Systems

21: My New Gear – ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II Part 1

| Tom Tsui
ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II

Just purchased the newly released ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II card to replace my current ASUS HD5870 Matrix Platinum card.

I bought the HD5870 for two reasons:
*   allows connecting to 3 displays (I only have one currently, however)
*   GTX480 was reported very hot and noisy.

Although I am getting average 41 FPS in most sceneries with the HD5870, some micro-stutters and under 20 FPS performance within dense areas reamin the barrier for my system to break.   As nVidia card is generally agreed to be better for FSX and reviews of GTX580 show that the new card is now cooler and less noisy (especially the modify Direct CU II version), I decided to wait no more to find out the true side of it myself.

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15: Scenery Library Priority Guidelines

| Tom Tsui

Scenery Library Priority Guidelines

1) Sceneries Grouped by Regions

AF=Africa
AS=Asian
AU=Australia
NL=New Zealand
EU=Europe
NA=North America
CA=Central & South America

2) Arranged as follows (could be in alphabetical order)

Single scenery (mission/airport)
Area-related scenery
Country-related scenery
Region-related scenery (landclass/mesh)
World-wide (landclass/mesh)

3) If a scenery has several components, follow developer’s instruction

If not, follow below:

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02: FSX and Addons Installation Order

| Tom Tsui

There is no one-fits-for-all installation order for FSX; especially when you have a number of addons to follow.  Here is the order I took.  Note that my FSX system and addons are stored on separate SSDs.  Moreover, I used Acronis Home Image to backup each stage of my installation, just in case I need to go back to any point for any reason.

FSX-01-FSX Deluxe
FSX-02-FSX Acceleration
FSX-03-Scenery Tech Landclass
FSX-04-UTX USA, Canada, Europe and Alaska
FSX-05-GEX USA/Canada and Europe
FSX-06-Real Environment & Active Sky Evolution
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01: Hello FSX world!

| Tom Tsui

This is the place where I post all my tweaks, tips, notes and information regarding all aspects of FSX.

The spec of my current PC is as follows:

CPU: Intel i7 930 overclocked to 3.9GHz with Corsair H50 cooler
Mother Borad: Asus P6X58D-E
RAM: Corsair Dominator 6G x 2 = 12G (1600MHz)
Graphics Card: GigaByte Nvidia GTX285
Storage: Corsair Nova 128G for FSX / Seagate 1TB for Addon Sceneries
Power: SilverStone ST1000-NV
Monitor: Dell 30-inch (2560 x 1600)
Chassis: Cooler Master CM690 advanced

My computer could be overclocked to 4.2GHz but I hate the heat.  So I keep it running at 3.93GHz normally.  Temperature is about 43 to 53°C under normal usage and up to around 80°C when running FSX.   Overall performance so far is reasonably good and stable.