. If you feel you are getting lousy performance, I'd be interested in knowing how you define "lousy". I have an E6600, which is overclocked mildly (from stock 2.4ghz to 3.0 ghz) and an ati x1900xt vid. Your processor is the same, but with 4 cores. The difference is likely negligable for fsx. Your video card kicks butt over mine. I have 4gb of system memory.On my machine, FSX runs well, and by well I mean 15-20fps with autogen dense and scenery dense, ai about 20%, no bloom, water effects on 2.0.How does my performance compare to yours. If you already get numbers similar to mine, your performance will not increase significantly from overclocking. If your performance is much lower than mine, you probably have a different problem. How much memory do you have? That could be the first place to look.Bob

>Bill, even without overclocking, your machine is quite>powerful. If you feel you are getting lousy performance, I'd>be interested in knowing how you define "lousy". >>I have an E6600, which is overclocked mildly (from stock>2.4ghz to 3.0 ghz) and an ati x1900xt vid. Your processor is>the same, but with 4 cores. The difference is likely>negligable for fsx. Your video card kicks butt over mine. >>I have 4gb of system memory.>>On my machine, FSX runs well, and by well I mean 15-20fps with>autogen dense and scenery dense, ai about 20%, no bloom, water>effects on 2.0.>Bob, I couldn't help but notice your post here.My setup is garnering the same (and better) frame rates than yours, and I don't think that should be. You have an E6600! I have an $80 cpu, and a video card that you probably can't buy anymore (probably worth $150 tops), and I'm getting low 20's with about the same settings you indicate.So 15-20 fps is all you are getting?RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

interesting, Rhett...I have seen instances of systems performing better than others, when it defies common sense on the surface. Perhaps if we compared more completely our setups we'd find a difference. For example, have you employed any tweaks? I have none, just a virgin install, other settings are perhaps an influence here.I tend to "force" my performance to 15-20 as I feel that's sufficient. Every time I upgrade, I move sliders further to the right, rather than see higher frames. dunno...

A recipe for overclocking 680i motherboards that you can follow without really knowing too much about it is here:http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=61146This is for the EVGA brand but there is not a lot of difference between nVidia 680i motherboards. I used this approach to overclock my system and it is quite stable. Note that I have a really efficient aftermarket CPU cooler and I have only pushed clock rates up a small amount. Heat is the overclocker's enemy. I echo others comments. You should be getting pretty good results from an dual core E6600 even without overclocking, let alone a quad core.Cheers,Noel.

The 680i chipset is very sensitive to Memory compatiblity. What Memory are you using?RegardsJim