jackcnd

No real market for FSX add ons, sad but true.

Take a look at Toms Hardware VGA charts for FSX...link belowHe rates a 8800 at 22 fps, a ATI x1950 at 15, but once you use a complex aircraft or fly in a complex area like NYC, you'll get half those rates at worst.Thats why even Phil from MS suggests the next round of CPUs and GPUs as the help needed for FSX.I have a Quad at 3.2 with a 8800, it runs most areas at 25fps using stock planes, 3rd party planes take it down to 17. I cant run 3 monitors like I do with FS9 at all.That why I say a 3Ghz duo CPU with a 8800/320 is about the min system that allows you to enjoy the game fully.http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...2=722&chart=293

>>Most important go with a nVidia 8800 for FSX,>>if you look at Toms Hardware the ATI cards just dont>>perform well with FSX.>>>Problem is I already find the price high and I have also been>advised by resellers to go for another PSU.>BTW what kund of PSU would be needed for your suggestion?>Otherwise why should ATI be worse tham NVIDIA? Does it not>depend on which ATI card we have.>Finally waiting could be an option and a question here is>could a new cheap AGP card significantly improve performence>over my current NVIDIA 6600GT 256M DDR3 card? Upgrading for>FSX still seems to be to expensive.>I use a Corsair 650HX power supply. If you want to upgrade for FSX and are short of budget, just wait a few months, right now FSX pushes even the best hardware to its limits, and the prices on current high end stuff will fall soon as the new Penryns come out.If your an overclocker, yes a 6750 or 6850 will do as both will hit the magic 3GHz, the 6750 is much harder to get higher with its lower mult and default high FSB.I returned mine it would only do 3 stable, others have had better luck.A 3 GHz Duo + 8800 makes a decent FSX system, but is quickly get slow with add on aircraft or muliti mon use

Fine for FS9 but for FSX I'd suggest a faster CPU and nVidia video card.E6850 2.93 GHz CPU or overclocking a Q6600 GO, or waiting a month or 2 for the new Penryns,as Phil from the FSX team indicates will help FSX.Most important go with a nVidia 8800 for FSX,if you look at Toms Hardware the ATI cards just dontperform well with FSX.

First I found FSX is just too much for a multimonitor setup other than putting the GPS, radio, etc off the main monitor.FS9 works great with multi-monitors.Just open your views on the main monitor in windowed mode then undock them to the side monitors. You can have one window spread over all 3 montitors you have to have 3 windows unless you use a triple head to go card.For 3 windows try VC mode on each, then pan,zoom and shift eye points to get the horizons to match, it really is amazing the 1st time you get it going. Advantage of VC mode is its very quick and easy to setup, but you have to do it each time.January and others have lots of great tips to setup 2D view windows too. Advantage of 2D is you can save your setup and finetune config files.

>>Definitely as our focus moves to FS11, we are looking at what>else we can do to take further advantage of multi-core.>Phil, thanks so much for the comments.Does SP2 pretty much wrap up FSX development?

The interviewer was much easier on Phil and FSX than many are here.When they flashed the CPU graphs were 8 cores being used like the interviewer suggested?

Thanks Alex, yes 2D does have some advantages but with stock planes I find the VC looks better was hoping it could be saved somehow....Someday if you get the chance maybe you could do a write up on how you setup your 3 monitors, with screen shots, cfg examples etc, would be a great sticky for this forum.

I think multi monitors are just great for FS9. I seem to like the VC view the best as it shows the plane parts out the side views as well.Couple of questions:1) Any way to save the VC view alignment adjustments? I find when I save a 3 monitor VC setup the side views reset to default on load.2) Any way to fine tune adjust the side views, I use the hat on the joystick but its a coarse adjustment, where I never can get it just right.3) Anyone using a 8800 as part of a multi setup, I'm getting no AA with it when 3 monitors are used, even using nHancer that works with a dual setup?4) Has anyone documented a method of how to get perfect alignment. I'm using VC, with zoom, pan and eye point commands , but should be a repeatable method to get things perfect?

Microsoft has a 45 day return policy in US/Canada search the MS site for how to claim the refund.

The processor will hold you back now for FSX anyhow and your system probably runs FS9 just fine.I'd suggest holding off until you can upgrade the cpu/mb and video card. If you can do both now and move to a Intel Duo / Quad Core 2 and the 8800 great.Else, by the time your ready to upgrade both , the 8800 may be cheaper or a faster card vc would be out. Also in just a couple months Intels next gen Penryn chips will be out and FSX needs every boost it can get.

>Look at it as good news. :-) The longer they take to nail>down the feature list, the more gets on it (hopefully).>>ThomasIt's my experience in software development the opposite is true...but since we dont have a list yet anything will be a bonus.FSX really needs a boost in excitement, I'm happy if they delay the SP and even Acceleration if has become clearer what the user base really wants...

