My First Official Windows7 Flight

***FAC257*** · June 19th, 2009, 17:17

After watching and reading all the input about Windows7 and FSX over the last many weeks, I decided to take the plunge.

Originally I was going to wait until this fall and build a new Windows7 purpose built sytem and upgrade to the new OS all at the same time. The more I though about doing it that way and with the availability of theW7 RC, it made less and less sense. I decided that I'd try to go through the new OS growing pains over the next several months. By the time it's officially out I figure I'll have a better handle on exactly what sort of system upgrade I may need, if much of anything and what software may need to be replaced.

I started collecting the correct Windows 7 drivers for this old clunker several days ago and then on Thursday I went for a full reformat and upgrade to W7.

So far I'm even more pleased than I thought I'd be.

FAC

Tampa to Pensacola in the Goose with W7 as my co-pilot.......

**Lionheart** · June 19th, 2009, 18:14

Awesome to hear FAC.

Bill

***RyanJames170*** · June 19th, 2009, 18:51

cool im doing the same here

***Dangerousdave26*** · June 19th, 2009, 19:36

My Beta is due to expire in 12 days and I am getting ready to load W7-RC. So far for my old rig it has been great. Just a few minor hickups here and there but most of those I had in XP.

***FAC257*** · June 19th, 2009, 19:37

I just landed at Pensacola a few minutes ago and I'd have to say that went really well.

I have FSX & Acceleration, UTX, XGraphics and ASA already back in FSX and the average FPS during the whole flight stayed right about exactly the same numbers I was getting in XP. If anything I may have seen a slight increase in performance, but that's probably like washing your car windows makes it feel like it drives faster.

FSScreen shot utility up and running also.

The only thing I have left to do over the weekend is to reload my hanger and sceneries and this thing will be back up to 100% ready to go.

I thought my older peripheral hardware was going to give me a few headaches, but W7 found good drivers for anything I didn't have before the format.

The only piece of software I'm leaving off on purpose is my commercial defragger. I want to see how W7 does on it's own for a little while before I make that decision.

FAC

***FAC257*** · June 19th, 2009, 19:48

Dangerousdave

Mine is a very first generation FSX purpose built system and so far it's handling W7 far better than what I was expecting. It actually seems to be less boggy than my aging XP version of this same hardware combo.

Nice thing about the W7-RC is that it doesn't expire until after the commercial release. Hopefully that means no backwards movement during the whole transition.

I'm really enjoying this. I loved XP to death, but was also getting really tired of looking at the same old thing for too many years. Time for a face lift.

FAC

**crashaz** · June 19th, 2009, 20:00

good call FAC! I think you will like it!

**SkippyBing** · June 20th, 2009, 02:24

FAC, did you go for the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Win7? I went from XP 32bit to 7 64bit and I got a definite fps improvement and a massive reduction in loading times, of course that won't work if you've only got a 32bit cpu.....

***FAC257*** · June 20th, 2009, 03:59

I went 32 bit at least for now.

I'm not real convinced yet about 64 bit. Not just because of W7, but it just seems that over the years folks using 64 bit systems seem to have more issues than benefits when using flight sims compared to the 32 bit folks.

I still very open minded about being convinced otherwise though over the next several months.

FAc

***FAC257*** · June 20th, 2009, 07:11

Well isn't this the coolest thing!

You can adjust the master volume for individual applications straight from the Task Bar.

I'm doing my first W7 Accusim flight with the B77 today and was tinkering around with Teamspeak at the same time. At first I was sort of bummed because the interior sounds on the 377 were acting funny. Then I found this mixer panel by accident while exploring. Problem solved!

One of the things I was a little concerned about before the switch was a supposed problem with the X-Fi cards and W7. Makes me think now that it may have been a bit of whining before learning.

One of the drivers I made sure I had in hand before the format were the new W7 drivers for the X-Fi.

FAC

**txnetcop** · June 20th, 2009, 07:35

Originally Posted by FAC257

I went 32 bit at least for now.

I'm not real convinced yet about 64 bit. Not just because of W7, but it just seems that over the years folks using 64 bit systems seem to have more issues than benefits when using flight sims compared to the 32 bit folks.

I still very open minded about being convinced otherwise though over the next several months.

FAc

If you are talking FSX only the benefits are not much greater with 64bit, I use both 32 and 64 Win7, but with other games there are some definite advantages that use the extra RAM as 32 bit limit is 4GB. FSX could care less I can run almost as fast with 2GB as 4GB with the same eye candy turned on-FSX is weird, but I love it. However if you are going to use Vista or Win7 why restrict one's self to only 32 bit especially if you have an i7Core system that utilizes 6GB and more to great advantage.
Ted

***FAC257*** · June 20th, 2009, 08:22

Hi Ted

Down the road, when I actually do a full system rebuild. I think your right, that it wouldn't make much sense not to take advantage of what's sure to be the norm in 64 bit.

This old thing I'm flying on is a first generation Striker Extreme with an E6700 as a motor. It'll overclock very easily to a 3.33, but I usually leave it alone as it does just fine with FSX at stock speed. I'm not sure any of my hardware on this thing can count as high as 64 anyway.

Right now with W7, I'm running both my 8800GTSOC graphics card, Nhancer and FSX at exactly the same settings as I had with XP and there seems to be virtually no difference in the FPS numbers. If anything I'll give a slight nod over in the W7 direction.

One obvious difference that I've seen is that with my XP software I got better FPS in Windowed Mode and slightly better graphics. W7 seems to be just the opposite. I'm getting significantly higher FPS full screen and the graphics are slightly better.

All still very early theories still as it's only been an official W7 flying machine for the past 24 hours.

FAC

**Meso** · June 20th, 2009, 08:36

Hi FAC,

I run FSX on windows vista just fine. although some issues once in a while with DX10 preview i get better performance in that mode than dx9 mode. It has some disadvantages like the taxiway lines flicker a lot and from the tower view the lines on the runway are drawn through the aircarft. Did you test it in dx10 preview or did you stick to dx9? i pretty much like the water effects and as said above the overall perfomance in the air.

kind regards,

Meso

***FAC257*** · June 20th, 2009, 09:14

Hey Meso

I've got a non-DX10 capable video card so I've never be able to test that feature.

FAC

**rdyoung** · June 20th, 2009, 09:57

Originally Posted by FAC257

Well isn't this the coolest thing!

You can adjust the master volume for individual applications straight from the Task Bar.

FAC

Indeed it is the coolest!! Thanks for the tip. I do a lot of exploring and experimenting with a new OS but I might never have picked up on this one. It works with my on-board sound and the volume level setting for FSX is remembered and used the next time I run FSX -- bonus.

Regards.
Rick