Tweaking my setup for FS2004...

[PilotPom]

Hi guys and girls,

As mentioned in my intro post, I would like some advice on how to get the best performance from my computer for running FS2004 to a fairly high level. I am prepared to put my hand in my pocket and part with a bit of cash, if need be, to make a few upgrades, so any advice you could offer would be extremely helpful. The basic game itself runs "ok" at 25 FPS with some of the settings stripped down but I want to make it look as real as possible, and understand that I would probably need to purchase premium aircraft, REX, active camera etc, but what hardware upgrades would you recommend, without breaking the bank, to achieve this?

My current setup is as follows...

XP Home (SP3)
ASUS P5KPL-AM/PS with integrated graphics (256mb)
Intel E5300 Pentium Dual-Core @ 2.6GHz
2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
500Gb WD SATA drive
AOC 19" Widescreen (1600x900)

Hope that's enough info to give you guys some ideas. More ram? Independent graphics card? Faster processor (ouch$$$!)?

Any advice would be great, thanks in advance!

Pom.

[Fozzer]

QUOTE (PilotPom @ Nov 26 2010, 03:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi guys and girls,

As mentioned in my intro post, I would like some advice on how to get the best performance from my computer for running FS2004 to a fairly high level. I am prepared to put my hand in my pocket and part with a bit of cash, if need be, to make a few upgrades, so any advice you could offer would be extremely helpful. The basic game itself runs "ok" at 25 FPS with some of the settings stripped down but I want to make it look as real as possible, and understand that I would probably need to purchase premium aircraft, REX, active camera etc, but what hardware upgrades would you recommend, without breaking the bank, to achieve this?

My current setup is as follows...

XP Home (SP3)
ASUS P5KPL-AM/PS with integrated graphics (256mb)
Intel E5300 Pentium Dual-Core @ 2.6GHz
2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
500Gb WD SATA drive
AOC 19" Widescreen (1600x900)

Hope that's enough info to give you guys some ideas. More ram? Independent graphics card? Faster processor (ouch$$$!)?

Any advice would be great, thanks in advance!

Pom.

Never fear, Pom... ...!

My ancient, Homebuilt, Desktop case, contains the following, to run FS 2004 with all the sliders maxed, locked at 20 FPS...>>>

Gigabyte GA-7N400 S(L) Socket A.. ...AGP Motherboard.
AMD Socket A... ...Athlon XP Thoroughbred 2600 (2.1 GHz) Processor.
nVidia AGP, Ge-Force 7800 GS 256 MB...Graphics Card.
2 GB Ram.
700 Watt PSU.
250 GB HDD.
CD ROM.
DVD ROM.
3-1/2 " Floppy drive.
Windows XP SP3/Windows 7 Home Premium.

..and a Squirrel's Nest...

Good-old FS 2004 will run happily on almost anything!...even Antifreeze... ....!

Paul....G-BPLF...FS 2004...FS Navigator...and a Wheel-Barrow... ....!

...with REX (FS2004), GE Pro, and VOZ 1.8...

[IslandBoy77]

Hi Pom

The best thing for your system is to put in a proper graphics card and switch off the on-board (usually putting in a proper graphics card will turn off the on-board, but it would pay to manually switch it off in the BIOS once the new card is in and running, and make sure the BIOS selects the new card as primary). Since you've got a Dual-Core system, it is highly likely that you'll have a PCI-E slot for the graphics card, which means you can avail yourself of all the new graphic cards. The only "but" there is your power supply (PSU) - you'll want at least a 500W true (not peak) PSU, so that you can run a new card comfortably when it's at peak load. For the graphics card, you'll get the good old ATI vs nVidia positionings here - I like / use ATI (cheaper power for money), and recommend the HD5770 as a great card at a good price. Having said that, ANY card with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM or better should do the trick well enough.

Other than that, just make sure you have unneeded processes switched off in the system, defrag your hard drive every week or so, and don't use a bloated payware AV like Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro et al. Avast or Microsoft Essentials are your best AV solutions, and both free.

You might like to consider putting a 2nd hdd into your PC and running FS9 off that exclusively. Although it seems like a waste of space, a 64MB cache 1TB HDD will give your performance a nice lift - a big cache helps with data throughput, and having the sim on it's own drive means it doesn't have to "fight for attention" with Windows systems wanting access (esp for the virtual mem file), and your defragging will take much less time (in fact, if you don't make any additions to your FS9 setup, you'd only need to defrag the FS9 HDD every couple of months if it had it's own HDD).

Lastly, use a good free registry defragger to optimise the size of your Registry. There are a couple of good registry cleaners lurking about, but one needs to be mindful when using them: not sure if you want to go there with that.

Cheers
Peter

[PilotPom]

Well, thanks for the input guys, will definately take that on board (motherboard that is!). I do already have a spare 500Gb HD in my tower, but it gave me a few probs so I unplugged it and brought another, but I'll try it again, reformatting it and see how I go. Wife won't let me spend too much!

I have my eye on two graphics cards... Gigabyte Geforce 220 1GB GDDR3 PCIE, or SAPPHIRE HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 PCIE. More memory or faster speed? If you think either of these are good then I'll part with some cash!

I'm thinking about sticking another 2Gb of RAM in too, couldn't hurt. It's cheap enough and 4Gb is the max my board can take anyway so why not! I'll pop in another PSU while I'm at it!

Thanks again,

Pom.

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (PilotPom @ Nov 27 2010, 08:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, thanks for the input guys, will definately take that on board (motherboard that is!). I do already have a spare 500Gb HD in my tower, but it gave me a few probs so I unplugged it and brought another, but I'll try it again, reformatting it and see how I go. Wife won't let me spend too much!

