GaryGB
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Posts posted by GaryGB
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Hi Pups:
If you open the case up and observe your hard drive/CD/DVD-ROM connectors:
If you have a multi-conductor (40 or 80 wire) flat ribbon cable with bigger rectangular multi-pin end connectors between your hard drives and the controller, it's PATA.
If you have an apparent "single" rounded off rectangular cable that looks like a fat 'network' (a big Cat5e) cable with smaller narrow end connectors between your hard drives and the controller, it's SATA.
And generally speaking, if it's an older non-PCI-Express mobo, you will have AGP video and PATA hard drive / IDE CD/DVD-ROM controller circuitry onboard.
Hope this helps! :D
GaryGB
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A HOOTCH BATH!!!..
Now I've got to try this..
Fires up the Cessna 210 Turbo, and heads towards Fritz'es place
Hi Madaz:
Maybe you can get Fritz's daughter Mindy Deter, or Officer Barbie to scrub your back too! :lol:
Gives a new meaning to being "sloshed" doesn't it? :twisted:
GaryGB
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:lol: :lol: :lol:
Hi Don:
How did things go with the FSX demo on your current working Windows installation? :roll:
GaryGB
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safe and sound so far.... but without a running MP server still...... Fritz has just gone out to get himself a new box of shells for his trusty ol' 12 gauge :evil:
For the MP server, the spammers, the oversize screenie posters, or the Moles? :lol:
GaryGB
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Hi Pups:
I'd be glad to help if I can, however, a few questions come to mind first. :roll:
First, do you have an 'image' which is best described as a commercial computer manufacturer O.E.M. "Restore Disk" CD, versus a Symantec "Ghost" (name brand) or 3rd party "disk imaging software" backup/restore image of your hard drive on which Windows XP (and presumably also your Windows installation files) was installed when the 'Ghost' disk image was created; feel free to send this detail to me in a PM if you wish.
Second, what type of hard drives do you have: Parallel Ultra ATA133 (PATA) or Serial ATA 150 (SATA); or, are they a mix of PATA and SATA drives, and are they running off the mobo controller cable ports or a 3rd party add-in card in your PCI bus?
Third, do you have free hard drive space available right now on one of your drives to backup all your existing data onto?
Because FSX is going to be even more demanding on data I/O than FS9, taking longer to initially load, and to dynamically preload data for the more detailed world rendering we will be flying into, optimizing disk I/O is of greater importance since it is one of the slowest links in the data stream utilized by Flight Simulator.
On this basis I would like to suggest that you create a 2 or more smaller drive component Raid 0 to function as a working drive for your Windows and your Flight Simulator installation, with another larger single drive on which to keep miscellaneous application program data, installation files, and backup/restore image data which has also been backed up onto a series of CDs or data DVDs for safekeeping.
Although PATA drives are likely to be available for some additional time as replacements for existing drives which may fail, the future clearly lies with SATA technology, and building your machine around SATA would be a prudent investment from the standpoint of ongoing replacement availability, and eventually for throughput speed increases and purchase price reductions which are anticipated in the future.
That being said, I have not read anything yet which justifies the expense, risk of early failure, and increased cooling concerns for one's entire system case associated with the purchase of 10,000 rpm drives. The current standard for hard drive speed is 7200 RPM, which provides reasonable performance without as much of the above problems which one sees with many 10,000 rpm drives, and which are theoretically only 39% faster from the standpoint of RPMs, although in some cases they have a 2 times faster data access speed... for a big price!. But wait, there's more to this rationale for building a RAID 0 with cheaper, reliable 7200 RPM drives!
One could criticize the fact that SATA technology as currently implemented is only 13% faster than PATA technology for hard drive data peak transfer rates, however the promise that faster SATA technology ultimately will come into being, and that PATA will eventually be phased out justifies the purchase of SATA drives right now, rather than waiting.
I can tell you that it would be well worth your while setting up at least a 2 drive RAID 0 using 'smaller' less expensive hard drives to reduce initial FS and individual flight load times, and the risk of in-flight "scenery tile/texture load stutters". I have built a 4 drive ultra ATA RAID 0 on a gaming computer for my colleague, and the performance is roughly additive, tapering off somewhat with the 4th drive, such that the throughtput peak goes approximately: 133+133+133+88.5=487.5 MB/sec theoretical data I/O throughput speed. And that is just with a particular $50 USD Belkin PCI 2-IDE channel/4-drive RAID-capable PATA card; it is otherwise primarily sold to be a simple ATA 133 IDE add-in card to solve expansion and mobo hard drive size BIOS limitations.
