jordanal

I just ordered a EVGA GTX-285 which should be on the door-step this evening. I bought the non-oc version with the intention of doing it myself. I remember P. Taylor mentioning somewhere that FS will use all the pipes you can throw at it and with Nick's endorsement, it seems like a no-brainer; especially with my intentions of migrating it to an overclocked i7 rig later this year.Going from a non-oc 9800GTX 512mb to this 1GB board on my current rig, my hope is, it will immediately help in high-end add-on airports such as Imaginsim Atlanta, with my AI collection turned up, and a better running PMDG / LDS aircraft experience.

For testing, disable any CPU Fan speed control or throttling in the BIOS (or software) so that the fan can run full speed (verify RPMs in BIOS too). Also, check your 12v rail in the BIOS (or software) and make sure you're within specs. My thinking is, some fans don't like to be run at slower than designed speeds which in some rare cases, may cause some resonant frequency noises in the bearings. Otherwise, it sounds like a bad fan.

Yea, I'm not expecting a large FPS increase, just a more fluid experience with my existing FSX Server rig due to the increase in RAM and the number of pipes.

I just ordered an EVGA GTX285 1GB card from Newegg this afternoon. I've been waiting for the price to drop for the past few months but it seems they're not droping much any more so I finally took the plunge. Its for my FSX Server rig listed in my Sig with the intention of migrating it to an i7-build later this year. I wanted the larger RAM for my 24" 1920x1200 display as well. Now I just need to find the EVGA overclocking tool and spin it up a bit.

Direct Wind Control and Smoothing (Options -> Wind tab)

Bob,I just reported a similar experience in a ASA/RC thread a day ago or so. In that thread, I theorized that DWC is agrivating RC and its internal approach code. Try turning off DWC in ASA and see if it makes a difference to RC and arrival weather. It did on my wide-client...Regards,

Hi Jim et al,I had a chance to run b394 several times over the past few days, in conjunction with all my other addon-apps on my wideclient. Until proven otherwise, I am now of the opinion the ASA DWC mode is probably incompatible with Radar Contact (RC). When using DWC mode, RC still stalls and delays responses begining in the approach corridor, about 80nm out from the arrival airport; and gets worse as the approach continues. It's as if RC gets thrown into calculation-loops because (my theory) only the global weather is set by DWC and perhaps RC needs local station data for its arrival calculations.It is my undertanding from years of using RC, that it is about this time in the approach, that the RC code begins looking at the arrival weather and AI to determine which direction (near-side or far-side) RC will be active. This is also about the time when RC determins at what altitude your aircraft will cross the 40nm fix, which also gets confused when DWC is active.When I disable DWC and rely soley on FSUIPC (reg'd) smoothing, I get no such delay in RC responses or performance, so at this point I beleive the use of DWC conflicts with the arrival portion of the RC code. I think you'll have to work directly with JD over in the Radar Contact forum to see if there are any solutions to the DWC side of the problem.Regards,

Robert,Re-read the sp1 b394 beta2 post at the top of this forum or the included Readme file. They have recommended FSUIPC4 settings. Good luck...

Hi Jim, Damien, JD, et al;I am noticing this now as well. With both ASA (355) and RC4 running on my wideclient, RC becomes very unresponsive during the approach and landing phase. I made sure ASA was running with 'High Priority' unchecked. I don't ever recall this issue with ASX, or even possibily ASA v1. Durning the landing phase, RC was taking 10 to 15 seconds to respond to a key-command and several times it had issued the 'cleared to land' guidance while I'm crossing the threashold, 50ft before touchdown.What I find interesting is that RC is using WideFS and ASA is using Simconnect, but I swear, its as if ASA starts clobering the RC process thread or something. Also curious is why this would rear its ugly head during the descent and approach. Is ASA doing something different (priorty wise)? FWIW, I am running a 1GB LAN between my boxes and have never seen this before. Maybe ASA/Simconnect starts flooding the LAN, slowing WideFS somehow. The reason I say this is becuase I think my FS Flight Keeper (also on the wideclient) also starts recording events in batches, which is something else I haven't seen before.ASA DWC and smoothing were both on, as well as enhance route coverage and graduated visability.This needs to be checked by one of the SP1 beta testers (preferably on a wideclient) before you release the next candidate. It becomes obvious when it happens.Sorry I'm just noticing this, but I've had very little time to enjoy the virtual skies lately.Regards,

Nick,How does this affect your nHancer setting recommendations? vSync for example. I realize nothing is concrete yet, but can you think of any changes off the top of your head?

Sorry,I haven't had a chance to play with this tool yet, but I'm wondering what affects it has on distant blurries? I have always had the mindset to lock the FPS in FS @ 24 or 30 so that available resources can concentrate on distant textures and other threads. Remember, FS has always been about balancing all the necessary processes. Now I understand the willingness to go unlimited if you're in a low poly FS enviornment or on a high-spec machine that will allow it, without much scenery degridation and hence I can see the need for this tool to stop the stutters and spikes. But I really have to ask myself, what other other threads would not get the proper priorty if I'm tricking (locking) the display engine from outside the FS environment? Distant blurries (of the third kind?) are the first thing that come to mind.