Just to compare, booting the same system in to XP ... 224MB memory use reported.Could the problem be some of the recent Vista MS OOM fixes?I've tried to stick with Vista despite the loss of 5-10% framerate in FSX, and the many hassles with security. With this now, 1Gb vs 224MB or memory being used doing nothing, I'm looking at just switching back to XP as my main O/S.

I recently setup a 2 video card system:Vista 32, 4GB Ram with OOM fixes installedMain 8800 GTS 640MBSecond 7600 256MBAfter a boot into Vista I'm now showing over 1GB of memory in use looking at the memory graph in Windows Task Manager's performance tab. That seems very high?Funny thing is if I look in the Process tab, I dont see anything that is using even close to that much memory. If your using Vista and 2 video cards can you report your memory useage as shown in Task Manager / Performance and your video card setup....

Thank you Alex, I'm going to spend some time tomorrow with your suggestions, to perfect this, its really something. Pan and zoom is great to get started but I might as well spend a couple hours to get it perfected then just save it for good.I'm currently using a 24" 1920x1200 wide main, with 2 older 17" 1280x1024 sides, so that explains the zoom differences I guess. I'd love to replace the 17" ones with matching 24" wides someday.I guess Track IR would only work on all 3 monitors if a Triplehead to go was used, as panning seems effective on one monitor only.Both Track IR and this Multi-mon setup are nice. Thanks again for your help.

Ok, after some successful searching I found panel.cfg is a config file for each plane, january has good posts about setting it up.Then I found a Trelane post from 8/29 where he suggested an easier way:1) modify fs9.cfg In the (CONTROLS) section add: pan_in_cockpit_mode=12) use the hat to adjust each view window, panning with hat then zooming as needed.Should all panels have the same zoom?No need to modify each panel.cfg, it seems to work pretty good, the 1st time I seen my horizons in decent sync I almost fell out of my chair, what a difference it makes to normal single screen flying.Still not perfect sync, but I get the effect well.I'm losing AA on my main monitor for some reason since installing the 2nd video card?Last Question: is it possible to use Track IR with a 2 video 3 monitor setup so all 3 monitors pan with head movements.

This topic has been moved by the moderator of this forum. It can be found at:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&topic_id=28802

I just installed 3 monitors and have set them up with the 2D cockpit, but the horizons are not aligned. I have them aligned in XP desktop, but need to align in FS9.I keep read how great Panel Config is to fix this, but what / where is Panel config??

Just picked up a low cost fanless pci-e card, it works great for a 3rd or even 4th monitor, used a nvidia card to match my main one didnt even have to install drivers it just works.Now to try setting up FS9 for 3 screens...

Jim - thanks for the suggestion, think I'll pick up a card tomorrow. If I put in a 2nd PCI-Express card will the 3D graphics be accelerated on the 3rd monitor. Do you suggest a 2nd nVidia card so I dont have install new drivers, I assume the existing drivers would pick up the new video card?Alex - I assume your using FS9, I can't see FSX running with 3 monitors for some time. I'd like to try your setup with FS9 but when I did the horizon is always broken when banking...how do you solve that?

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=28727&page=

I currently have a 8800 with a 1920x1200 as main and a 1280x1024 as the 2nd monitor. The 2nd monitor has full 3D acceleration, so I often use it for Google Earth to track as I fly.I'd like to add a 3rd monitor for FSX's GPS, radio stack, ATC messages etc.Do you think a Triple Head to go is best, or just add 2nd low cost PCI-Express video card?specs:Quad at 3.2Ghz4GB Ram8800 GTS 640mbfly:FSX VC with f18 / Maule etc.

>Actually, we have created our own package that combines the>TrackIR 4 with FSX......>>http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/>>TrackIR4 Pro>TrackClip Pro>FSX Deluxe>$199.00WOW, thats a much better package and price, is it offered outside of the US?

Great work guys, really nice.Would it be possible to generate a graph of CPU load percentage vs time using the same test route?Not sure what tool would do that but maybe someone does.I have a quad at 3.2 and I often have task manager running to watch the cores being used. FSX does make use of the 3 and 4th core at times, it would be interesting to see with your test route where/when the extra cores were being used.Would also be interesting to have free flight load times compared.

I recently got a Track IR 4, and it works just great.Just plug and play with FSX.I really had to do nothing other than install the drivers 'as administrator'.It's a great product. Vince, you should really talk with MS about them packaging the product with a new FSX Ultimate, it might be just want is needed to get FSX rolling.I dont know how I ever flew without it, its that good.Only downside is the price. Just wanted to post a good experience in this thread that may be giving some the wrong idea of the product.