There are also higher performance RAID control cards available which use multiple PCI I/O data channels and offer even higher performance that is hardware rather than software-based, but those are for the extreme geeks with big budgets. But even on my colleague's inexpensive 4 drive RAID solution, OMG you should see how fast FS and everything else loads and runs on that machine!
Yes, theoretically my colleague's 4-drive RAID increases the risk of a drive failure by a factor of four times, however he's allowing for that in favor of fast running times by keeping all of his data and installation files etc. on a separate drive. If one drive crashes, replace it, recreate the array, and restore an "image" quickly from your 3rd hard drive. And yes, it is possible to set up alternate types of RAID configurations involving multiple drives which allow for automatic redundancy even to the point of no data loss unless 2 drives fail at once, however such controllers thus far do not seem to justify the expense, because the throughput suffers even on multi-channel versions of those cards due to the fact that extra hardware interrupts are required in order for the required other drives to effect the extra disk reads and writes under the supervision of the CPU.
But back to your concern about storage space, which is probably the basis for your original question :oops: : when you create a RAID 0 using 2 or more matching drives, the total space of the drives is additive: 40 MB + 40 MB = 80 MB RAID 0. If you use 2 drives matching in speed but mismatched in size, the extra space on the larger drive will not be used beyond the capacity of the smaller of the 2 drives and will essentially be wasted: 40 MB + 80 MB = 80 MB RAID 0 + 40 MB unused space on the larger drive! So, RAID 0 lets you "double your pleasure, double your fun" by doubling your throughput speed and your storage volume using 2 disk drives; or one could quadruple storage space while increasing throughput speed by approximately 3-1/2 times using 4 drives all while functioning independent of motherboard BIOS limitations and allowing the existing onboard hard drive controllers to still be used in the system for one's 'backup' hard drive and CD/DVD drive.
Raid drives can be bootable, and they appear to every operating system including DOS, Windows, the "Windows Pre-install Environment" and to hard drive partitioning utilities as though it were a single physical hard drive device; you simply have an extra brief stage in your boot process as the controller verifies the striped array, and then proceeds with the rest of the boot. After you have set up a RAID using the simple embedded routines on the RAID controller chip, you simply partition and format it like any other hard drive using the method of your choice: manually with 3rd party utilities or semi-automatically with the utilities provided on CD by your new hard drive's manufacturer, or using Windows XP installation setup options.
According to what I have read, there are still more refinements which can benefit any system further via Windows page file reconfiguration, special defragmenting, physical file hard drive platter placement, and folder naming procedures using the options available in 3rd party defrag utilities such as Norton Utilities/System Works "Speed Disk", O&O Defrag, Raxco's PerfectDisk, and possibly now also in Executive Software's Diskeeper which are discussed in the Megascenery forums.
So, there is a lot one can do to optimize our older computers to use them a while longer, and when we operate our new hard drives on a 3rd-party add-in controller card, we can take our hard drives attached to that controller card and put them in a new machine when we finally get around to buying one! :idea:
Hope this stimulates your upgrading and tweaking enthusiasm! :D
GaryGB
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Hi Pups:
I believe the overall scenery texture layers and static objects for Emma will still load and display normally in FSX, it's just a question of whether the animations and sound will. :wink:
Lago would be foolish to not release an update for this, as I believe it was one of their best sellers. The question of when would be the tough one to answer. I corresponded with Richard Goldstein recently regarding a Megascenery PNW compatibility update for FS9 at Emma Field, and both he and Lago had actively sought permisssion from Aerosoft via PC-Aviator to use portions of their textures to blend Emma into their PNW scenery, but had not yet received any reply.
So it appears Lago, however semi-comatose they might otherwise be, are still interested in Emma Field; and Richard Goldstein is no doubt quite capable of making it compatible with FSX textures as well.
Also, as Francois can attest, Mauricio Gavioli aka VistaMare Software is still involved in the FS world, and capable of implementing whatever may be needed to make its active scenery player work under FSX; its just an issue of getting Lago to fairly compensate him for it.
If necessary, I'll fix a few things at Emma Field myself with the new SDK and post them for everyone to use; I've been casting a critical eye on those waterfalls, small lakes, and attenuated access roads for a while anyway, and I bet 'Bill & Phil' have some ideas too!
