Building new FS Machine- A few questions

[Tomlin]

As stated above, Im building a new machine for FS.

* I have only 1 drive currently that's going in it (SATA 250GB).

1) Shouldnt I partition the drive and have XP on one and FS on the other, and
2) How big should I make the OS drive?
3) In the future I plan to buy another SATA drive and have FS on it if that's better peformance wise. Thoughts?

* Do I correctly understand that my 2.1v RAM should be just fine in this MB that has the capability of running 1.8v ? (It runs DDR2 1066 or DDR2 800 depending on CPU and a reviewer said his 2.1 RAM ran at 1.87 per the BIOS).

* Any special things I need to do before installing FS9 and then FSX after XP is running stable?

Thanks,

[mauriceb]

Hi Eric,
My thoughts below in red and I take full responsibility, but not the blame for any unexpected and unwanted results

Maurice

As stated above, Im building a new machine for FS.

* I have only 1 drive currently that's going in it (SATA 250GB).

1) Shouldnt I partition the drive and have XP on one and FS on the other, and

Absolutely not. This will make things worse

2) How big should I make the OS drive?

Not relevant if you don't partition, but you should get the biggest drive you can afford. 250 GB sounds big until you start adding scenery and disk drives are much more efficient when nearly empty since all the data can reside in the much faster outer tracks, especially if you use a good defragmenter that can relocate most often used data to the outer tracks.

3) In the future I plan to buy another SATA drive and have FS on it if that's better peformance wise. Thoughts? Again, absolutely not

* Do I correctly understand that my 2.1v RAM should be just fine in this MB that has the capability of running 1.8v ? (It runs DDR2 1066 or DDR2 800 depending on CPU and a reviewer said his 2.1 RAM ran at 1.87 per the BIOS).
If your motherboard can use 1066, use 1066 and not 800. Anything you can do to speed memory is a good thing

* Any special things I need to do before installing FS9 and then FSX after XP is running stable? Say a few prayers perhaps . Also do install all MS updates and all versions of .Net with their own service packs

Thanks,

[Tomlin]

Hmm...I always have heard it's best to partition to speed it up...I will dig deeper now.

Re RAM, long story but it's DDR2 800 for now...

Thanks, any other input appreciated.

[mauriceb]

Hmm...I always have heard it's best to partition to speed it up...I will dig deeper now.
.

This is from my own experience and also from reading reports from very knowledgeable people. But do conduct you own research

Maurice

[Kennair]

Eric,

I've recently built a system and loaded FS9 & FSX so might be of some help.

Maurice is correct, don't partition your drive, it does slow down access. Your better option is to keep one big drive and get yourself a good defragment program like Ultimate Defrag which can place any directories i.e. Windows and FS, on the outer (fastest) part of the drive and all others on the slower inner portion. I have a 500Gb drive in my setup using this scenario quite successfully.

I also agree that the faster RAM the better. Remember, FS relies on CPU first followed by RAM. GPU speed and memory comes a distant third!

Once windows is installed make sure all updates are done before installing FS. FS9 is no problem, just load and play. FSX however will benefit from a systematic approach. I highly recommend getting a good payware defrag program before proceeding.

1. Before starting the FSX install, defrag. If you get Ultimate defrag, select both Windows and your FS directory to be placed on the outer part of the disc.

2. Install FSX. Restart then defrag again.

3. Install SP1. Restart then defrag.

4. Install SP2. Restart then defrag.

5. Restart again and your done!

Setup a regular defrag as suggested by whatever program you purchase.

Good luck,

Ken.

[Matt Olieman]

Guys, really good information/advise and informative. I know setting up a new computer for FS is an art in itself

Thanks again

Matt Olieman

[Tomlin]

Guys, I appreciate it too. Because of my budget, I went with the 250GB SATA drive (that's a good bit faster than my current IDE drive!) and I purchased the DDR2 800 RAM over the DDR2 1066 because my new CPU, the AM2 Athlon X64 3.6 is a Dual Core. The Mother Bd will only allow speeds of 1066 IF the CPU is the AM2+ Phenom. So, instead of buying faster RAM that is going to run a bit slower due to my CPU, I bought the appropriate speed of RAM for the CPU/Board reccomendations.

