FS9 & mlti-cores: frustration

V

vmx12

Charter Member
I just built a computer - my first ever - and it's frustrating to hear that FS9 doesn't utilize more than 1.5 Ghz in cpu power. I have the i7 2660K and it now feels like a waste - at leats where FS9 is concerned. I sorta thought my flying experience on my new rig would be pure nirvana, flying any plane, in any scene with all sliders at max.

I have no interest in FSX, but have had high hopes for resurrecting my FS9 discs with my new set-up.

I want to fly...I don't' want to tweak settings until the end of time. :angryfir:
 
Coming from a very old 'puter, I opted for a quad processor that really rocks. Even though FS9 only uses one processorl I can still do what you said, any plane, any scenery with all the sliders maxed and have yet to have any issues. The plus side of the quad box is I can have other cpu hogs apps still open and they get dirverted to the other processor, so FS9 has basically an entire processor to itself. At least I'm happy so far with the results and I'm running some of the nasty birds out there -- ya know the latest and greatest from Lionheart Creations with those awesome panels.
 
My I7 960 runs FS9 maxed out with no tweaks needed. Even though FS9 only uses part of the puter, that is good. Like having a high horsepower engine in your car. Plenty of power to spare for other things.
 
vmx12 said:
I want to fly...I don't' want to tweak settings until the end of time. :angryfir:
Click to expand...

I use FSX and I can't remember the last time I did any tweaking... :wavey:

Enjoying everything from the Carenado planes to L-39 to Spitfire to J41 to NGX to MD-11 at 35 FPS solid on a lesser rig than yours. Don't let the forums fool you. People aren't spending all their time tweaking anymore unless they want to.
 
I'm running an I7 950 with 6gig of DDR3 Ram and a pretty top notch video card....way more system than FS9 needs...but it can run the sim as smooth as silk up to and including 100 FPS. I keep it locked at 25 FPS since the human eye really can't tell the difference between 25 FPS and 100 FPS...and I have NO scenery hesitation what so ever.

OBIO
 
"Whats this multi-core of which you speak? for coring more than one apple at a time?" :icon_lol:

now i know what it is, but i've yet to get there :icon_lol: still on P4 here :icon_lol:
 
Horses for courses...

OBIO said:
I'm running an I7 950 with 6gig of DDR3 Ram and a pretty top notch video card....way more system than FS9 needs...but it can run the sim as smooth as silk up to and including 100 FPS. I keep it locked at 25 FPS since the human eye really can't tell the difference between 25 FPS and 100 FPS...and I have NO scenery hesitation what so ever.

OBIO
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great set-up Obio (glad to see you're back).

By far and away, the best piece of insight I picked up from you so far is multi installments of FS. It changed everything!

FPS;
Well it's a bit like having a thoroughbred racing horse raring to go and never letting it get beyond a trot (Willy would know what I mean...Hey Willy!)

The best solution for anyone with less than top end equipment, oddly enough is; UNLIMITED fps. You'll get better results by letting your computer do the 'sorting out' for this both fs9 and fsx (and its not my theory either...I'm not clever enough - just know a good thing when I see it - so hands off the flak).
It makes a drastic difference in animation smoothness too. Just try it with a close fly-by.

Yes theoretically, the human eye doesn't care...in practice, you'll be amazed at the perceptive difference.
25 fps looks like great movie film, unlimited fps looks alive!

Don't just take my word on it, suck it and see!
 
Like Racartron & Obio, I'm running a quad core (nowhere near an i7 though!!); got every enhancement known to man (mesh, landclass, water, environment, complex airports, AI both civil & miitary) - all sliders maxed, it never misses a beat, no tweeaing required. Who needs FSX?
 
I'm in the same situation - new confuter with a quad core processor. I also expected it to run FS9 really fast and powerfully, then within days of having my new, custom-built system installed I read about how FS9 can only tap one core. Now I'm very apprehensive!

I've saved my two FS9 installations ("FS1954" and Golden Wings) but I haven't had a chance to set up my keyboard and control stick assignments, install my various FS utilities, etc. It might be winter before I get a chance to do those things and see how FS9 runs in the new system.

Meanwhile I'll be watching this thread with great interest!