I have my eye on two graphics cards... Gigabyte Geforce 220 1GB GDDR3 PCIE, or SAPPHIRE HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 PCIE. More memory or faster speed? If you think either of these are good then I'll part with some cash!

I'm thinking about sticking another 2Gb of RAM in too, couldn't hurt. It's cheap enough and 4Gb is the max my board can take anyway so why not! I'll pop in another PSU while I'm at it!

Thanks again,

Pom.

Either of those 2 graphic cards will suit FS9 well enough. Since FS9 is quite old now, putting a very powerful graphic card in is a waste of dosh, as there is only so much complexity of video that FS9 can produce. But, as I say, both those cards you mention will do the trick. The only thought there is that if you plan (or are allowed... ) to go to FSX or whatever the next sim coming is called in the next 12-18 months, those 2 cards you mention will be "dead money" as they are too weak for FSX (and probably the next sim as well).

As for the RAM, if you're running a 32-bit OS (which presumably you are), you'll only get use 3.5GB out of the 4GB. Not sure if FS9 will actually make use of the extra RAM - I don't use it anymore, and the last time I did it was on a 2GB system. Hopefully someone else here still using FS9 can comment on that for you. If you do go more RAM, just make sure you have same brand / same manufacturing run / same size DIMMs - in other words, dual-channel. One doesn't have to buy the special kits to do this: so long as you get, say, 2 x 2GB DDR2 DIMMs from the same store from the same batch, the computer will be happy to accept them comfortably as dual-channel. Even if XP ignores the last half GB of the 4GB, it's better to have the hardware running in the dual-channel configuration for optimal through-put.

With the PSU, don't get a cheap brand. Also, make sure it has at least 2 x 12v rails and Active PFC. I like the following brands (in no particular order): ThermalTake, SilverStone & AcBel. They are all made from good quality components, have lifetime (which means either 5 or 10 years - not YOUR lifetime! ) warranties, and most of their models have dual 12v rails (the more expensive ones have 3 or 4 rails) and Active PFC. If you can get a Silver 80 Plus rating unit, that's even better. It's VERY important to have smooth, clean power for your components. I also strongly recommend a line-interactive UPS, as there are 9 different types of "power events" that get fed into our PCs from the power companies on a regular basis. A line-interactive UPS smooths all the cr@p out and also gives you 5-10 mins of full battery backup. Be aware that all warranties on computer hardware are void if failure is found to be due to a "power event". Most people are unaware of the fact that "power events" are not just excess supply of power, but also lacks. And computer hardware does not take kindly to either. As time goes along and our poor PCs are forced to endure many micro power events (you know the type: it flicks the TV screen or lights but not enough to switch them off), the damage to the internal components - especially on the motherboard - is cumulative. Then one day, you power up, there is a "BANG" and that horrible burnt "brown" smell, and... well, you can guess the rest. UPSes are not cheap - a good one will set you back $200-$220, but they last 3-5 years, and the good ones come with excellent guarantees (including connected-devices payouts up to $50k in some cases). I recommend, sell and use the Eaton PowerWare series. You'd need at least a 700VA model.

Anyway, hope it all goes well for you!

[nzav8tor]

What the? Have you seen what FSX can do these days? Why consider upgrading to run ACOF when for the same money you could have birds singing on your desktop...

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (nzav8tor @ Nov 28 2010, 12:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What the? Have you seen what FSX can do these days? Why consider upgrading to run ACOF when for the same money you could have birds singing on your desktop...

What's 'ACOF'? I agree that FS9 is long in the tooth, but to run FSX properly is gonna take a lot more than his wife will allow him to spend. This is one of those cases of getting great performance with fair graphics from an older sim on modest gear, rather than sluggish performance with most of the candy turned off on FSX (which needs tweaking out the wazoo to run even passably with some candy). My PC is twice as powerful as his, and I still can't run sliders in FSX to full, get large drops in usable FPS over dense scenery etc etc. I actually think using FS9 is the right answer for him at this point in time...

[Bazza]

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Nov 28 2010, 01:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's 'ACOF'?

The original name for FS9, "A Century of Flight."

[ZK-MAT]

QUOTE (Bazza @ Nov 28 2010, 01:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The original name for FS9, "A Century of Flight."

Yep, it's full name was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight. You can't miss seeing it - the phrase is plastered everywhere in the sim.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/flightsimulator.aspx

[IslandBoy77]

Oh yeah, true. I'm so used to calling it FS9 now that I'd not linked up the acronym to it's full title. I am aware of FS9's full moniker, just didn't make the connection...

[Fozzer]

I've still got my FS'98, FS 2000, FS 2002, FS 2004...and FSX...

But I concentrate on my trusty FS 2004, with all its fantastic Scenery, Mesh, etc, add-ons, including FS Navigator and LAGO FSE Scenery Enhancer design program.

My ancient Computer runs them all fantastically...except FSX...because I reckon no matter how much money I throw at my Computer, FSX will never run as smoothly as my FS 2004 with all my sliders maxed-out, and all the boxes ticked!

When I am in a really depressed mood I try FSX.. . ....then quickly switch back to FS 2004 again, and watch the Sun come out again in the sky... ...!

FSX requires loadsa money spent, and endless tinkering with the FSX.cfg file, to achieve some sort of satisfaction...

...life is far too short...

FS 2002/FS 2004 runs mostly straight out of the box... ....!

...and connecting to Multiplayer in FS 2004 is easy-peasy....click of a button...(FS Host)...!

http://203.114.130.15:81/

Paul...G-BPLF....FS 2004....FS Nav... ...!