Upgrading, blurries, new flight controls,& bargains

[Geofa 108]

I just upgraded from my 4 year old P 3.2, 7600 512 nvidia, 2 megs of ram system to a Intel core 2 duo e6750 @2.66 ghz, 8800 gts 512 ram,asus p5k premium moboard, and 4 gigs of ram.Cost of upgrade-$970 Us. A month ago I bought a 24" lcd monitor for $270-if I include this in the total upgrade about $1300 US- I probably could have done it cheaper myself but used a local guy I owed favors to build my system.A year ago with my substandard system I was able to run fsx with an average of 15-25fps with highs of 35 and lows of 9 by turning all the way to the left-autogen, ai traffic, water, and leaving lightbloom/shadows off. It didn't seem like a huge compromise considering my aging system, and I didn't want to upgrade right away as I have found waiting at least a year usually gives good value and reasonable performance for the fs series. Everytime I added a new scenery add in or aircraft a few fps got robbed and it was starting to plod a little.Now-I am running with full autogen to the right, ai traffic 30% on all accounts, water 1x (I just don't like the water except a few rare exceptions), and bloom and shadows still off (don't get into these). I now get and average of 25-35 fps with highs over 40-and the rare lows around 13-14.The only tweak I have applied is to turn autogen buildings completely off-I just don't like the way they look-and with the scenery complexity slider all the way to the right one gets airport/city buildings-but at altitude the highres texture buildings, especially with gex just look more real to me blending in with the trees.I have found on my system having the buildings on/off makes no difference to performance though-I just do it for looks.I have seen no blurries-none! This includes flying the f16 at 1000 ft. agl-none! I am also running afx, gex, fex, utx, mytraffic, and add in aircraft with the quoted fps numbers above. When I added these items to my old computer it did start to bog down-not on the new one!To say I am delighted is an overstatement. This is the performance and looks I get the majority of flying-including running afx,fex, gex,utx:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181520.jpgA word on blurries. My original old system had a 19" lcd monitor and I never saw the blurries there either. When I got my 24" monitor-they appeared and could not be got rid of. Of course I was now running at a much higher resolution than before. Now with the new system-I have none-zip!Here is Seattle with 100% commercial mytraffic turned on-lower fps but still flyable-though I would not fly with 100% traffic myself:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181522.jpgI consider this a pretty modest cost for upgrade considering 10 years ago I was paying twice this for a hardware upgrade. Compared to real flying?-let's not go there!The other upgrade I made however, I consider just as important. I have added a saitek yoke, elite avionics panel 2000, and goflight gf-lgt to my already Baron quad and ch rudder pedals.Total cost-about $1000 US again. Total upgrade now-about $2300-still well less than I paid to upgrade from a 486 33 to to a 486 66 some years ago so I could get 8-10 fps on fs95! Let's not even factor inflation in!!!Talk about a jump in reality! No keyboard/button/mouse presses, and I now have at home a very real feeling copy of a Baron.I have maintained half the flight model is in the controls-I have had about a 80% increase in this area now. The saitek yoke gives a much heavier feel, is about the size of a Baron yoke. Dialing freqs on hardware instead of mouse clicks-and actually seeing "3 green" goes a long way towards reality.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181523.jpgDx10? I like the water in some instances and a few other things-I wouldn't upgrade specifically for it-but I find I am leaving the sim running in this mode rather than dx9. I expect better drivers to solve the small annoying issues that still remain.Sometimes the water looks incredible (for ocean/large lakes) though-and I'll take a little lower fps for it:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181521.jpgIn any case-an extremely happy camper. This will easily hold me for another 2 years till fs11-then I will wait an additional year and upgrade again! http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[ryanbatc 12,832]

Nice setup, I was wondering, in that SEA pic, you lock your fps at 40, yet it only achieves 15ish.... I believe you want to lock at a much lower number, say 20 or even 15, that way the PC always gets what it needs (at least 15)

[Geofa 108]