Cheers! :D
GaryGB
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Hi Chris:
Looks great so far... :shock:
I'm confident you'll finish it up in style, as you have with all your other creations! :D
GaryGB
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Great flyin' Chris! :D
You're gonna' make us all "Green" with envy via your screenies! :lol:
GaryGB
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Hi Don:
I hope your download went well! Definitely everyone, try the Microsoft link above on page 1 of this thread!
If not, I highly recommend GetRight; it kicks serious butt, and I have never had it fail to get a file for me ASAP via either dialup or DSL unless a server itself crapped out due to internal errors on the FTP site side of the connection.
:wink:
( See: http://www.getright.com/ )
GaryGB
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Hi Stefan:
Just a heads up here: if one uses Powerstrip for setting the latency under Options>Adapter Information, one must uncheck the "Read Only" checkbox near the bottom right of the dialog box to make changes. Powerstrip appears to not work concurrent with operation of the FSX demo to the extent that I have tested it thus far; if you or anyone else gets it to run with FSX, please let me know as I would be curious if it can 'co-operate'.
If you do use it for overclocking your video card, I offer this observation as a general guide based on ATI Radeons: I have not personally succeeded (nor have I read of anyone who succeeded) with overclocking beyond 15% above default GPU speeds before visual artifacts began to show; some can only overclock 5%, others get farther on one clock than the other, so experiment. Rarely, prolonged work under intensive scenery demands in FS would sometimes cause the card to crash FS and/or windows such that I would have to reload FS or reboot the computer; usually, though, the ATI "VPU Recover" utility would intercede early, "resetting" the card, and dropping the speeds down to protect the GPU before any significant visual artifacts would appear prior to a display crash. I don't know if Matrox or NVidia has anything comparable, as my experience is limited to ATI cards. I attribute this to overheating in the vicinity of the card, and recommend one of the card slot fans which blows cool air from OUTSIDE the case onto the video card from the card slot position next to it (they are harder to find than "exhaust-type" fans, but worth the search to get; they're cheap too.
Also, regarding your CPU case heating issues, I assume you are running Windows XP, which by default turns on the CPU "System Idle Thread" to cool the CPU up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit by suspending its operations during the millions of clock cycles per second when it is waiting for its next piece of data. If you are using Windows 98 with FS9 and Powerstrip, it turns on the System Idle Thread for you as well, and can even turn it off in Windows XP if you wish to experiment in an FS "Application Profile", as one might wonder if the power on & off "Idle Thread" cyling itself doesn't cause a kind of latency or delay with such a high CPU demand program.
But clearly, over time, even a single CPU chip can raise the temperature in a case by 20 degrees without adequate cooling and use of the System Idle Thread, which in XP should appear on the "Processes" tab of the Windows Task Manager (usually at the bottom of the list) as "System Idle Process". I don't know if Windows automatically loads such an "Idle" process for each core on multi-core CPUs as I don't have one yet, but it would seem like a desirable thing to have it run on each core to keep the heat down, since there are significant periods of time that chips sit idle awaiting data doing little more than generating heat!
Although Matrox driver updates in the past tended to sometimes lag behind other vendors, it would be worth downloading and trying their currently available drivers, and if they don't work, try Microsoft's default OS-supplied drivers to see if they are more well-behaved, and try 'standard' display resolutions like 1024x768 to see if FSX then works for you.
PS: Pull the FSX demo water slider back to 1x to try and see the terrain textures! I wasn't seeing squat until I did, and was also amazed at my frame rates going from 6-8 FPS to 18-20 FPS... :shock:
Hope this helps!
GaryGB
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Hi Stefan:
see: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=48510
and check out tdragger's blog, as well as the other FSX forum posts
Cheers! :D
GaryGB
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Hi,
not lucky to say that my first test of the demo did fail for me:
getting nice coloured polygones instead of the expected display with my matrox hardware, though, looking tomorrow for some driver update and try it again....
FSCOF still is working fine...
May depend on the diect x 9C version and some driver conflicts...
Any additional ideas?
Cheers
Stefan
Hi Stefan:
I am less familiar with the Matrox cards in recent years, however I did notice that your rather powerful overall system is still using AGP.
You may wish to try out my tweaks I summarized from posts in the last year or so by others regarding AGP PCI Bus Latency and another few things which I posted in the FSX Forum here:
http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.pc&start=30
PS: also check out tdragger's blog with some fixes for the FSX demo too.
