Hi all,I wanted to post this in appreciation for David's post that is getting buried so some probably aren't noticing it. His suggestion to uninstall FSX and start with a clean slate and reinstall FSX and then SP1 and then SP2 plus the Vista tricks, has made a huge difference for me. I then installed UTX, FEX, and GEX. FSX now runs smoothly for the first time and has not CTD'd once (knock on wood). Thanks again David.

Thanks for your kind words Bill, they are very much appreciated :--)The credit goes to Avsim that hosts the best forums for our community and to all the fellows simmers that make them alive, interesting and fun.Best regards,David Roch

What Vista tricks?I think I'm gonna try doing this once I get my hands on my machine.

>Thanks for your kind words Bill, they are very much>appreciated :--)>The credit goes to Avsim that hosts the best forums for our>community and to all the fellows simmers that make them alive,>interesting and fun.This is "proof positive" of just how room FSX takes up. Notice that even with 980MB cached, there's only 7MB "free..." Yikes! :-eekNote though that all four processors are busy, busy, busy...I'm annoyed. I paid $24 extra for "Next Day Delivery," but even soI still won't get my 4GB of memory until Monday... :-violin But, based on this, aside from the new memory, I'm definitely in the market for some "Vista tricks..." :)http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/9526/fs...anager01za2.jpg

Well I thought the cached RAM was available to apps. It's an option to turn down the amount cached.Are you on x32 or x64? I ordered 4gb, but only 3gb is used because of address limitations /grrIIRC, almost all of the memory is cached.

Bill,7 Mb free is not that bad!!Here is what I get with 4 Gig RAM with FSX launched: 4 Mb!!!(colours inverted to respect the max size)http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/539/17913121vj1.jpgVista is greedy in ressources and really needs 4 Gig but I have to say that with DX9 I never -or vary rarely- get CTDs, though and the physical memory used with FSX is always around 50%.

As you use the disk more of the 'unused' RAM becomes assigned to caching. So, if all of your memory is allocated to caching then you start a new application memory will be taken from the caching system making less memory available for disk and other caching. 3GB is good because even though FSX only uses 900MB or so the scenery data is loaded into disk cache as well so the second time you start a flight the load time is much quicker. There is also less disk swapping of course meaning less/no scenery loading type pauses. Windows caching is a dark art. I read that in XP there are literally thousands of caching subsystems in it!Steven.

>>But, based on this, aside from the new memory, I'm definitely>in the market for some "Vista tricks..." :)>Bill one tip that isn't the memory which is in use by FSX ;-)On Vista things are a bit different then on XP...they call it Superfetch and the system is supposed to have this behavior...Superfetch will manage your virtual and physical memory and will predict the applications used and reserve memory for it or when for example FSX is started release memory for the application...Actually you could bring down your running processes with around minus 8If you want to monitor the actually memory in use by your application use the processes tab...As for Vista 32 bit despite the 3gb boundaries indeed dual channel 4GB and Vista is very happy...As for tuning your system you always may sent me an email for sharing some knowledge...Cheers,http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/awf1/sign.jpg

>Are you on x32 or x64? I ordered 4gb, but only 3gb is used>because of address limitations /grrVista Home Premium X32...Once my match-paired memory arrives and is installed, then I'll be in a better position to begin optimizing/tweaking Vista a bit for a "best performance environment for FSX." Since this rig will likely never run anything except FSX, that should make the task easier... ;)

So wait, is virtual memory bad or good?

Virtual memory is mapped on the HD.It would be great for all of you to share your Vista tweaks!

>>Are you on x32 or x64? I ordered 4gb, but only 3gb is used>>because of address limitations /grr>>Vista Home Premium X32...>>Once my match-paired memory arrives and is installed, then>I'll be in a better position to begin optimizing/tweaking>Vista a bit for a "best performance environment for FSX." >Since this rig will likely never run anything except FSX, that>should make the task easier... ;)>>Curious why you went with Vista32 given you will have 4gb of system memory.I know certain design tools (such as TCalcX) require tweaking to get them working with a 64-bit OS. Perhaps gmax has issues as well...perhaps these are some of your considerations?I only ask because I too am contemplating a move to Vista. I do not want it to interrupt my design work, but I fear it will.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