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Alienware today ?...

Well, i've got that Alienware Aera51ALX monster sitting next to me for a couple days now. And it's a MONSTER indeed !! :isadizzy:

It's a funny feeling..... having absolutely nothing to complain or wish for re FSX performance anymore.... it will still take some time to get used to.... I guess as far as FSX goes, and i suppose that'll be loooooong time, i think i'm finally done.... :jump:

The only thing i am slightly dissapointed with is that, because of liquid cooling, the noise would be less than my XPS710. In fact, however, i think it's even a bit louder... Certainly not a reason to send it back, just something i didn't expect. :frown:

Another thing is that i found out today that the Dell 30" monitor doesn't work.... The system worked fine on my old monitor but after connecting this new 30" all i get is 'No display port cable' dancing around the screen..... The monitor came with a DVI cable so i tried that first with the above result. A VGA cable is already connected to the monitor so i tried that, same thing, no go.... There's also a 'Displayport Cable' included but i can't find a connector for that on the GF GTX480. It might be that an adaptor cable is missing.... Still one would think that this monitor would still work with VGA or DVI as well.... i mean, there's even a VGA cable attached to it.... :rolleyes: :confused:

I'll call Dell in the morning, see what's up about that.

( btw, the guy that is responsable for setting up the line of connectors with these Dell flat screen monitors should be send to a mental institution..... :banghead: )

Anyway and Otherwise, i am completely bolted over with extacy about FSX performance with this monster machine. The joy of approach and landing at the most demanding airports with all sliders maxed out (apart from road traffic, 15% is more than enough for me ), without so much as a stutter and the fps staying around 30/35 really is a dream come true.

Mind you, i have not installed any of the fancy thirdparty photoreal airports yet, just FSX with SP1/SP2 and REX at the moment, so we'll have to see about that later on.

Looking forward to see all this amazing eye candy appearing on that 30" monitor if all works out well in the end.

Cheers,
Jan
Happy virtual pilot for once ( finally have the idea i'm actually flying ! :naturesm: )
 
Still happy after 10 days ;) ?

Have you installed your 30" monster monitor and some heavy addons and made water cooling quieter ?
 
dominique said:
Still happy after 10 days ;) ?
Click to expand...

Even more ! :mixedsmi:

It turned out quickly that i DID get problems with FSX. I got a few BSOD's and every testflight would end with a 'FSX stopped working'. W7 proved very handy with its 'event log system'. Every FSX crash showed ' terrain.dll' as being the culprit.

A guy at Avsim got the same problem and he adviced me to shove the sliders back a tad. That worked ! I did a few 2 hour flights without any problem !

Not as pretty as with all sliders maxed surely but i do have a good base now to do some more tweaking and testing to find out which of the sliders causes the FSX crash.

Have you installed your 30" monster monitor and some heavy addons and made water cooling quieter ?
Click to expand...

Well, i don't feel up tinkering with the cooling system just yet eventhough there's a very fancy "Alienware Thermal Control Manager" menu to do so. I'll get the helpdesk to assist. Have to call anyway because sometimes after having put the system in Sleep Mode and getting it back up i get this message that Thermal Control has stopped working.....
The 30" is working and i am still flabbergasted running FSX on it.... :jawdrop: :cool:


It proved that, somehow, my new system will not display the menu with which to select the cable to connect the monitor with. I tried the monitor on my old system and up popped that menu immidiately ! I could then select DVI as connection cable so when i connected the monitor to the Alienware again it worked right away. Yiihaaaaa!! ;)

Shouldn't happen of course..... what if i did not have an old XP system to connect the monitor too.... Still, i was so happy to finally get that monitor working i forgat about that annoying initiation problem right away. I have to use seatbelts now everytime i fly FSX !! :jump:

Next to REX i have installed UTX/GEX/USA/Europe, FTX/PNW, UKVFRGenX, San Francisco, and a couple fav planes. Everything working fine now with the scenery sliders moved back a bit.

