CryogenicPilot

Run Grand Theft Auto IV by Rockstar Games. It's the mainstream gaming equivalent of FSX: A badly coded port that uses mostly the CPU instead of the GPU like modern games should. It is also similar to FSX because it is simulating an entire virtual city with multiple things going on at one time including weather, day/night cycles, dynamic AI, traffic patterns, mass transit running multiple routes, and even incoming/outgoing air traffic, etc.

No, it's more like some anonymous guy on the internet trying to force everybody to agree with him because he doesn't want a discussion, but a forum to preach his beliefs without disagreement and or confirmed evidence to back up his theories. Of course, Intel switched to a more cost effective method of thermal construction, but that's probably due more to the global recession than some grand conspiracy to cheat enthusiasts out of higher overclocks. As we have been discussing, enthusiasts are and always have been the minority. I'm fine with that because there will always be enthusiast level hardware, but it probably will not bring the leaps and bounds of improvements generations of the past used to bring.

I don't think Intel is purposefully hamstringing enthusiasts. I think enthusiasts have become spoiled over the years and now both Intel and enthusiasts are hitting a physical wall of how fast they can push their silicon. The improvements made over the years have always been to allow faster STOCK performance, so you don't have to OC in the first place. That's where the research into lower TPD (and heat) comes from and also because of the general trend of consumer electronics to be mobile (tablets, laptops, ultrabooks, etc). People around the world are on the go and want the power of a high-end desktop in a mobile form factor. Why do you think Nvidia is investing heavily in Shield (Cloud gaming)? I am not making judgments either way, but I think there will always be "enthusiasts" hardware, but it's going to be a much smaller niche market than ever before... Because remember, OEM is where the bulk of Intel and other hardware manufactures make their money, not the high-end enthusiast market. Normal businesses don't need work stations with CPUs overclocked to 5.0 GHZ with GTX Titans in them. That is truly a niche market (gamers) compared to the mainstream that wants everything on the go and to last longer on a single charge. They may be willing to compromise (quality of apps, games), but that doesn't mean Intel and other hardware producers are just going to automatically stop producing enthusiasts hardware. They are just going to charge an arm and a leg for it and make incremental increases versus the massive generational gains we used to see in years past ^_^

Are you sure? Regardless, the underlying point is both Intel and AMD have different architectures even though they share common factors. There is no reliable (or truthful) way to do a 1:1 comparison anymore like we could do in the past. It's almost apples and oranges at this point even though Intel clearly wins in a majority of games and apps.

It's ironic because games are one of the few apps where parallel programming would come in handy, but then again, trying to predict the outcome of certain threads (randomly) is the whole reason why games can't be easily parallelisied like more restrictive apps. Plus, there is the whole "It has to run on lower system configurations" requirement, too ^_^

OP: The only real advantage of the i7 over the i5 is when using a lot of multithreaded apps versus single threaded. FSX and the majority of current games and apps are single threaded (SP2 allows offloading of scenery to a second physical core, but not at 100%). Also, having multithreading is a hardware level feature, so there is no magic hack that can enable multithreading on i5 CPUs, unfortunately. So, if you do a lot of photo editing, video production, 3D design & rendering, or use CAD applications an i7 is ideal because of the extra threads those particular programs are designed to leverage to improve the workload. One last thing... Be aware some of these guides the FS Community take as Gospel can actually decrease performance because a lot of the so-called tweaks and additional settings (Nvidia Inspector) are either redundant, outdated or obsolete at this point due to hardware finally surpassing what is inefficient code from 13 years ago (FS2000/FS2002/FS2004).

Here is the low down on why AMD is slower than Intel in a majority of programs currently on the market. It has nothing to do with MHz. The current high-end AMD chips have four (4) modules with one (1) nteger core and/or two (2) floating point cores. So, any game or app that uses floating point calculations shows better performance on AMD. This is why Crysis 3 performs better on AMD. However, Intel is still stronger in pure integer processing (and IPC) because the majority of current games and apps use normal integer calculations... Games and apps like FSX. So, this is why Intel currently leads the pack if we cut through all the hyperbolic marketing and fan-talk. The tables may turn since the new consoles not only will use x86 architecture, but also multiple cores AND possibly floating point calculations in future games. The beauty is if this does happen, we can all just upgrade our CPUs and mobos to whatever brand does the best and reuse all of our other components, hopefully.

