SlickNick

With your setup, with 85% you'll probably be in the 7-9fps area around a built up city. Simply put, the system you're running even with all the disk tricks just won't cut it for FSX at 85% detail. Try taking everything down to 50% but at that, you're better off sticking with FS9.

Ya, the schedule is current as well instead of the old 2004 one.

I know a single card is better. I don't run SLi when in FSX, I have each one of my screens hooked up to 1 video card so when I move windows around it doesn't hurt performance. It seems wierd to me you're only getting 30fps, I get that and my system is nowhere near yours. I'm talking about on the ground, KSEA for example. Not up at 41,000 feet. Have you got any pics of your setup? Or a CPU-Z screenshot?The 9800GX2's I'v never heard of. If they dont' want a repeat of the god-awfiul 7950GX2's they'd smarten up and steer away from that. The G92 core is a good one, and has the potential to knock the socks off the old G80's. Even the 8800Ultra is simply to slow and uses too much power pound for pound compared to the G92 core. I suggest you do some research.

What's your FSB running at with that though? Sure you CAN overclock it to 3.2, but can you do it at 24*C?

Besides, why are you reccomending people buy nVidia cards for a Crossfire board? I'd save the $100 anyway and get an nVidia 780i board. 3 way SLi is sweet, something you can't do with the Maximus. That Maximus is already outdated. Besides, the nVidia 780/790 chipset will STOMP that Intel X38.

Im interested in your "setup," but that doesn't add up. What FSB speed are you running and on what multiplier? What's your juice setup like? Ram speeds? Ram:CPU ratio? You're not hitting 5.7 unless you're running a cascade.I've got EVERYTHING in my PC watercooled including dual rads (see sig) and I know my way around wet systems pretty good, having built 4 now. I just don't want to see someone go out and spend all the money on parts you reccomended and not be able to have the performance they've expected. If you post up a CPU-Z shot, I will print this post and eat it for breakfast, but in the mean time I think your claims on 5.7GHz with just a simple CPU water cooler are unfounded.

As you can tell, I'm a HUGE fan of Koolance, but in your case I'd go with the BigWater. It's a good beginner setup, and has everything you'll need. It's not exactly a "high capacity" system, and won't handle any insane overclocks, but it'll get the job done if you're just looking for an entry level setup, it's perfect.

Ya I made an exclude switch for the scenery I originally posted for, and the runway still "flickers" alot. Seems I got rid of the buildings that were in the way though.

Calibrate it within windwos first (did you install the drivers? You NEED to) then use FSUIPC to assign it in FS.

Drivers I'd say? Which OS? Sound Card? We need more info.

Tom,Let me chew on this. I had the EXACT problem, but I can't remember what I did to fix it... Let me go watch a movie, and I'l lthink about it. Things just "come to me" while watching moveis for soem reason lol!

Don't use your keyboard tray. Seriously, that's the only way around it. Remove it and move the keyboard up to the desk surface. Besides, with the yoke you wouldn't be able to use the keyboard anyway.

That happened to me. Alt enter to window it, then alt enter again. See if that fixes it.

I'm trying to make a FS9 scenery compatible with FSX. It's all ready to go except for a few spots where there is autogen crossing the runway, and if you're down low the default runway "bleeds through" the addon one. I havn't done anything related to scenery design in YEARS but would a simple flatten / exclude command be able to cure this? For example, I remember you need to find the co-ordinates of the 4 corners basically of the area you want to exclude, and put them into the Scenery.cfg file. I forget exactly how to do that, or even if FSX still works in that way, so any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Nice work! But for half the price you could have gotten 2 Saitek quadrants, which are life size (grabbing a fistfull of throttles and pushing them up on a 747 is sweet) and feature reverse thrust detents.

On both my Saitek quadrants, they use digital reversers. So they're either on or off. I just went into FSUIPC and said that when the lever entered reverse mode, "decrease throttle x" for whatever engine x is and hold it. Set it so that when the "button" is released, to "throttle cut" and it puts the throttle to idle.Just wanted to post up in case someone with a Saitek yoke comes across this.

