TRauppius

This is a great product and it just keeps getting better with each timely update. I can now easily manage my ORBX universe + FSDT airports + T7 + (GSX, UTX, UT2, ENB, SHADE, etc.) with adequate FPS and improved awareness and management of OOM issues. I really like the addition of the realtime FSX memory in use gauge and the "video override" showing the max texture buffer being adjusted to met FSPS goals... very nice. Ditto the AGL switching. I would like to hear a little more of an explanation of the "Efficiency" metric; how is it derived, what does it mean, and how can you use the info provided. Also, had you considered alternate/multiple FSPS strategy/profiles? The current strategy seems focued on obtaining improved FPS. But for me I am a bit more concerned with obtaining the best visuals, emphasizing prompt texture loading and timely scenery autogen appearance, as long as smoothness and a MINIMUM FPS threshold is maintained. I can't wait to see what you can do with OOM issue... best wishes for continued success with this very worthwhile utility.

Yes, by all means please post these view modifcations. I am tired of manually fiddling with the zoom and positioning of the VC windows before each flight. Thanks in advance Paul,

Nope, cannot see any significant change. I just tried a short hop from KLAS to Nellis AFB suing the FSDT KLAS airport riding on top of Megascenery Las Vegas, plus REX Essential weather and UT2 and the frame rate (limited set at 30 fps) stayed was 26 during takeoff on runway 7L. Lowest I saw on the way to Nellis at 2000 above ground was a momentary 19 fps while some textures loaded. After that it went back to 26-30 fps.

If you have a licensed copy of FSUIPC you can create a custom throttle mapping for this plane that is non-linear. I have mine set (to slope 10) that about the first 25% of the axis counts result in only 10% change in thrust; in effect a 1:2.5 reduction in sensitivity. This Electra model is also quite sensitive to the weight/loading and I usually fly with full wing tanks and 50% of the center tank (yielding about 77% total) and the throttle mapping tweaked as noted to reduce the excessive thrust/weight ratio. The Electra II has an electronic engine controller that automatically regulates the fuel flow/torque versus the pitch in order to vary the HP/thrust delivered with the huge propellers maintaining an almost constant RPM in flight. The switch you noted reduces/increases the engine core and propeller RPM regime for ground/flight operations. Also, be sure to give yourself enough time and distance to bleed off speed at idle/flat pitch in order to get down into the gear and flaps range. While the thrust reverser makes the appropriate sounds in the KBT model, the FS model deceleration is much lower than the real airplane. Hope this helps as I think this is a fun model to fly; wish I could find a decent National Airlines livery though. Todd

I downloaded the full installation from my FlightSim Store account (the link for REX Essential had replaced my old download link), It took about an hour to download from the Singapore sever at an average of 1.4 mbs. I manually deactived the embedded startup call in my FSX configuration for the old REX FSX + Overdrive, and the ran the Essentials installation app after zipping all to a temporary folder. The installation went smoothly, as did the initial setup/configuration and server logon account stuff. In short, I am very impressed.... that is, once I learned how to tune the tune the refresh balance control so that I was getting enough time for the CPU to do all of the texture loading. This is the most realistic and immersive weather engine I have seen yet. I am looking forward to exploring all of the other options and features of this product. The basic set of textures already include HD (2048 and 4096) textures (but I only use the 1024 due my texture loading limits on my GTX285) and it looks great, especially the sky and lighting transitions; it works very well withmy combined ENB Series and SHADE shader tweaks. I look forward to downloading the 9.9 GB of Overdrive Texture adjunct when the become available. Thanks for a job well done, it is one heck of nice free upgrade. Todd Rauppius

Hello,First the very first time I am having an installation/activation problem with a PMDG product. The FSX NGX737 Base Package + SP1 has been working fine. Purchased NGX600/700 upgrade through nominal process at PMDG (got all the emails and codes, etc.). Ran the intsaller as administrator and firewall turned-off. Install looked normal, except for POSSIBLY a fleeting, and aborted, by the installer attempt to start FSX in the latter stages of the install (I normally use FPS 2.0 Limiter batch file to load FSX). At this point the installation simply ends... no nessages, nothing. Then upon manually starting FSX and selecting one of the newly installed 600/700 base models I get a small pop-up activation window that prompts for the code PMDG sent me. Code is entered... but then after about 60 seconds I get this error message: "Unable to connect to activation server. Please check your internet connection." Meanwhile, the internet connection is just fine as other windows are open and unsing the internet. I have not been able to get past this empasse for the last few hours. Any advice/suggestions? Thanks.Todd RauppiusWin 7, 64 bit, 6 GB ram, i7-920FSX Acceleration

