Another Satisfied FSX SP2 Convert...

[n4gix 4,947]

After hearing about Ron's experience, I finally broke down and went shopping myself... ;)Today I got really lucky when I went into Best Buy. I went looking for the same computer that Ron bought last week, but wound up with a spanking brand-new computer that they only received yesterday... I think I got a pretty good deal, so I thought I'd share what it is with everyone... Acer Aspire M5630-U5209A Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2 GB DDRII Crucial PC6400 500 GB SATA ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 256MB DX10 Shader 4.0 USB Optical Mouse | USD Keyboard | USB Speakers This was on sale at the same price as last year's model. The only differences were two: Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 3 GB DDRII I added an "open box" 22" GE LCD Widescreen monitor to the purchase... Both the saleman and I were astonished that the simple addition of a monitor automatically gave me an instant $84 off the computer price, and an additional $36 off the monitor! Woo-Hoo!!! Computer: $749.99 - $84 = $665.99 Monitor: $199.99 - $36 = $163.99 Total with 8.25% tax = $898.45 I wanted to experience for myself what "Joe Average" would encounter with a new computer and FSX untweaked on this sytem.FSX installed and registered with absolutely no drama whatsoever.FSX SP1 installed likewise, drama freeFSX SP2 installed with no issues...The only "modification" I made was to add the magic lines to the fsx.cfg file to display the low-average-high-variance on the Shift-Z display.Loading on Rwy 30 at KGYY (just east of Chicago), at 1680x1050x32 resolution, full screen:Low 12 - Avg 27 - High 96 - v3% (locked at 28) with the default Baron 58. Just for fun I installed the Piper Twin Comanche and noticed no difference in fps or variance.I noticed no autogen "popping" at all, and flying over downtown Chicago, I noticed very little change in average fps... ;)All four processors are pumping away, with 2-4 doing all the "scenery loading."This ATI video card, even though it has only 256MB onboard, is ripping out the frames wonderfully.I even had a try with the DX10 Preview enabled, and noticed absolutely NO anamolies, like those the nVidia folks are suffering... IOW, no flashing runway textures, etc.I definitely want another GB of DDR2 PC6400 to go in this machine though. I really think it will improve performance more.I'll have some fun over the next few days getting Vista optimized and doing some modest sim tweaking, but things should only get better!

[bkeske 0]

:D A bargain shopper hey Bill?Sounds like a great deal. With the addition of the 8899GT to my Dell XPS410, a 'new' pulled E6700 Core 2 Duo (got it cheap cheap cheap), and 4GB of RAM....I think I may have tapped this thing out...for this box. I thought about going with the Quad myself, but it may not have be a wise investment all things considered (MB chip set limitations).....but it is tempting. I'm just tipping at about $1,100 invested (since I purchased the original XPS for $650 refurbished) and don't think the MB is worth much else....although I can always 'take' the pieces and parts with me....in comparison, I would say you struck a very nice deal ;)If I were you, I would get another 2GB of RAM, it's so cheap right now you really can't go wrong. I'm using 4 in XP and tweaked the FSX.exe to accept >2BG, and a couple switches to the boot.ini and I can definitely tell the difference. With Vista, you would probably see even a better 'return'.Good luck with the new machine Bill, and enjoy!

[timest 472]

Wow Bill, you got a great deal there! I also noticed a huge difference after tweaking Vista. Good luck ;) and congrats on your new system.

[n4gix 4,947]

>Wow Bill, you got a great deal there! I also noticed a huge>difference after tweaking Vista. Good luck ;) and congrats on>your new system.I was rather astonished to see the price of the Q6600 in Tiger Direct's latest flyer is $299.99... that's nealy one-third the cost of the entire system I bought!

[n4gix 4,947]

>:D A bargain shopper hey Bill?>>Sounds like a great deal.Considering that the MSRP is $3000, I'd say I got a "good buy!" ;)BTW, I just discovered that this has a new hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD drive included... Just what the world needs, another DVD format! :-lol

[dolph98 24]

Nice! This is really fun movin' on up. I just upgraded myself and have FS9 installed and fully tweaked. What a difference from a 3.2GHz P4 man! I am learning slowly about Vista. Just installed FSX and am ready to give it a whirl.Could you please post your Vista tweaks that work so I might glean some new knowledge? This is a lot to learn and I miss my XP Pro. I am getting used to it though since I'm on this thing 18 hrs a day while on vacation...

[n4gix 4,947]

>Nice! This is really fun movin' on up. I just upgraded myself>and have FS9 installed and fully tweaked. What a difference>from a 3.2GHz P4 man! I still have my P4 3.2 machine running. I loaded the same settings file I used for the new machine to the "old warhorse P4" and......it barely managed to run at all, low 2.1fps - avg 4.3fps - high 6.3fps :-erks >Could you please post your Vista tweaks that work so I might>glean some new knowledge? This is a lot to learn and I miss my>XP Pro. I am getting used to it though since I'm on this thing>18 hrs a day while on vacation...Well, as soon as I make some! The only thing I've done so far is disable UAC completely and DEP as much as possible (limited to program/system files).