Yeah-still experimenting with the locking-however-I'd never run with 100% commercial traffic as I did in the shot-which means higher fps...I find locking at 20 keeps me at 20-but locking at 40 gives me 35 most of the time-except Seattle with 100% ai.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Palebushman 0]

Hi Geoff,Just love those photos of your Eaglesoft Twin Comanche and, your flight deck, that's awesome! Great to see that your investment in a new upgrade has brought you the results you were looking for too.Okay, it's not perfect in FSX, but if you have still got your FS9 on board, try giving that a whirl too, it will really make you spin with joy.PS, I never realised just how much was going on in the background of FSX until I right clicked on the outside cockpit scenery and watched just one of the many AI aircrafts doing their thing.... amazing!!

[Guest Beetle]

geofa,killer setup- i always wanted a full hardware setup.question: it appears in the pic of your home cockpit that the props are not set "together"; i.e. it appears one prop is set at one setting and the other is set at something different.i am new to twins, but that seemed odd to me. is it just the pic or are the props set to different settings?

[Ted Striker 338]

Geofa,Very nice system and a very informative description of your upgrade results. Thanks for posting this. I'm about to make a similar upgrade.TedP3.0, 6800GT-256mb, 1gb Ram DDR 400

[Mace 1,904]

Not with his rig. I would lock at 25 or even possibly 30 depending on what my experiments determined. If I entered a few of the "BAD ZONES" like Seattle or New York, if my fps dropped to 15, it wouldn't cause me concern.Now, if I was CONSISTENTLY dropping to 15 or 20, and locking at 25 or 30, then that would concern me, and I would probably want to drop my frame lock to better match.But if it were me I would not hamstring myself with a lower than needed framelock just because I got 15 fps in my worst-case-torture-test scenario like Geof had at Seattle.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

[Mace 1,904]

I assume you're running FEX, because your lake water color in the last pic looks like it.You know Geof that DX10 water--it looks great--but there is something about it...it looks..."greasy"?I don't know, maybe it's just me.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

[Geofa 108]

It is true in a real bird too. After usage the controls get a little off and rarely are the knobs in perfect sync. e.g. to make each prop maintain 2500 rpm the knobs may end up a little out of kilter. When we put our new engines on a year ago we reset them-but after a year they are a little off already.I have a little trouble getting my throttle calibrated perfectly-so this effect is even a little more overdone in the sim-never the less good practice!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Geofa 108]

I agree water is not there yet-why I usually run at 1x low. It looks especially comical in areas of the midwest that are dotted with small lakes-the effect really doesn't work. On large bodies of water it can look good-I also agree with the grease-but sometimes it does look awfully nice-especially with the cloud reflections.By the way-here is a shot of the real lake (Lake Chelen,Washington) I took a couple months ago. The compare is not too bad!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181564.jpg

[Geofa 108]

Thanks again for telling me how to do the flap switch on the Go flight unit. I got mine for half price on ebay-but was quite disappointed with the flap switch which was either halfway broken or not very good.$4 for a new switch at Radio Shack and it is now perfect. I wouldn't have known how to do it without your help.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Geofa 108]

Give us a report when done-I hope you are as pleased as am I.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[rpowers 5]

Geofa,Thanks for posting your upgrade.Just went to see my computer guy and showed him your post.He's been working with me on this.His question is why core 2 duo versus core 2 quad?He is using 2.4 duo and 2.4 quad which is only 60.00 more.I know yours is 2.66duo which he says is about 100.00 more than 2.4 duo.I think I have read where Quad core is no advatage with FS,but this is all beyond me.Thanks,Ron

[Geofa 108]

I just found a price range I was comfortable with and this is what my guy recommended. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[rhodges 6]

Congratulations on the new system.How true concerning the prop settings and the "perfect sync". One of the things I miss real world and feel is missing in FlightSim is the ability to set the props by sound (for want of a better word, the yah yah cycle. I am sure you know what I mean.) By sound there is no such thing as out of sync props in FlightSim that I have been able to discover and I miss it.Happy flying:RTH