I have had a few more days with the B377 now and it continues to amaze with small unexpected details that add to the realism.For example, the cockpit windows will slowly be cloudy due to accumulated condensation as the temperature drops with altitude and if the humidity stays high enough. It sort of just creeps in until you finally notice it and activate the windshield defrost control on the pilot's-side sub-panel; then it slowly melts away. Nice touch.The crew workload is high compared with modern automatic planes. You constantly have to watch and fiddle with turbocharger controls, intercooler flap settings, cowl flaps, pressurization, fuel management, etc.The VC from the flight engineer's position is especially neat as you can swivel around and zoom in-out on any/all positions. The VC panels/gauges are the sharpest, most readable at any zoom level, I have yet seen.I stand by my earlier FPS statement, but the texture demands are very tough in some of the "through the VC foreground to distant scenery background" looks. My 256M/7600GT barely gets by. Sometimes I have to momemtarily revert to "windowed" mode to fix the onset of menu blurries that occur when I am approaching the texture limit.I wonder if there will be soon be 3rd party paints for airlines like TWA and United?:7 :7

:-) Yes, this is definitely a keeper for me. I have only been using it a few days but it has already become on of my favorites.Everything works smoothly and is visually stunning; from the external views through the many VC panels. My old single CPU P4/3GHz/2G/7600GT rig is always struggling to keep up with the texture loading demands of assorted 3rd party aircraft, mesh, terrain, weather, and environment add-on apps; but somehow these A2A guys get the job done. Just better coding I guess.I just have the basic B377 (not the Accu-Sim add on), and at $36.99, although costly, it is good value and worth it in my view. The sense of immersion and "real" flying is very good on this product, and is the result of thorough systems emulation, great sounds, and fluid, detailed visuals. Well done to A2A.It comes with a nice set of liveries and some clever pop-up transperancy screens that help you manage all of the "stuff" usually manned by a 4 person flight crew. Again, very clever, enjoy.Todd

Bruce,I can speak from my personal experience with Nick's tuning on my Dell 8300/P4 system. Unfortunately, I did not pay enough attention to the the Dell and SP1a caveats that Nick placed in his tuning threads. I ended-up trashing my SCSCI RAID 0 boot disk array. Nick tried to help me repair/recover but it was too late for my boot disk.I then followed Nick's advice to build a slipstreamed installer disk using the latest MS SP2 installer and modules merged into/overriding my older Dell install disk. The rebuild went fine and I followed the rest of the tuning process to a normal conclusion. Since the rebuild I have had no further problems with using the O&O 8.5 degfag program. I also did the nHancer thing for my 7600GT/256MB card.The resulting FSX performance is much improved, although I still have a little bit of trouble with with the nearby scenery textures fully sharpening when flying low and fast; but not bad at all compared to the blurries I had before. So yes, in my opinion Nick's tuning is worth the effort. Prior tweaking efforts, and I tried most of them, were not as effective as Nick's tuning recommendations.ToddDell 8300/XP Home/SP2/P4/3GHz/2GB/nVidia 7600GT/256MB/FSX-Accel with SP2/FS Genesis/Ultimate Traffic/Ultimate Terrain US and Eur/FEX/ASX weather engine until FEX update come out/GEXen.

An interesting aside is that O&O still sells and services a bundled product called "The O&O Toolbox", and it includes one full license of the following products: O&O CleverCache 6 Professional, O&O Defrag 8 Professional Edition, O&O SafeErase 2, and O&O DriveLED 2 for $79 USD.

I also sent a slightly modified version of Nick's template letter to O&O and did not get favorable response (see below). It appears that some senior folks at O&O may be unaware of the detailed functional differences between 8.5 and their current 10.0 offering.I just wanted to pass on my response as Nick requested and think that Norm Owings request for O&O to take a harder look is a good next step. I wonder if Nick has given any thought to what "what next" if O&O continues to stonewall flurry of requests certain to begin arriving at the end of folks 30 day free trials.Nick, is there an alternative product that can do the same thing as O&O Defrag 8.5?Todd, ... the O&O response follows.....Dear Mr. Rauppius,Defrag 8.5 and Defrag 10 perform absolutely the same functions when the defragmentation mode