Am i still happy ?... Well, i can't really tell how happy i am. This sure is what FSX is all about, the most amazing PC flightsim i have EVER experienced. Personally i don't need anything more when it comes to flightsimming ( well..... OK.... maybe 3D ! Yessss, deffinately 3D !! :cool: ) I know i will enjoy this tremendously for many years to come.

Of course, when somebody feels up to surprise us with a totally new flightsimulation program i'll be the first to try it. Not because it will be better than FSX ( IMHO it's a fat chance we'll see anything better than FSX in the forseeable future.. ) but just out of curiosity.

Ok, seatbelts on, here i go again ! :jump:

Cheers,
Jan
 
Hi Jan...only just seen this now. Congrats on the new system...it seems Alienware have gotten their act together with the ALX range since I bought mine. :) I'm surprised that you had problems setting up the monitor but it's great to hear you've got it up and running okay now. FSX on a 30" monitor @ 2560x1600 resolution and good fps is sublime!:wiggle:
 
I still have to get my own dream machine but I really enjoy seeing people who did get theirs having fun ! Thanks for sharing that.

You had 'to shove the sliders a tad' :) before or after installing all the fancy addons ?
 
Thanks,guys.

kilo delta said:
I'm surprised that you had problems setting up the monitor but it's great to hear you've got it up and running okay now.
Click to expand...

Well, it was just a silly thing really. No matter which cable i'd use i'd just got this 'no display port cable' blurb dancing around the screen. What should've popped up was the menu to select a cable connection but it just didn't.... It was like getting this brand new Lamborghini Murcielago delivered at my doorstep without a slot to put the key in... :blind:



FSX on a 30" monitor @ 2560x1600 resolution and good fps is sublime!:wiggle:
Click to expand...

I know! Been drooling over that but only for about 15 minutes..... Than the damn BSOD would come in with a bang to spoil the party. Many more tests proved i'd still be getting BSOD's or ' FSX stopped working' errors with the scenery sliders moved back a tad. I didn't even think about it first but it very much looks like i'll have to let go of the 2560x1600 resolution.... atleast until i might be able to find another solution to stop the BSOD's.

I'm running at 1920x1200 now and that seems to stop FSX from crashing deffinately. It is still a pretty picture surely, the cake still looks and tastes delicious but the icing is gone... Seems though that i can move all scenery sliders back to max again.


View attachment 16298


I still believe that, one way or another, i can get this thing to run FSX on the monitor's default resolution, which is 2560x1600, all scenery sliders maxxed and no BSOD's. You gotta have faith... :)

Cheers,
Jan
 
You do sacrifice a little fps if running at the maximum resolution and with the sliders to the right....but it's soooooooooooooo worth it. As I've stated in a couple of different threads I definitely still prefer the Dell 30" monitor at full 2560x1600 resolution over my much bigger 47" LCD TV's at 1920x1080. :d
 
dominique said:
You had 'to shove the sliders a tad' :) before or after installing all the fancy addons ?
Click to expand...

Well, atleast it is deffinately clear that the scenery addons are not to blame for crashing FSX because i got my first BSOD after 10 minutes of flight with a just installed virgin FSX.... That was a nice showstopper i can tell you.... ( ho,ho,ho, laddy..... you might have this brand new Alienware Area51ALX monster machine to play with now but that doesn't mean all your FSX worries are over ! )

I'm running with the latest drivers for the GTX480 now but that didn't stop the BSOD's..

Well, like i said, Dominique, i still have faith it will prove posssible to tame this monster one way or another !

Cheers,
Jan
 
kilo delta said:
Have you tried Nick N's cfg tweaks, Javis?
Click to expand...

Not that much really, KD, because to me it looked like Windows 7 was not accounted for yet.....?

Via AVsim FSX forum I followed a link to Nick's FSX tweaks at Simviation but as far as i could read
it is all about XP and Vista, not so much about W7...

I never had any of these BSOD's running FSX on XP ( never changed to Vista... ) but than again there was no way of maxing the sliders on my old XP machine of course, let alone running it at 2560x1600... :)

I continue doing tests with various settings but i have become quite prudent (not to say superstitious ) to talk about the results just yet.... I'll report back in a week or so.... :)

Cheers,
Jan
 
Javis said:
Not that much really, KD, because to me it looked like Windows 7 was not accounted for yet.....?