However, my real concern is that the board's stated 'Standard Memory' is DDR2 1066 (a bit misleading if you dont read the fine print of only if it's a Phenom CPU) and of course, this is all because I paid a little bit for future proof by purchasing an AM2/AM2+ MB which will allow me to upgrade to a quad core in the future once the raw CPU power has increased past my new 3.6 Ghz CPU. On to the concern: the MB website says 1.8 volt RAM if DDR2 800 is used, but I bought 2.1. Another purchaser of the same MB and CPU wrote in a review that his purchased 2.1 volt RAM was seen by the MB as 1.87 and was confused until he later realized that his error was in the selection of the non AM2+ CPU. As a result, the MB downgraded the RAM to 1.87 volts and so basically I was just hoping someone here could verify that this is a non-issue.

Regarding the partitioning, I will go for the non partitioned deal, thanks guys!

Regardless, Im going from currently a:

AMD single core 2.1 / 1 Gig PC2700 RAM / 256 MB Geforce 7600GT 8xAGP / IDE HD

to a...

AMD dual core 3.2 / 2 Gig PC2 6000 RAM dual channel / 512 MB 9800 GT 16x PCIe / SATA Hd

...Not to mention a huge difference in the Front Side Bus on the MB!

I think that I will see MASSIVE difference in FS9! Who knows, FSX might be a treat too.

[Michael Carter]

Guys, I appreciate it too. Because of my budget, I went with the 250GB SATA drive (that's a good bit faster than my current IDE drive!) and I purchased the DDR2 800 RAM over the DDR2 1066 because my new CPU, the AM2 Athlon X64 3.6 is a Dual Core. The Mother Bd will only allow speeds of 1066 IF the CPU is the AM2+ Phenom. So, instead of buying faster RAM that is going to run a bit slower due to my CPU, I bought the appropriate speed of RAM for the CPU/Board reccomendations.

However, my real concern is that the board's stated 'Standard Memory' is DDR2 1066 (a bit misleading if you dont read the fine print of only if it's a Phenom CPU) and of course, this is all because I paid a little bit for future proof by purchasing an AM2/AM2+ MB which will allow me to upgrade to a quad core in the future once the raw CPU power has increased past my new 3.6 Ghz CPU. On to the concern: the MB website says 1.8 volt RAM if DDR2 800 is used, but I bought 2.1. Another purchaser of the same MB and CPU wrote in a review that his purchased 2.1 volt RAM was seen by the MB as 1.87 and was confused until he later realized that his error was in the selection of the non AM2+ CPU. As a result, the MB downgraded the RAM to 1.87 volts and so basically I was just hoping someone here could verify that this is a non-issue.

Regarding the partitioning, I will go for the non partitioned deal, thanks guys!

Regardless, Im going from currently a:

AMD single core 2.1 / 1 Gig PC2700 RAM / 256 MB Geforce 7600GT 8xAGP / IDE HD

to a...

AMD dual core 3.6 / 2 Gig PC2 6000 RAM dual channel / 512 MB 9800 GT 16x PCIe / SATA Hd

...Not to mention a huge difference in the Front Side Bus on the MB!

I think that I will see MASSIVE difference in FS9! Who knows, FSX might be a treat too.

You will see a massive difference in FS9. You should be able to max all of your sliders with those specs. My processor is not quite that fast, but it doesn't have to be for FS9, and it's the best I've ever seen FS9.

[Tomlin]

Mike,

The other night I took a look at my FS9 settings and the marjority of them are at 75% or greater to the right, so Im thinking that although the sim may not look a tremendous amount better it will definately fly silky smooth, right?

I have the following addons:

FlyTampa Midway
FT Seattle
FT TNCM
Imagine Sim Nassau, Bahammas
IS San Juan PR
IS New Orleans
Flight Zone Rhode Island and Portland
MegaScenery Washington DC
...several freeware sceneries that are good like FreeFlow Florida, etc.

PLUS Ground Environment and the most awesome Ultimate Terrain.

Im thinking that I can now fly into all of these with 100% AI and start using my Active Sky again and maybe even go back to Radar Contact possibly all without much hit.

It's all the $$$ spent on these products along with the lingering issues that make me scared to move to FSX, although when I do fly it on the desktop, it looks fantastic even when the FPS' are low.

[mauriceb]

I keep forgetting you are still staying with FS9. I do agree that FS9 is much less of an issue and you should be able to get all the performance you need without using Michael services. But, if you do end up with blurries or shimmering or whatever seems to afflict FS9 even with a fast machine and you can't find a solution that works, then Michael can fix that for you.
There are tons of posts in various forums about people with very fast machines who still complain about poor graphics, so fast machine not always the cure for that.

But you can try FS9 by yourself and if you are happy with it, no point calling Michael. You can do the same with FSX and see where you end up and you can always uninstall everything if need be . Nothing is un-doable

Mau