FS2004 - FSX dual installations

S

SSI01

Charter Member
I have a question regarding the advisability of a dual installation of both FS9 and FSX. I've tried a search of the forum postings for similar information but came up empty-handed. What I'm trying to find out is if there is any conflict between the two sims if they are installed on the same drive, or on the same computer but on different drives.

My machine has three possible drives where I could install FSX. C drive is the remote desktop drive I use to store aircraft files and miscellany relating to FS9. There is no complete installation of FS9 on this drive, only some files I keep for backup should the machine crash. E drive is the machine's main drive with the OS in it. This drive has a pristine, untouched installation of FS9 on it I use as a point of reference for the other four installations of FS9 I have. F drive has those four installations of FS9 I just referred to on it, each in a different era of flight. One of them is the FS9 sim, the others are renamed versions of FS9 for those different eras.

My question is, which of these drives would be the most satisfactory to install FSX into, should I pick up a copy?
 
Install it on the fastest non-OS drive you have enough room on.

There is only problem that I have ever heard of when having both FS9 and FSX on the same machine. If you decide to uninstall FSX, the uninstaller will remove the registry entry for FS9 also. This is easily fixed with the Flight1 tool.

I currently have both sims on the same drive on 2 PCs and on separate drives on a third, without issues.

cheers,
Lane
 
If you installed FS9 first, that program does something that FS2002 never did - you can open an flt file by just double-clicking it (depending on your OS - this laptop won't, but my wife's would). When you install FSX, double-clicking an flt file from your FS9 files will try to launch FSX. When I had both, I decided I liked FS9 better and re-associated the filetype with FS9.
 
Well, since E is the OS drive, that's ruled out - so, that leaves F, which has 310GB used, and 1.51TB free; or C, the external drive, which has 668GB used, and 1.16TB free. F has all the FS9 sims on it. I'm not planning on removing/reinstalling FSX once it goes in, barring unforeseen hangups. The version I'm looking at is the Gold edition, with the acceleration pack included.

Where can one find the Flight1 tool, just in case?

I'm using an AMD Phenom II X4 940 processor, 3.01GHz, with 3.25GB of RAM.

BTW, thanks everyone for the advice!
 
Thanks Andy for that link - I visited and downloaded the fix, plus a couple of other things.

I may be installing a separate drive for FSX, quite possibly an external drive which I can dedicate to it alone. I may be betraying my ignorance on this subject, but I'll ask anyway - is there a limitation to the amount of data transmitted through a cable connection to an external drive? I'm asking because if there is it will affect smoothness of the sim's performance. If there isn't, then this is the way to go, at least for my setup.
 
SSI01 said:
Thanks Andy for that link - I visited and downloaded the fix, plus a couple of other things.

I may be installing a separate drive for FSX, quite possibly an external drive which I can dedicate to it alone. I may be betraying my ignorance on this subject, but I'll ask anyway - is there a limitation to the amount of data transmitted through a cable connection to an external drive? I'm asking because if there is it will affect smoothness of the sim's performance. If there isn't, then this is the way to go, at least for my setup.
Click to expand...

No problem.

Re. the external drive, it depends what sort of cable connection you are looking to use. If it's a SATA cable you should be ok, if it is a USB cable I suspect it is a non-runner (although USB 3.0 might work), you'll end up with a cartoon slideshow at best.
 
AndyG43 said:
...you'll end up with a cartoon slideshow at best.
Click to expand...

All due respect, not necessarily.

Long load times, yes.

Delayed texture loading, probably.

Most of the work happens in memory, so once the files are there, the external drive shouldn't have a major effect on how the sim operates.

I had an old P4 that ran FSX (badly) just the same on an external USB 2.0 drive as it did on the internal drive, once it loaded.

cheers,
Lane
 
FSX on one 500GB Samsung SSD, all FS9 'Clones' on a 600GB WD Velociraptor, RoF and Prepr3D on a second 500GB Samsung SSD.
I would only run on an external HD is it were USB3 to USB3, but that's only my opinion.
:ernaehrung004:
 
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