My PC Configuration Setup - All on one PC (works great)

[sobsidian]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share some information with this community as I have just started to get serious about FS. I recently went through a ton of hardware upgrades and was very discouraged as I could only get about 15-20fps after i upgraded. I have now discovered with the exact same hardware, I can now achieve 40-50fps with a simple fix (80-100fps with the standard cessena) . To skip to the fix, read towards the bottom.

First I want to talk about what I have and how it all works (which is also very confusing). You will notice my system specs below are not extreme, nor are they on the economy side, but they are just about right for someone who wants to have good FPS, and still run everything on a single PC (not recommended). In the next few months I will be migrating all externel controls/IO and guages onto a dedicated PC (for under $75 on ebay you can find some good standalone systems to accomplish this), as the flight deck software eats up about 25% cpu on its own.

System Components:
My system is using windows 7 x64 with FSX acceleration. I also have the Matrox TH2g to display scenery (using a single DVI port on the video card) connected to 3 23" monitors (1680x1050). Some people with the old nvidia drivers complained this resolution wouldn't work in windows vista or higher, which was true, but latest nvidia drivers fix this. The second DVI port currently runs another 22" monitor to display my Flight Deck instruments. I then purchased Flight Deck Software (from flightdecksoftware.com) Which is not cheap, and many may need to justify the purchase, but it sure is a whole lot cheaper than Project Magenta. I also purchased FSUIPC, which is necessary if anyone plans to do any integration with third party apps/hardware. I also have another 20 or so add-ons which will start to degrade performance (my FPS above is including these)

Hardware wise I currently have the opencockpits MCP and FMC/CDU. The CDU requires a seperate composite video output which I have just purchased another nvidia video card to do. This eventually will get migrated to the new PC as well. I also have a G-737 throttle on its way from ThrottleTek and will be getting the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke to finish off my basic setup (currently using the Saitek x52 pro). In the beginning I had all 3 saitek add-on panels, but I am keeping the radio stack module for now.

System Specs:

• Intel Quad Core q9650 (over clocked to 4.16ghz)
• 4gb of DDR2 single channel 5-5-5-18
• Asus p5q Deluxe MB
• XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
• Single Nvidia GTX260 (superclocked from factory)
• Matrox Triple Head 2 go Digital
• 3 Viewsonic 23" VA2323wm monitors for scenery
• 1 Viewsonic 22" monitor for Guages
• 1 200GB Sata drive for OS
• 1 32gb SSD drive for FSX
• Windows 7 x64
• Flight Sim X w/Acceleration

Hardware Modules:

• OpenCockpit MCP
• OpenCockpit FMC/CDU
• ThrottleTek G-737
• Saitek x52 Pro joystick (soon to be Saitek Yoke)
• Saitek Radio Panel
• Saitek MultiSwitch panel

How it all works:
In order to get this gammet of components working, there was a lot of research done but I will try and make this easy for everyone else. My MCP and FMC/CDU connect into my USB hub, my saitek panels as well. FSX launches, FSUIPC also becomes initialized. Then the SIOC utility to control the opencockpit components gets loaded (which ties its interface into FSUIPC). From here I then load the GlassFlightDeck software from flightdecksoftware.com, which the SIOC utility translates my opencockpit commands to FSUIPC and the software will read it (one note, is although you have a physical MCP, unless the MCP module is add a guage in the glass flight deck configuration, it will not work). In order to get this working the best, it is recommended you remove all axis assignments in the actual FS controls, and assign them using FSUIPC. Also, I do NOT run FSX in full screen mode (this may change when i get a dedicated PC for all the extra stuff and leave the main PC to render).

How to get the best performance out of this setup:
I spent months trying to make this all work right and tune the performance. A number of fsx.cfg tweaks were performed (see http://www.fsstation.com/articles/fl...ce-tweaks.html). I was also told that you should set your target framerate in FSX to between 20-30fps. The reason being is that the rest of the time it would be rendering additional frames, it is rendering scenery and prevents stuttering. That made total sense, and I didn't want my flight sim to stutter, however I discovered that by setting that to unlimited, I now achieve a much better frame rate, and the sim is still very smooth. When I had my fps target at 24, most add-on aircraft I could only get 14fps, it was totally unusable. I was days close to spending another $2000 to upgrade my brand new system from my specs above, to a new i7 system (which if you have the money, go for it). But I decided not to, accidentally was messing around with that setting and BOOM....totally great sim experience!

I should also mention my sliders in the display configuration are just about maxed out in most areas, I did not change these settings once I changed my target frame rate either.

Some helpful resources:
www.fsbreak.net -- tons of useful tools and information
http://www.fsstation.com/articles/fl...ce-tweaks.html
http://www.mileswebsolutions.com/FSXTextureConversion/ -- This utility should increase your FPS by about 20-30fps or more. This utility compress the default FSX textures with little or no visible difference in textures.

[Matt Olieman]

Sobsidian, excellent information. Thanks for sharing with the rest of the FS community. Also, welcome aboard.

[capttlm]

Hello Matt,

Maybe you can help me understand the FMC's connection to FS4? I have everything working with my flight sim, SIOC EFIS, GAUGES, KINGAIR GAUGES and so forth. But the FMC from "opencockpit" is connected to a another computer than the one from the FS4. It works, but the FS4 aircraft doesn't follow the programed path set forth during the flight. Numbers are moving within the FMC, it follows the path of the flight, it just doesn't control the plane.

Q: Should I change files in FS4? Should have the FMC on the same MAIN COMPUTER? IS there a set of fles in the FMC I should program?

Please help me to make this connection for the theFMC/ CDU.

Thanks,

Tommy

[Matt Olieman]

I'm sorry I can't help, I use ProjectMagenta. I'm sure someone else can.