Djang0

Just curious, does anyone know why they changed the version numbering? (e.g. form 3.4 to 2016.*.*).

Yeah LOL, it's just been one thing after another taking up my time, but now I have the time to build this thing and do more flight sim. Also every time I get back to this there's new hardware to think about.

Re HDs for FS and storage, does anyone have informed opinions about Toshiba X300 SATA drives vs WD Black? The 4TB X300 is around £90.

Well I still want to do this project! The idea is an after-school club for kids to try flightsim. I'm setting my sites on GTX750ti cards (or GTX750 if the power requirements are much less). For GTX750 / 750Ti I've seen minimum recommendations from various manufacturers of: 300 to 400W Total on 12V rails = 42A From PC forums I've seen users suggest: 300W Total on 12V rails = 20A The PCs I'm using are old workstations and have the following PSU voltages: #1 PSU = Dell L305P-01 305W 12V1 = 18A 12V2 = 18A #2 PSU = FSP ATX-350PNF 350W 12V1 = 18A 12V2 = 16A #3 PSU = HP PC6015 365W 12V = 12A 12Vcpu = 14.5A (Not sure if "12Vcpu" literally means for the CPU only???) Q1) Could I run GTX750 / 750Ti cards with these PSUs? Any thoughts are particularly welcome from those that have tried these cards with a 300W PSU. Q2) Could I run any of these cards in particular: # GTX750Ti KFA2 GTX750Ti OC Slim 2GB MSI N750Ti-2GD5TLP # GTX750 KFA2 GTX750 OC Slim 2GB Or your favourite single slot GTX750Ti / 750?

Re SSDs for the OS: SanDisk Extreme Pro 240 GB - £90 Samsung 850 Pro 256GB - £98 Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - £60 I think I'll probably go for the Evo, unless anyone has thoughts???

Q) What made you go for that MSI M/B?

Q) Is the GTX 750Ti currently the best entry level GPU for flightsim? I'm considering a project where I'll be rebuilding old Core2 systems so I need a good deal on a reasonable GPU as I'll be building many systems.

For goodness sake!

For current and future flightsims I think you really want to be overclocking the CPU. 1) The system your planning can't overclock the CPU. Also there is no unlocked "i5-4460K" CPU and the chipsets H97, H87 and H81 do not support CPU overclocking.) 2) The H81 chipset does not support PCIe v3, it's not a big deal but for a new build I'd want to take full advantage of a GTX970 GPU. 3) If you go for an i5-4460 avoid the S or T models. 4) The i5-4670(K) and i5-4690(K) are about the same price. 5) Consider a 2nd dedicated hard drive for your flightsim software. Anyway I'd suggest (most £££s to least £££s): i5-4690K + Z97 M/B... To overclcok the CPU. i5-4690 + H97 M/B i5-4670K + Z87 M/B... To overclcok the CPU + get great deal on the Z87. i5-4670 + H87 M/B... Get great deal on the H87. i5-4460 + H87 M/B... Minimum spec I'd consider for a GTX970. i5-4460 + H81 M/B... no PCIe v3 The i5-4460 + H81 + GTX970 will not be a bad system but for a few more £££s I think you could get a better overall deal.

Just check that the version of whatever temp measuring software you use is actually compatible with your hardware (mainly thinking CPU) or you could get inacurate temps!

Do you know what make the card will be?

I'd say HT off for FSX. Q1) What flightsims do you mainly use? Q2) Did you also need 1.43v for 4.7GHz with HT off? Q3) Did you stress test the system at 4.8GHz and 1.43v?

I think you will eat up that disk space pretty quickly with scenery, maybe consider a bigger SSD for the flightsim stuff or a 7200 drive - the WD Caviar Black would be my choice.

People tend to use Nvidia Inspector (NI) to manage Nvidia GPUs. The application overrides the Nvidia control panel 3D settings and offers access to additional driver features e.g. AA modes. 1) Try searching the forums for FS9 settings which are very similar to those for FSX. 2) This is for FSX but should be helpful. 3) I place my NI in it's own folder in Program Files for house keeping. 4) Remember to check that the NI profile is associated your FS9.exe file and to save the profile after making changes. 5) I found that Sparse Grid Supersampling helped with shimmering (apparently some shimmering can be because of bad scenery design). 6) In FS9 set Antialising unchecked. Q1) What graphics card do you have? Q2) Are you using any FS9 cfg tweaks? NI settings I use for FS9 (other settings are at default): Antialiasing - Behaviour Flags = None Antialiasing - Mode = Override Any Application Setting Antialiasing - Setting = 8XSQ [or 8XS] Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling = 4X Sparse Grid Supersampling [or 2X... ] Anisotropic filtering mode = User-defined / Off Anisotropic filtering Setting = 16x Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias = Clamp Texture filtering - Quality = High Quality Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration = Single display performance mode [i'm using a single monitor] Power management mode = Prefer maximum performance Vertical Sync = 1/2 Refresh Rate [my monitor is at 60Hz so I set my FPS limit to 30 in FS9] Also FS9 cfg graphics tweaks I use: [DISPLAY] TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400 [TERRAIN] TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21 TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

Q1) Have you tried clean booting your system to check the FSX performance? RUN command, "msconfig" etc. Q2) Where abouts is your fan controller located in your case? Q3) Are you sure you didn't dislodge one of the power connectors for your graphics card (if it has them)? Sometimes the power connectors can be loose and temperamental - need to check they are fully seated even if they look connected. Q4) Are you sure Windows Update hasn't tried to auto-update the Graphics driver?