Nick,Thanks for the letter template. I have already sent mine to O&O and will let you know how it goes.I want to let you know that I have recovered/rebuilt my system after encountering the Dell/SP1a defrag disaster that rendered my HD unbootable. I followed all of you tips but, as expected, the MFT was damaged and so I ditched my SATA 2 RAID 0 array (with SCSI controller) in favor of a new/single/bigger SATA 2 drive. The new drive is faster and quiter than my old array.I used the slipstream procedure you pointed out to make a new bootable CD-ROM that upgrades my old Dell CD to add all of the new/recent SP2 stuff from MS. My old Nero 5 was able to create the new disk and the installation of XP2 on my new (no Dell partition) drive was uneventful. After reinstalling FSX and FSX/SP2 I rebuilt my mesh, landclass, Ultimate Traffic, Ultimate Terrain, FEX and GEXen stuff. It was working pretty good already. Then I did you tuneup procedure on the new boot and FSX partitions and things begab to look fabulous indeed. I have also used your nHancer settings for my nVidia 7600GT to good effect.Anyway, the final result is truly excellent and I want to thank you again for sharing your time and expertise. I am now looking forward to GEX Europe and finally doing some serious flying instead of complaining about FSX blurries et al.Todd

Nick,I follow everything you said and suggest, and things are looking somewhat grim. However, I found the Dell tech support archive has a procedure for resolving a missing or corrupt HAL.DLL file. Since I can now boot off the CD to bring up the recovery console they suggest going to C: and then using bootcfg /rebuild, then add installation to bootlist, then entering the load identifier as "Windows XP Home Edition" followed by /NoExecute=Optln /fastdetect and then a reboot after the C: prompt returns. Dell claims this will force a custom rebuild the corrupted HAL.DLL file.I guess this is worth a try. Is there any danger in further attempts to get CHKDSK /R to run to completion, or is the possible harm worse than the potential gain?Thanks again for your help, and I understand that we probably need to wrap up this thread soon.Todd

Nick,As you expected my reinstallation disks from Dell are 3 year old SP1a versions and many of the system files differ in size and date from the updated SP2 installation on my now problematic system. Not much I can do except perhaps copy over individual files from another PC I have that uses SP2. You may be wondering how I got around the stone-cold no NTLDR impasse; by following your suggested recovery of course. But it did not go quite the expected way.Picking up where I left off: Since the attempt to copy the missing NTLDR did not work I next tried the CHKDSK /R thing. As an aside, I had already performed the offline/at_startup Windows CHKDSK (with fix check-box on) as part of your original tuneup plan and got a clean, no-error, outcome. Anyway, the CHKDSK invoked from the recovery console paused a few times at ~25% point, and then just sort of stopped at the 50% point. I waited 90 minutes and it was still locked at 50% so I stopped and rebooted. Unexpectdly, the original missing NTLDR issue was now gone and the booting of Windows from the C drive proceeded until it reported "Windows cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt....system32hal.dll ... please re-install a copy of the above".I then tried to boot to the repair CD-ROM and was greeted with the invitation to select <1> C:Windows for logon. This worked and I can now access the C drive with all of the usual commands that the recovery console provides. I browsed around directories and all of the "stuff" on the RAID array C: drive "appears" to be intact. I tried the MAP command again and was surprised that the mysterious Dell FAT16 49MB drive was now gone; it now just shows a slightly larger (by 49MB, I bet) C drive, plus opticals D and E. CHKDSK still will not run to completion though, and attempting to boot from C: yields the corrupt HAL.DLL message.Do you think copying over hal.dll from another XP/SP2 machine (say, via the floppy drive) has a chance? Or is the C drive somehow hosed with multiple errors that will lead to a succession of boot failures for one reason or another.At least I can now access the C drive to S...L..O..W..L..Y back up critical business records to floppy. I am planning on a short pause to try and salvage some key files before continuing with the recovery efforts.Again, any further thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated.Todd

Nick,Thanks for responding so quickly. Whatever ultimately happens I do appreciate your help very much. I did see your caveat, but went ahead because the feedback had been very positive and no one had reported a problem with your well documented procedure. I thought Dell PCs are very common so someone would have already been tripped-up by now and reported it to the forum. Oh well, it looks like I got caught holding the short straw this time.Your diagnosis, and some of your remedies, agree with the Dell folks FAQ concerning repairing a missing NTLDR. I have already attempted their procedure which is similar to your second set of instructions following "NEXT...". I also had to load a floppy disk containing the driver for the RAID array and had to hit F6 to get it to load. Unfortunately the recoveery console copy ntldr procedure failed with a "The file could not be copied" message. Anyway, it looks like you have a few other ideas for me to tryout and I will give them a try.I will let you know how it goes.Thanks,ToddP.S. The MAP command from the Recovery Console shows a mystery drive in addition to the C: drive array. I get:? FAT16 39MB DeviceHarddisk0Partition 1c: 226934MB DeviceHarddisk0Partition 2I tried copying the NTLDR file to C: and got the noted error msg.