Posted this in the review thread as well, but for all of you having the problem, try what I did:Just wanted to post up here, having used my setup for a few months now. I'm going out on a limb by saying this, but at least for me I HAVE CURED ALL RANDOM BUTTON PRESSES!!!I used to get them ALL the time, no matter what the sim would suddenly switch view, or drop the gear or whatever. I don't know if this'll work for you, but it cured mine 100%. (Not one random press for 2 weeks now since the fix.)Here's how I did it:First, install the drivers on the CD that came with it all. I didn't use the built in config utility it comes with. I uninstalled it but left the drivers alone. Calibrate it in windows game controllers applett. (I'm using Vista 64 and FSX.) Now, open FS and delete ALL button assignments from within FS. I left the POV hat, and let FS assign the axis' for aileron, rudder, and elevator. Throttles n stuff leave that alone. I guess I should mention I'm using the Saitek yoke, plus an additional quadrant, a Saitek cheapo usb joystick for a nose wheel tiller, and CH pro pedals. When deleting button assignments, be sure to select each device individually, and delete all the button assignments. Click OK, and exit FS. Unplug all of your controllers. Re-connect them, then restart FS. Check again that no buttons are assigned, only axis'. Do all of your button programming from within FSUIPC 4. I mean ALL of them. I make each button either do a FS command directly, or to do a binded keyboard shortcut. I even got the thrust reverser range to work perfectly.I did all of that, and my problems ahave since been cured. Like I said, MY problems have been cured. This may or may not work for you, but it's worth a try. I discovered that FS had some crazy default button assignments (like one of my thrust reversers was linked to "langing gear" by default) so don't let FS assign anything for you. FSUIPC is a god send. I'll post this up elsewhere too to assist others. I'm not a member, but if someone wants to copy and paste this onto the Saitek forums, you're more than welcome to.

I just wanted to add that the fix in the original post cured my OOM errors completely!

I would first off get faster RAM. You should be shopping for at LEAST PC6400 (800MHz) or PC8000 (1066MHz) ram. That old 667 just won't cut it. Why you're getting CTD with the overclock is most likely the motherboard or ram. With that processor not being an extreme, the multiplier is locked at 9, so the only way to incerease it's speed it to increase the system bus speed which will also overclock your motherboard and ram (unless you can unlink your ram, but only high end boards usually have that.) If you can, leave the overclock and return your ram to stock speeds and try that. On water I've had my MB (stock 1066 fsb) up to 1440MHz so far, with the proc (2.4 stock) at 3.24 stable all day long at 25*C. My NB rarely goes past 40*C.

>...but the NDA has been lifted. There are forum posts on>other sites...

Gary your ram is fairly slow, and could be the bottleneck. You should go to at least 800 MHz, or 1066MHz if your mobo supports it.

Sam,The sites you reference are interesting, but I have in fact had mine up to 5.0GHZ on water alone. Water is a far more effective cooler than alot of people give it credit for, and yes it is an E6600 not a Q6600. You can control how much heat the chip gives off if you play around with the voltage alot. The quads in my experience don't respond to overclocking as well. But liek I said, voltage is key. Lower voltage means less heat, but too low and the chip doesn't have enough, so it's all a juggling game. Took me close to a week's worth of evenings to get it to a point where it was stable, and even though the water gets a little warm it still cools. And as you can see from both my signature and my previous posts, I run it at 4.0GHz day to day, as intermitent crashes can plague the computer if that coolant gets too hot at 5GHz and I don't want it to crash on approach from a 5 hour flight to Miami! :D

Thanks Gary! I've had it to 5.0GHz per core, but for my day to day use, there's no point stressing it that much. When it's at 5.0 though, FSX just screams! :D

FSX performs better with higher clock speeds, not more cores. THe E6850 would kick it's ####.

Ouch man. I spent about $4000 (even with the water cooling setup) and I get better than 30 FPS with everything MAXED in FSX... Another case of the fact that it's far better to build you own machine to save a ton of money and get better parts.I just looked at your specs, and alot of money was spent on the video cards, on which FSX is not dependant. I would have got 1 8800GTX, then spend the $600 from that on water cooling your CPU so you can overclock it like crazy. I have had mine running 5.0GHz per core and stable too, but the water gets a bit warm at that point.