My new PC, which runs under XP Pro, has a fairly high-end spec: Intel CoreT 2 Quad Core Q9450 (2.66 GHz, 12 MB cache, 1333 MHz); 4 GB DDR2 667 MHz Memory; nVIDIA GeoForce 8800GT.But on looking at XP Task Mgr, I see FSX is using 24% of CPU resource even while in Paused mode. Is that to be expected please? Seems astonishingly high to me. And that jumps up to 90-98% if I start something like slewing forward reasonably fast.I like to have several major apps open at once (like Firefox, Google earth, etc) but if FSX is consuming 98% I'm surprised they work at all!Any advice/insights would be much appreciated please.-- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

If im testing things in FSX, I can run loads of applications as well as FSX if its in windowed mode! Im sure it spreads teh load over all 4 cores? p.s I highly suggest overcloking, you will then breeze in FSX!

If flight sim is UnPaused, it will always use 100% of the 1st core, that's just the nature of this type of app (well, if the FPS is capped, this might not be true), the other cores will be used in varying amounts as data is loaded on background threads. Other apps loaded will "steal" whatever CPU resources they need from the FSX process.If flight sim is Paused and visible, it will use less CPU resources, but it still has to generate the 3D scene X times a second, which takes CPU resources.If flight sim is Paused and minimized, it will use very little CPU resources (since it isn't simulating or generating the 3D scene in this case).Windows is a pre-emptive multi-tasking OS, its designed to share the CPU among several apps at the same time, even if one of them will use how ever much CPU it can get. Of course, having those other apps running will use up other resources (memory mostly) that can affect flight sims ability to run if they use too much of them :->

I do not wish to intrude but..I have always heard that of you open task manager and set FSX.s or any desired running program priority to HIGH, it will run better. I never have seen a difference.Any truth to that?

In my FSX testing experience, no.Gary

>I do not wish to intrude but..>I have always heard that of you open task manager and set>FSX.s or any desired running program priority to HIGH, it will>run better. >I never have seen a difference.>Any truth to that?Yes you can, but you have to be careful. If you set priority too high, you could lock up your system, as I/O resources, such as keyboards won't be able to get the CPU they need.Edit: As far as making a difference, I can't say, because I never tried it, because of the above limitation.

Setting it to a higher priority only sets it to use resources, clock cycles etc, from the processor before other threads if possible. In testing it does nothing for performance and if there are any feasible and assumed performance enhancements, it would be that it would eliminate any 'sticks' with the flightsim. But I haven't noticed any performance increases in past testing.

Gary is 100% spot onthe answer is, noFSX works on a priority system and it was designed to 'give and take' as it runs for a reason.. when you start raising priority to the app you are throwing that balance off. In that, it can have:a the opposite effect and cause problems under the right circumstancesb no change at all