[Mace 1,902]

>>Well, as soon as I make some! The only thing I've done so far>is disable UAC completely and DEP as much as possible (limited>to program/system files).Is this pretty straightforward to do? I am probably going to Vista in a few months and I will want to tweak it for sure then.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]

Yes-it is quite easy-and one of the first things I did too.I also made the upgrade for $1100 a few weeks ago-and am also elated.Mine: Intel core 2 duo E6750, 4 gigs ram, 8800gt, asus pk5I plan to switch to vista 64 as soon as Jean Luc makes his stuff complatible (Sorry David -I am gonna wait a little longer).http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Geofa 108]

Bill-it might be interesting to compare the vista ratings on our new machines.Mine came out a 5.5-I am curious...though not sure that rating is a great benchmark.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[dolph98 24]

All I had to do to bring my 3.2GHz machine to its knees (in FS9) was to enable aircraft and ground scenery shadows. I always used nHancer to do the antialiasing and such outside the program. All sliders were maxed except cloud settings. I was getting 21FPS almost everywhere even with weather. This was very flyable. It got very smooth when I overclocked it to 3.4GHz. This Dell cuts through all of it and gives me 21FPS everywhere with shadows on. All details are maxed. Haven't messed with cloud sliders - I don't need to since everything looks great with AS6 running.

[dolph98 24]

Well, I couldn't wait cuz I have too much time on my hands. Danger is my middle name. Time will tell if this was the right thing to do but I did the following stuff - the jury is still out whether I will keep these changes - some or all.General Notes:__________________________________________________________________________________________Windows + Pause/Break gives system info and access to some system tools and stuffWindows + r and type in a program and it will run directly without drilling down menus Windows + r + perfmon opens a great utility to see who's using what Windows + r + calc opens the calulator Windows + r + sidebar opens the sidebar without the program running at startup and so onPerformance tweaks:__________________________________________________________________________________________Changed settings per http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/59886-ha...eed-boosts.htmlDisabled Vista defragInstalled IOBit Smart Defrag (free and works well)Disabled Indexing by disabling Windows Search service in Administrative ToolsDisabled SupportSoft Sprocket service (Dell support) and used performance information to disable it from starting upFollowed some tweaks from http://tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/index.htm: Enabled auto login - may reenable it since wife uses the machine Tweaked the start menu to classic - didn't like it so put it back as the new one is kinda neat! Disabled the sidebar from startup Adjusted the page file size to 4603 permanent on C:Disabled Superfetch - this seems to have stopped the 15 minutes of disk thrashing - I am a shortcut kind of guy so this seemed pointless, time will tellDisabled UAC (User Account Control) through User Accounts in control panelTurned off that stupid red cross heart that is telling me that UAC is disabled - turn back on by opening Security Center from control panel and "Change the way Security Center alerts me"Video tweaks:__________________________________________________________________________________________Installed Nhancer and tweaked both FS9 and FSX - removed the executables from the built in profiles and made new ones pointing to the executables.Observations__________________________________________________________________________________________Opening some programs takes a little more time but is still faster than the 3.2GHz machineHard Disk still blips every second or so constantly but doesn't seem to thrash anymore which is a reliefI seem to have lost program registration info and setup info - Quicken2002 forgot its setup as did TextPad. This seems to have happened after I disabled UAC or perhaps Superfetch. Don't know which yet. Quicken2002 is nagging the #### out of me.

[dolph98 24]

OK, well I'm sorry to stomp on this thread but hopefully my experience will shed some light on Vista for others. The nagging and program registration problems got to be too much for me already. So I have undone some of the above changes in order to stop my heart from palpitating and my anger to remain under control. I thought I messed things up but I undid the following changes and all things are back to normal and the system is still smokin' fast:Turned on the stupid red cross heart that tells me that something is wrong with system security.Reenabled UAC (User Account Control) through User Accounts in control panel - All nagging stopped both in Quicken2002 and TextPad after this.Reenabled Superfetch - This is definitely the cause of the HD thrashing. Will wait some time to see if this slows down once things settle out.Disabled auto login for security purposes since the wife uses the machine.Once again, I'm sorry and I will only post useful, valuable tweaks and not prematurely. (I need a chalkboard so I can write this 100 times). Now it's back to the subject - FSX.d.

[MatthewS 761]

Nice system and great value!About a month ago I upgraded my existing box (AMD 3500) to:-Quad core Q66004GB Corsair XMS Ram2 x 500 GB drives in RAID 1 (Mirror) configurationInno3d 8800GT 512 MBGigabyte P35 motherboard About $1200 AUD. Like you I get excellent performance, no blurries or stutters and very smooth. LDS 767 is still a bit of a FPS hog though, but still get 20 to 30fps in VC.As always a regular disk defrag helps in keeping the system running smoothly.

[n4gix 4,947]

>Bill-it might be interesting to compare the vista ratings on>our new machines.>>Mine came out a 5.5-I am curious...though not sure that rating>is a great benchmark.Mine shows 4.6 at present. What brings it "down" is the graphics card. It is obvious from my testing thus far that for once the CPU is pushing out more than the GPU can handle......that said however, I'm more than satisfied at the moment. I plan to get one of the new ATI cards due out in late January...