The only two things you should consider when buying a case are... 1) Good air flow 2) Cable management (helps good air flow) Almost all contemporary mid-to-high-end cases have features that help with both (include multiple fans, removable side access covers, enough room behind the motherboard, etc). So, it then comes down to aesthetics, noise and if a particular case can house all of your components with enough room for good air flow (positive, negative, push-pull, etc).

1) It might be a dead / dying CMOS battery. Repalce it and see if it posts. 2) If it is not the CMOS battery, it may be the PCH a.k.a. South Bridge, and this means the board is dead :( What leads me to believe it may be number two is because you said the board doesn't power on, POST normally. That is a symptom of a dying PCH because this is what regulates the power flow through the board from the PSU. If it is bad, the board won't behave like a normal board should.

In my opinion, the main thing your new build should focus on is higher bandwidth and I/O. In other words, even though FS9 is old, it's greatest strength is it is "pure" unlike FSX that is a jumbled mess of old and new, half-finished features (DX 10; Multithreading). So, your main hardware upgrades should focus on speed and improved through put above all else. 1) I recommend getting a used (or new) Intel E8500 (3.0 GHZ) / E8600 (3.30 GHZ) Core2Duo CPU. 2) DDR2 RAM that runs at 800 MHz vs. your current 266 MHz RAM. 3) Nvidia GPU of your choice. Even something like a 9800 GTX is more than enough for FS9. It's no myth Nvidia performs better with both Intel CPUs / mobos and FSX. It's proven fact. If you want to run three monitors off one card I would suggest the most recent Nvidia offerings like the GTX 600, 700 series. You may have a technical bottleneck with a Wolfdale CPU + 600/700 series GPU, but you are running a program that is nearly 10 years old and built on inefficient FS2000-era code. So, any bottleneck will be purely "technical" and probably not noticeable in the sim. For reference, I used to run FS9 on a Core2Duo E5800 (O.C. to 3.7 GHZ) with a GTX 260 at it was nearly maxed outwith this humble setup four years ago. 4) Make the switch to at least Windows 7 x64-bit to take advantage of more than 3 GBs of RAM. I know Windows XP is the "gamers" choice, but a lot of so-called gamers don't know how to optimize their systems on a regular basis, either. So, they think any new OS is "bloated" and "slow" when that is just not the case. I can understand skipping Vista and Windows 8 because of the Metro GUI, but choosing not to be on at least Windows 7 in 2013 doesn't make any sense to me from a technological stand point.

Add this to your FSX.cfg: [GRAPHICS] HIGHMEMFIX=1 This should stop the OOM errors and also increase performance, too...

First off, is it a laptop? Second, if it is a desktop, do you have a sound card e.g. Sound Blaster X-Fi, Audigy, etc? Provide this info. I think I know what the problem might be...

Those flashing blue textures are probably because whatever third party scenery addon you are using isn't DX10 compatible. If you can live without it, you might try disabling, or uninstalling it to see if the flashing no longer exists? There is even a way to enable AA in DX10, too. The ONLY thing preventing me from switching permanently to DX10 is no vsync. This is the most annoying thing of all since it makes the sim look like trash because of the screen tearing. If we (the community) could figure out how to fix this, I think a lot of people would also start using DX10 full time as well.

I'm seeing a bit of myopia here because the median age of most AVSIM posters is probably on the older side. That's just a guess, and that's not a bad thing by any means... BUT it is not representative of who is ENTERING the hobby which is what some posters believe is a very small percentage. I believe this is a false statistic and DMaher also agrees there is a significant amount of teens (and up) who are entering on a regular basis, too. That's the main point I want to get across because all you have to do is go OUTSIDE Avsim and you can see (partially) who is using certain addon products, how they are using them, etc. So, again, the future of Flight Sim is not in any danger of dying out because of the demise of "Flight". You don't need statistical evidence to deduce most mainstream gamers want excitement a.k.a. explosions and violence in their titles. Just compare mainstream gaming titles to the smaller simulation genere in terms of sales. I shouldn't have to explain a statement like this unless you are unwilling to look at the realities of the video game industry as a whole? But I can also see this is one of those touchy subjects some "Flight" supporters aren't willing to talk about yet because of how raw the whole thing still is, so I will eave it at that...

Strange? Go on Youtbue and the vast majority of videos are by teens who are all about real world authenticity, PPLs, etc. It is only one segment of the flight sim community, but the statement there are no young simmers entering the FS community is just not accurate in my experience. They might not come to AVSIM, but they are out there in bigger numbers than it seems. This is why I don't get all panicky with threads like "The Future of Our Hobby" and others. There is always new blood flowing in even if you (we) can't see it...