I hope this helps! :D
GaryGB
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Heavens! :shock:
Get rid of the moles? :?:
What will Fritz use for target practice without them? :lol:
GaryGB
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Hey Don:
If you try out the FSX Pre-Release Demo, you may find that we need to start an 82% club also! :lol:
GaryGB
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Hi Pups:
I was a forcefeedback addict at one time too, and I kept the settings up so high I got carpal tunnel fighting with my Logitech FF joystick in FS2002 using Lago's Airfile Pro utility.
Shortly afterwards, the force feedback feature died and the stick was no longer available. About that time, I began doing more real world flying, and I soon realized that there is no experiential correlation to FF (except theoretically when flying in weather one should have stayed away from entirely)!
But force feedback is fun, and even though I'm largely happy with my Saitek X52 HOTAS, I sometimes still get the cravings for the old "fighting with the stick for control of the plane"! :twisted:
BTW Pups, do you by any chance have an AGP video card? I was wondering if any of the tweaks I posted elsewhere were of any help? :roll:
GaryGB
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Hi All:
:idea: Here's a post on some tweaks I found very helpful with the FSX demo:
http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p369#336369
Enjoy! 8)
GaryGB
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Hi All:
Here's a shot of Joe Binka's fabulous Grumman Widgeon Radial taking off from St. Maartin in the FSX Pre-Release Demo. 8)
( get it at: http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Sea&Go=Search )
:idea: Read about how to get your FS9 planes into the FSX demo here: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=54692.
This is great fun; I love it, bugs and all ( I'm confident most, if not all, will be fixed by October! ) :D
GaryGB
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Get it here FAST :D ( don't bother with the gamespot site )
http://download.microsoft.com/download/sedemo.exe
( see also my post at: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=54673 for info on segmented downloading acceleration. :idea:
PS: tdraggger/Mike worked very hard putting this together for "us" over the last 2 weeks; please drop in at: http://forums.simflight.com/viewforum.php?f=230 and post to let him know how you appreciate all his hard work! :wink:
Happy Flying! 8)
GaryGB
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P.S. Nice avatar you have there! :wink:
Now we need to convince GaryGB that he needs one too! :D
...What? :shock:
Me do something with graphics? :?:
... Ya gotta' be kiddin'! :lol: :lol: :lol:
( see: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=54586 )
GaryGB
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Our calendar in the kitchen is peppered with every *important* date for every relative with have, distant and close. Not a single event passes where we’re remiss in sending out one of those cards and within a few days we get the ‘thank you’ call from a relative.
Speaking of reading cards, it’s my best guess that one could write every obscenity known to man inside one of those beloved cards and sent it to any guy in the world and he’d never even notice it. Is there even one guy in the entire world that actually reads the dribble that’s inside those cards? Doubt it! :wink:
Pups (Saying it with Hallmark)
Well, just be glad they don't send back a Thank You card, requiring a "Thank You For Your Nice Thank You Card, Card! :?
As for my office setting, the birthday celebrant gets a cake, gag candles that wont' blow out, a gag gift, and a card with a humorous, personally satirical theme and message to inspire additional written jovial/smart aleck comments by everyone who signs it. No money involved, but lots of fun memories! :wink:
PS: Don't underestimate the humor potential of greeting cards; maybe we could start using them at the EFFC! :mrgreen:
GaryGB
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Back to that *card*. I went to the local department store and grabbed the 1st anniversary card that I saw. Wasn’t really interested in what it had to say or what picture was on the front. Ya have to buy one, so I did… at random.
I looked over her shoulder and read that card. Now I was prepared to answer any questions she might have about it, but none were forthcoming and I was the hero of the day.
Pups, you dog! :shock:
Better give it some thought and read it before you buy it next time, or eventually you're going to pick up the wrong card placed in the wrong rack, and when she reads something like "Sorry to hear about your illness" you're gonna' be toast! :lol:
GaryGB
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funny that it wasn't till after the "Patch"/ "Update" to Fs cargo that i got it..
But then again..
that was due to me having to negotiate with the powers that be, rather than my reluctance to buy early :oops:
Hey Madaz:
Was that before you devised how to buy add-ons with no FS audit trail showing up for our significant others to see? :?: :lol:
as for paying for the Alphasim 'Bou..I got crafty and used the C/Card to add balance to a PaypPal account and clicked Purchace via PayPal.