Dr. Nick,I am in big trouble now. I am a complete fan of the GEX and FEX products which had combined to make my 3 year old P4 finally work OK with FSX/SP2. I was even able to use UTX, which prior to GEX was just too much of a burden for my rig.Anyway, encouraged by the glowing responses from folks who have followed your perscription for tuning up Windows XP/SP2 and the storage system I through caution to the wind an plunged into following you fairly detailed and thorough instructions posted earlier in this, or a related, forum thread. All was going as plannned, and I had completed all of the steps up through the offline defrag (using O&O 8.5) successfully. The next step was the reboot and invoking a COMPLETE/NAME defrag; this completed in about 40 minutes. But upon rebooting, following the normal Dell BIOS and the 2nd BIOS for my Promise SATA 2 drive RAID 0 array, I get an error message (from ?) stating "NTLDR is missing" "press CTRL-ALT-D to restart". It appears as though the NAME oriented defrag has moved something vital away from the expected (fixed?) location. I know this is very, very bad. But before I tried anything too radical I want to check with more knowledgeable folks to see if there is any way to salvage this tragedy.My rig is a Dell 8300/P4/3MHz with 2GB and XP/SP2, Promise SATA RAID SATA controller with 2 120GB drives combined into one 240GB array. I am using the Dell A07 BIOS.Let me know if there is any way to salvage this situation; otherwise the impact is devastating years of FS9 and FSX tuning, dozens of add ons, all my saved email copies and business records.Here is hoping,ToddChester Springs, PA

Paul,That did it! I found the shadersterrain folder in the ...local settingsapplication data path.Now I will be able to go ahead and try the new water shader script.Thanks for your help,Todd

Nope, it is not there. There is no ShadersTerrain sub-folder. The path just ends at ..FSX and then contains a few CFG files and some files initialization iformation files created by commercial third-party applications.Todd

Paul,I went back and rechecked and found a number of permutations of my name located in "Documents and Settings" folder. Only one folder contained a visible "applications data" sub-folder. This one used my full name, without any suffix, and this "applications data" sub-folder in turn contained a "Microsoft" sub-folder, but without a FSX sub-folder, let alone the "terrain/shader" thingy.I then tried setting the top-level folder to show "hidden and system" sub-folders. This revealed (under a my name plus DBF70D31 suffix (the Dell machine identifier) an applications datamicrosoftfsx path to a sub-folder containing sub-folders for Controls, SimObjects, Substitutions, and a collection of secenery and FSX cfg files; but alas no terrain/shader path or folders.I have also noticed that in my FSX cfg file value of the following entry has changed to:[GRAPHICS]SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1693500672The pre Acceleration/SP2 value was 1693428480 for my nVidia 7600GT.Attempting to edit this parameter results in FSX resetting it back again during FSX startup. I wonder if this is related to my shader problem.Any ideas and suggestions will be appreciated, thanks.Todd

David and Jase et al,I have been following this thread and am now attempting to try this on my XP/7600GT/DX9/Acceleration/SP2 equipped rig. I got the new shader text file and replaced the Water20.fxh file, and then....I discovered that I do not have any "C:/Documents and Settings/YOUR NAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Microsoft/FSX/Shaders/Terrain" folder (much less the contents) on my machine. My Application/Microsoft Data folder contains sub-folders for MSN, Explorer, Crypto, etc., but no FSX! What is going on here? Have I been running without pixel shaders? I don't understand, as I have the normal "wing flex" functionality associated with shader use, but I don't have the terrain shader directory this thread points to.Any suggestions?Todd

I have been using FEX for several weeks on my older 3GHz/P4/2GB/XP with 256MB 7600GT and FSGenesis Mesh and Landclass rig and have experienced a significant improvement in appearance while also getting a slight boost in FPS versus the default textures; no problem with FEX....well done!However, as with many folks with rigs like mine I am always fighting the constant FSP and blurry tradeoff/battle with FSX and have achieved a (just) acceptable compromise by using many of the tweaks from the RTM/SP1 era; especially the texture tweaks to reduce the size of the textures for trees, buildings, misc. objects, and the scenery global ground textures. This worked very well and I was finally able to get nlt 15FPS with Acceleration and complex planes (LVLD-767, for exanple) over the big towns like Seattle and NY.Then GEX arrived. I love the improved look and realism, and indeed it does look spectacular at 0.6m and dense autogen. The problem is that the texture load has gone way over the limited capability of my rig....again! It is fine in rural areas, or when flying low and slow, but +200 knots with the "adjusted" autogen and new textures over complex scenery areas leads quickly to mass blurries, menu fuzz/fade, some vertical spike visual artifacts, too low FPS and the inevitable lock-up.I am going to ask the GEX guys if it is possible to use nconvert and imagetool to resize their textures prior to overloading them into the FSX teture directories. Perhaps the resulting sacrifice of detail would not be too high a price to pay. If possible, I could finally "rest in peace" and enjoy flying if I can just find a way to use GEX without overburdening my system.Todd

