Software rebuild on primary PC question

[rottenlungs]

Henry

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me such a detailed reply.

With FS being primarily cpu bound, I will indeed investigate getting a faster CPU and run with the non-raid dedicate drive setup.

Now for the fun part, rebuilding my FS install with its hundreds of mods / tweaks!

Thanks again

James

[Prof Bill]

Hi Henry,

Re: 04-29-08 01:55 PM

I have just read your comments on RAID0 and I have indeed experienced exactly the same with similiar conclusions.
I am now tuning FSX (RAID0) on a very large VISTA ASUS MAXMUS EXTREME QUAD CORE system and I am investigating how to optimise Memory Management.

The article written by Jeff Atwood in http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html
and the subsequent forum discussion is very informative and well worth reading and investigating.
I have improved my frame rates significantly by understanding what is happening but also expensively by using 4GB of DDR3 1800 overclocked.
The reality is that you are wasting your time and money in a VISTA 32 Bit system by having anything over 3.5GB (approx.) of memory. This is important for people contemplating purchasing more than 4GB of expensive memory - not a good investment!
It is also worth remarking also that "the jury is out" on the advantages of dual channel versus single channel memory in terms of its contribution to performance. My experiments to date demonstrate no observable improvement!

The interesting part of all this is the significant positive difference Super Fetch makes to VISTA performance and also the cache management strategy.

Have you done any experiments in this area as I would be delighted to share
my experiences.

Bill.

[andarlite]

Hi Henry,

Re: 04-29-08 01:55 PM

I have just read your comments on RAID0 and I have indeed experienced exactly the same with similiar conclusions.
I am now tuning FSX (RAID0) on a very large VISTA ASUS MAXMUS EXTREME QUAD CORE system and I am investigating how to optimise Memory Management.

The article written by Jeff Atwood in http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html
and the subsequent forum discussion is very informative and well worth reading and investigating.
I have improved my frame rates significantly by understanding what is happening but also expensively by using 4GB of DDR3 1800 overclocked.
The reality is that you are wasting your time and money in a VISTA 32 Bit system by having anything over 3.5GB (approx.) of memory. This is important for people contemplating purchasing more than 4GB of expensive memory - not a good investment!
It is also worth remarking also that "the jury is out" on the advantages of dual channel versus single channel memory in terms of its contribution to performance. My experiments to date demonstrate no observable improvement!

The interesting part of all this is the significant positive difference Super Fetch makes to VISTA performance and also the cache management strategy.

Have you done any experiments in this area as I would be delighted to share
my experiences.

Bill.

Hi Bill

Here's an extremely good post(s) on how to optimize your memory:

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?...topic_id=37210

I'm still running XP so I can't comment on Super Fetch. Interesting article..... did you experience the same side effect that he had when the game (FSX in your case) initially started up?

Regards,
Henry

[Prof Bill]

Hi Henry,
Many thanks for this link!
I am just going out so I will examine and digest it on my return.
It does look like very familiar territory which is most helpful in terms of what Ihave covered.

Bill.

[Prof Bill]

Hi Henry,

I totally concur with the findings of the article and it would appear that Nick N
has gone further than I in his investigations and indeed has saved me much experimentation and effort!
He has confirmed what I felt about the multifaceted interdependency of CAS, RAS, etc., etc. and DDR3 and how worthwhile it to move there with VISTA if the "price is right"!
I am seeing the improvements that Nick N has experienced and FSX working as it really should - that can only be good news!

I did discover a link that is of real interest in terms of memory performance improvement and is worth a visit in terms of graphical explanation and opportunity to experiment.

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=195

Many thanks,

Bill.

[andarlite]

Hi Bill

Thanks for the excellent link. It pretty much what Nick is saying except that it's much easier for the average person to follow.

It's very unfortunate that most people are only using high frame rates as the only benchmark that FS(9)(X) is running well when there is so much more to look at.

Regards,
Henry