It's interesting to see that I'm not the only one who'd rather stick with FS9 despite getting a new confuter that would run FSX or Flight better. In fact, if I can't get FS9 running well on this new rig, I expect I'll give up the hobby rather than start all over with a whole new sim. I hope it doesn't come to that. I've still never flown most of those planes I worked on with David, and I'd like to give them a try! Not to mention a gazillion other planes and sceneries that I downloaded and never got a chance to check out.
 
Oh great - I'm so glad to hear this! Thank you, Gentlemen!

I have the new ASUS Z68 motherboard, an ASUS GTX570, 8 GB RAM and of course the i7 2600K processor. So from what I'm reading, I will be able to fly everything at full-tilt boogie. (And yes, I need to disregard the posts from people who simply 'tweak' for a living.) :)

I have payware aircraft from IRIS Simulations, Alphasim and Aerosoft, as well as a few freeware aircraft from long ago, so hopefully there will be no compatibility issues between these aircraft, FS9 and Windows 7.

And I have read that I will need to install FS9 outside of the two Program folders. C://FS2004 (or whatever name I choose for this folder) is then the preferred path.

Can't wait to get started!
 
VMX12

I'm not sure where you heard that FS9 can only utilize 1.5Ghz of CPU power......when I fire up FS9 on my I7 950 rig, sure it only runs on one core...but it uses that core to the max of it's native 3.01Ghz clock speed.

And if you are worried about FS9 running well on the 2600K....you can always overclock to 4.5Ghz with no problems....and still run air cooling according to some of the puter modding sites I have visited.

OBIO
 
I read it here! Not that FS9 can only use 1.5Ghz, but that it can only use one core. Maybe the comment about only using 1.5Ghz came from someone who only has 1.5Ghz per core...?

Anyway, it wasn't in this thread, but in this forum, where I read about the one core. The reason is that when FS9 was written there was no such thing as a multi-core processor. I just read it a couple days ago.

When I bring up Task Manager and look at the Performance tab when FS is running, the graph shows one core pretty much maxed out and the others just idling along, doing nothing.

Whether it has any perceptible impact on how FS runs remains to be seen, since I have a lot of set-up work to do before I can try any flying, and no time in the foreseeable future to monkey around with it.

I sure hope this turns out to be a non-issue, because I spent a lot of extra money having a custom rig built just so I could run FS9 to the max - or so I thought. If I wasn't so determined to retain FS9 I could've bought a box off the shelf for half the price.
 
Thanks again, Obio and Mike! It makes perfect sense. (I read the 1.5 GHz piece a couple of days ago when doing a general Google search for Windows 7 and compatibility with FS9, but it's possible I misread the post, or the poster was confusing terms.)

The 2600K supposedly runs at 3.4 GHz and has a turbo boost that will push it to 3.8. So, I should be fine.

Sorry if I created a mini-storm with the 1.5 GHz comment. :redf: Admittedly, I've forgotten much of my simming knowledge, as it's been about six years since I've been active in the hobby.
 
Don't worry Mick, FS9 will run fantastic at full tilt for you. Full AI, full scenery, full mesh, etc. You will be able to use a number of regular aircraft as ai, also. At least, I can. AMD Phenom II quad core 810 running at stock 2.60GHz, 6 GB Ram, ATI 4890.
 
I don't there is anything that will prevent FS9 from being able to use a CPU that is faster than 1.5 GHz. The limitation with FS9 is that it can only use one core, but you must remember that multi-core CPU's were not common when FS9 was designed. So a quad core running at 1.5 GHz will actually have lower performance than a dual or quad core that runs at 3.0 GHz. One thing you could do is to use an affinity setting program to put background programs and processes on a core other than core 0. This will allow FS9 to be able to use more of Core0 with another core handling much of the background stuff. One other thing to remember with the Turbo mode of the new processors is that in Turbo mode the CPU runs faster, but it runs as a single core CPU, so you must have a really fast CPU.
 
If I remember correctly, there is a provision made for this very issue in the SP3 download from MS for WinXP. I could be wrong but I think the only reason I installed SP3 was because of the Dual-core fix.
 
Thanks for the tip!
:ernae:

This could be just what we need to allow our old sim to take advantage of our new confuters.

I just bought it. Heaven knows when I'll have time to install it, learn how to use it, and try out FS9 with it. For that matter, heaven knows when I'll get time to finish setting up FS9. But one of these days...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top