With luck it should appear on the C/Card Statement/Bill as PayPal and I can convince the Lady it was an E-Bay purchace for some thing for her :lol: 8) :lol: 8) :lol:
That way she won't know It was Add-On's for Flight Sim..
(Usually I get my Add-On's from the Game store as 'Just Flight' Packaged products.. I can save my allowance and buy them without question.. But C/Card buying.. is a No No)
( see: http://forums.simflight.com/posting.phpe&p=326579 )
GaryGB
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Hi All:
This is a copy for the EFFC folks, of a "followup post" on my FSX review above in this thread.
I posted the original at: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p644#335644
Hi tdragger (... or Mike, as I now understand :D ):I for one will greatly appreciate having a demo to try out, and I think we all can respect the efforts you have gone through to put one together at this phase of dealing with the Beta code.
I suspect Francois was correct, that most of us existing 'wingnuts' are hard core FS addicts who would buy FSX in a heartbeat after it hits the shelves! But I also think it would be a great opportunity for us to see it and get a feel for where we need to go with hardware upgrade plans, and with 3rd party add-ons we anticipate using. And I do think a demo would help introduce FS to a whole new class of newcomers from the 'gaming world' which could increase the sales, and in turn the future FS development budget could get a further boost based on anticipated market response.
I have installed a few demos for games and sims in the past, based on their written announcements and early news blurbs that caught my interest. In most cases, demos I've tried were full versions limited in some way, and the code was probably a release candidate. I was already interested in the possibility of purchasing the games/sims based on their written descriptions, and I wanted to see how good the graphics and physics were, along with the action and entertainment potential. When I ran them, in almost all cases, they knocked my sox off, and I resolved to buy them and have all my friends buy them!
I was thrilled to have a chance to try out even a Beta demo version at Oshkosh, and I know I'd enjoy a demo release based on an August build of the Beta. As I've said in other posts, I'll make the best of any machine I have to run FSX on just to enjoy its promising new features, until I can implement a higher level of performance with newer hardware later on.
However, if FSX were to be 'dumbed down' in its farthest-to-the-right slider settings so that once users have a "HAL-9000" computer they can't access its full potential without delving into *.cfg files, that might be an invitation to trouble for all. But it would probably be good to allow both "legacy" and "advanced" hardware users a chance to easily adjust those same sliders to accomodate their machines. Maybe one or more "legacy" and/or "advanced" checkboxes to internally change the scale effect of the sliders would be a possibility to accomodate those with below or above 'average' hardware, allowing a smoother spectrum of control presented in your new user-friendly configuration GUI (along with examples of pertinent hardware/threshold scenarios in cursor context pop up help messages?). Having to accomodate all users on a single slider scale for a more cosmetic GUI need not be a potential PR issue reflecting on FS's inherently hardware-intensive nature; rather, merely offering checkboxes or radio buttons next to the sliders to implement a "scale change" for the slider would nicely reflect Microsoft's commitment to allow its legacy and avant-garde power users to all get the best FSX simming experience.
Also, I hope I didn't give you (or others) the wrong impression over at the EFFC Forum with my review of the hands-on demo at Oshkosh. My circumscribed concern there (perhaps also not worded in the clearest or tactful manner), was whether Microsoft was still going to go the whole 9 yards to code FSX (not just a different FS version XI to be released years later) for purposeful and efficient use of multi-core CPUs and GPUs. I was referring to not just having FSX coincidentally coded with more than one thread in its operation which the OS might choose to send to a 2nd core when it's in the mood). And if such a "multi-core optimized" service release/upgrade/patch might not be ready when Windows Vista launches, would the FSX DX10 and multi-core enhancements or "extensions" likely be available to download somewhere between then and next summer?
Mike, thanks for all your hard work, and patient forum participation; FSX looks great so far, and I'm sure you'll also do well with your other new projects as FSX is ready for take-off!
______________________________________________________________
"I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
(Quoth Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack to the cockpit crew - Airplane! the movie)
GaryGB
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Hi All:
:idea: I ran across this in the FSX forum regarding the FSX release date:
http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p3&start=30
GaryGB
FSX Pre-Release Demo now available for download!
in Emma Field Flying Club
Posted
Hi All:
I found a nice map of St. Martin with some elevations and labeled landmarks for reference as you try out the FSX demo at:
http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/sm/smmap.shtml
Note particularly that "Paradise Peak" in the north-central part of the island is 1500 ft.! :shock:
Happy Flying! :D
GaryGB