Via AVsim FSX forum I followed a link to Nick's FSX tweaks at Simviation but as far as i could read
it is all about XP and Vista, not so much about W7...

I never had any of these BSOD's running FSX on XP ( never changed to Vista... ) but than again there was no way of maxing the sliders on my old XP machine of course, let alone running it at 2560x1600... :)

I continue doing tests with various settings but i have become quite prudent (not to say superstitious ) to talk about the results just yet.... I'll report back in a week or so.... :)

Cheers,
Jan
Click to expand...

Jan...the tweaks will work fine under Win 7 too...I tried most of them on my Win7 64bit system without issue.
As for superstitions........well I guess my PC has just been infected with a rather nasty fsx gremlin which results in 5 minutes of fantastic sim experience followed by an abrupt CTD! I'll perform an exorcism on it just as soon as I can bear to be in the same room as it again!

I <3 FSX


:d
 
I'm Home !!

Actually i'm in flightsim 7th Heaven finally !

There'll be blue screens over
the White Cliffs of Dover,
today, just you wait and see..

I used to sing that while flying my fav Spit over gorgeous UK-VFRGenX. No more !!! :jump:

Not the sliders nore the resolution or anything like that, in fact FSX wasn't too blame at all for constantly getting these damn BSOD's during FSX flying. Actually nVidia is to blame, for turning off the 480GTX processor that takes care of the special fx by default ! :violent:

Flip the thing to 'ON'
and all troubles are gone
But how was I to know
I ain't no puter pro

Yeah, it happend to be the Alienware helpdesk guy that caught it. Raoul, here's to you, love ya !! :ernae:

Surely i am the one to blame, i should've read all there is to know about this latest nVidia video card. Clear case of **** ! :p:

Anyway, couldn't be more happy now i haven't seen a BSOD for 3 days of flying FSX with all scenery sliders maxed. YIIIIIIIIIHAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Thanks everyone for trying to help in my quest to fight the BSOD's. ! :salute:

Cheers,
Jan

View attachment 17312 View attachment 17309 View attachment 17310 View attachment 17311

edit : some of these screenies aren't half as wonderful as i see them, apparently they get resized... original they are all 1500 wide. I suppose i should've read the picture upload limitations first... :redf:
pencil.png
 
Hey KD,

Well, i'm a dutchie, 6 feet beneath sea level, right underneath approach path Rwy 19R EHAM so i buy my Dell stuff in Holland and get a dutch Dell/Alienware helpdesk too. I can choose between Dutch or English speaking representatives and usually during weekends it's English only. Don't know if their from Ireland though...

The Alienware helpdesk guy, Raoul Leunura ( doesn't sound dutch but he really is..) that helped me even sent me en email today, asking how i got on after the changes he made to my system. He said it was the so called nVidia PhysX GPU that was inactive. Finally i am now enjoying what i payed for to tremendous extent. :wiggle:

I hope you will be able to sort out your own FSX gremlin as well, KD !

Good Luck !

Cheers,
Jan
 
Javis said:
Hey KD,

Well, i'm a dutchie, 6 feet beneath sea level, right underneath approach path Rwy 19R EHAM so i buy my Dell stuff in Holland and get a dutch Dell/Alienware helpdesk too. I can choose between Dutch or English speaking representatives and usually during weekends it's English only. Don't know if their from Ireland though...

The Alienware helpdesk guy, Raoul Leunura ( doesn't sound dutch but he really is..) that helped me even sent me en email today, asking how i got on after the changes he made to my system. He said it was the so called nVidia PhysX GPU that was inactive. Finally i am now enjoying what i payed for to tremendous extent. :wiggle:

I hope you will be able to sort out your own FSX gremlin as well, KD !

Good Luck !

Cheers,
Jan
Click to expand...

Hi Jan....cheers mate...managed a 1 hour flight last night without any CTD's, just in time for Tim's Porter! Just heard that the Irish helpdesk is now closed following the windup of Alienware operation's here. They still have a repair facility here though.

Happy landings! :)
 
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