I tried these out at the Avsim conference last week and was impressed with the POTENTIAL of this type of device.I wear glasses with different presrcriptions in each lens, yet the Vuzix gizmos worked perfectly when placed over my regular progressive tri-focals. Well done.The image only covers about 32 degrees FOV, but because it automaticaly tracks your head movement you don't mind the reduced FOV. The limited FOV and resolution is a price/performance compromise necessary for commercial retail user products. I recall the guy pitching from Vuzix saying their military tactical goggles with larger FOV are something like $5k per set.The VR920 is all analog with a hefty driver for calibration and converting the motion sensors info into FS usable signals. There is a significant lag between head motion (not matter how smoothly applied) and the corresponding slewing of the view in the goggles. It is sort of slow and frustrating like running FSX can often be. The Vuzix guy said the digital model of the VR920 is much faster, too bad they were not on sale yet.The demos were using an older nVidia card and special stereoscopic driver that has not been updated for several years; it only supports 640x480 VGA or remapping of 1024x768 downto 640x480. The stero image looks very good and make some tasks like the last few feet coming down in a FS helicopter much, much easier. The downside is it cannot use higher resolution or any other brand of cards (ATI, etc.) and still get the stereo vision effect. The resolution of 640x480 when presented less than an inch from your eye looks far sharper and more detailed than when viewed on a LCT or CTR at 10-20", but more resolution (for details sake) would make this gizmo fabulous. Also, the built-in sound is just adequate and lacks low-end punch.Final thoughts: amazing and immersive, and a great way to the do the full VR cockpit thing. Great for portable laptop use. Just wait for a little more FOV and better stereo support for newer video cards.Todd

I have had this happen a couple of times to me; usually after I have been installing some new video driver or FSX application (for example the recent ASX SP1 update). It is really a pain in the #### because the suggested "remedies" of repair (does not work), or reinstall FSX (much, too much work).Fortunately has been alsways able to get around this be using the XP Restore registry to an earlier date feature. It seems that if I go back to just prior to the onset/notice of the problem, I can always get FSX to come-up without complaints.I suggest you give this a try. It is completely reverseable as Restore makes a new backup recovery point just prior to the restore operation.I hope this works for you.Todd

:) Thanks a bunch Mitch,I had all but surrendered to the supposedly inevitable blurries in FSX. Nothing seemed to be able to get my 3G/P4, Radeon XL1650/512 rig to give me 15 FPS + scenery without blurries. Well, this little program you suggested has made a world of difference for me.All have run all of my own saved benchmark flights and I am certain that the blurries have been almost completely eliminated. I don't know why or how, but I don't really care; now I can back to some flying again.I run Active Sky X, Graphics X, Ultimate Traffic X (set at 10%), Ultimate Terrain USA (mostly disabled, though), LVLD-767 or CLS DC-10, and all of the FS Genesis Mesh and landclass products.Just completed flight from IAD to MCO (Cloud 9 scenery) with multi-layer clouds, rain, lightning and the textures were loading and appearing crisp; frame rate was 7-12 fps, but smooth without stutters.I am going to try it out on FS9 later today.Thanks again,Todd

:* I just got this package installed yesterday and did a few flight using benchmark scenarios that I use to gauge progress in the never ending battle of finding an acceptable balance between FPS and texture loading (the blurries) in FSX-SP1.I have a single CPU P4/3GHz/2GB/ATI1650-AGP-512MB rig that worked very well for FS9, but FSX is another matter.Anyway, the impact on FPS is pretty tough with UTX on my rig. In situations were I could manage 15 FPS and decent texture loading I can now only manage 3-8 FPS with the Traffic set at 30-50% + minumum airport activity + 10% roads. Even with road and airport vehicle traffic off, no general aviation compiled in UTX, and 10% on the commerical air traffic slider my FPS decreased down to ~11. It is better at rural airports or in the air (only a ~1 FPS hit).I will keep tuning and trying but it looks like single CPU folks will not be able to fully enjoy UTX at realistic traffic levels at major airports. I guess the multi-core rigs should do much better.ToddP.S. The product installed, compiled and ran without a hitch.