I've wondered the same thing. Having an E8500 @ 4GHz, wondering if upgrading my 9800GTX with only 512MB to a 280/285 SC with 1GB would help with my 1920, 24" display. I run very texture intensive airports with lots & lots of AI (addicted). My preferred price-point has always been around $300 for a new unit and some are now slowly getting in that range. I do want a GPU however that works well with a future i7 upgarde sometime later this year.Hmmm, decisions, decisions... :(

Don't run a raid off the MB HD ports. Follow the link at the top of this thread and see the storage discussion near the bottom of that link. Raid should only be used with a deicated PCIe dedicated hardware controller such as a 3ware card and at least a 256K stipe and 64K clusters during format. Otherwise, use Raptors or Velociraptors individually, one for the OS, and one dedicated to FS with only a single parition spanning the entire drive. Good luck.

OMG, not the Pogo Stick again, LOL.... B) Somethings just won't die :(

PSS did a Dash 8 for FS2002 and updated it for FS9 several years ago; it was considered descent stuff at the time. It still has quite a loyal fan-following but I am usnure of its integration into FSX and the health of the PSS company. Rumors are rampant about their new homepage: http://www.phoenix-simulation.co.uk/ :( Regards,

Hi all,Quick question; having both ASA & XGraphics on a remote simconnect-client, I chose to auto-generate 10 snapshots from each of the cloud catagories. My question is, how is this ASA snapshot integration and the later snapshot installation into FSX affected by the Options checked or unchecked in XGraphics? Do the snapshots contain any other XGraphics textures besides clouds, such as sun, moon, runways, tarmacs, etc...? Or do these now have to be installed manually from XGraphics?Please clarify the XGraphics Options checkboxes and ASA snapshot relationship.Thanks and regards,

Believe what you want Sam, but don't knock it 'till you've tried it. I now don't see any lag in texture generation or popping after installing Raptors, then VRapts, and then even better with all drives on my 3ware PCIe controller. I've seen specs and logical engineering-level discussions from others, and my own end-results. I wish you would stop prophesizing drive performance and its affects on FS without any concret evidence and lack of logical discussions on the matter. :(

What you're looking for are called touch-n-go's and yes they exist in the MS Flightsim series. My Charleston squadron of PAI C-17's perform these touch-n-go here just as they do in RW ops. As to how to best program these I'm not sure, and you would be better served to post the flightplanning-question over on the 'Flightplanning' forum on the Alpha-India forum. These guys are the pros at flightplanning and are always ready to lend a hand with some good guidance.Regards,

Hi,You should also check out this "HD Controller" thread a little further down in this forum: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=241932 and the link near the end of this dicussion as to how to setup a 3ware controller for the best performance. You won't be dissapointed as all information is once again provided by Nick. :( Regards,

Yes, in fact I almost bought a 280 at a more than significant discount which later cancelled; and in that time, I discovered that the earlier Corsiar 620 PSU's such as mine, did not come with that necessary 6+2 but only a pair of 6's. I e-mailed Corsair customer support and they promptly mailed me a 6+2 without charge. According to the Corsiar forum, the 620's are more than capable of running this GPU but the early versions lacked this particular cable.

No problem Bruce. Also, here is the full discussion b/w Nick and myself over the course of my 9650se integration efforts and contains a wealth of information in the best setup:http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=28350Regards,Al

I just wanted to add; that with Nick's help over the Holidays, I've added the above mentioned 3ware controller and a pair of VelociRaptors to my rig and absolutely love it :( I have since rearranged all four of my drives directly on the 3ware controller and continue to be amazed at the performance. Setup is as follows:C: 1 Raptop 150GB -> 3Ware Ch. 1 (fixed disk) / Windows XP x64 OSD: 2 Velociraptors (300GB) -> 3ware Ch 2 & 3 (Raid 0 - 256k stripe - 64k clusters) / FSX sp2E: 1 Caviar (320GB) -> 3ware Ch 4 (fixed disk) / ArchivesI now firmly believe that the investment of the card and VelociRaptors will take me years into other componnent and peformance upgrades.Thanks again for your help Nick :( :(

While gathering updates for my FSX-rig yesterday, I noticed a new version of NHancer (v2.4.5) has been recently released. Also, Nvidia has updated the WHQL drivers to v181.22. Although I've installed the new Nhancer version I haven't had a chance to try it yet.Regards,

Install all the available patches for XPax. Then on the Options page, there should be an option to not modify weights and balance, near the upper-left corner of the Options page (sorry, at work right now). You still use the load and passenger and weights page while setting up a flight, they just won't affect the aircraft.cfg file. So for example, I use TopCat to get my LvL-D 763 loaded up and configured, then use XPax without modifying the aircraft, and set the passengers and load to those values in TopCat for simulation purposes only.

First and last time I'll ever use the Buy.com ######s... :(