Quicksand, Checkin' in...sort of...

[Quicksand]

Hello, all. Just a line or two to let you guys know I've crossed over to the dark side, or maybe I've got one foot over the fence, anyway. I killed my piggy bank (Sorry, Piglet..), as well as my bank account, and invested in a new rig. I had to get a laptop to remain mobile, but I found what I believe is a happy medium. I got a HP dv7 notebook, and can now run FSX at about twenty frames (set at twenty) across the board. I have not fine tuned it yet, and I figured I'd reach out and see if anybody else is running a similar system, and see how to get the most out of it. My specs are:

Intel Centrino Core2 duo T6400 (2.00GHz, 2MB cache, 800MHz FSB)
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit SP1
4096mb DDR2 memory
500GB (5400rpm) hard drive
Nvidea GForce Go 9600M GT w/512MB dedicated video memory

[Kiwikat]

I'd say the most important thing is to kill Vista as much as possible so you have as much CPU power as you can get. Try setting the FSX process to high too. That made a noticeable difference on my old laptop. Kill the things like bloom and shadowing that aren't necessary if you haven't already.

You can definitely enjoy FSX on a laptop.

[harleyman]

Welcome to the dark side..

Its a med specked laptop,and as long as you don't push sliders to hard right it will be flyable..

Ground traffic and AI are killers...Along with airport traffic....

[Z-PurpleBubble]

I'll be honest with you: you've got a pretty nice machine there for a laptop! In order for you to get the most of the hardware, get rid of vista and install XP. If I'm not mistaking, HP offers the possibility to supposedly downgrade to XP and has all the necessary drivers on their site.

Download those drivers, put them somewhere safe, format your system, put XP on it, then your sims, applications, security and so forth and be amazed!!!

Sorry, but I'm an XP freak, windows 7 seems promising, but Vista is a place where I will never go.

Sorry if this was no use at all...

PB

[Quicksand]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I've been trying to get SP2 to install over SP1, and when I run the installer, it tells me I have to have the English version of FSX to use SP2.... I have the English version, and I installed the English version of SP1..... Any ideas?

[Henry]

it tells me I have to have the English version of FSX to use SP2.... I have the English version, and I installed the English version of SP1..... Any ideas?
push 1 :173go1:
sorry i had to!
i guess you are not talking about acceleration
just sp2
try downloading it again
H

[Quicksand]

I tracked down the cause at the Microsoft support site. I had to use RegEdit to help SP2 find my FSX installation.. All is well now, except for the fact I have to go back to work...... Thanks guys!

[RyanJames170]

I'll be honest with you: you've got a pretty nice machine there for a laptop! In order for you to get the most of the hardware, get rid of vista and install XP. If I'm not mistaking, HP offers the possibility to supposedly downgrade to XP and has all the necessary drivers on their site.

Download those drivers, put them somewhere safe, format your system, put XP on it, then your sims, applications, security and so forth and be amazed!!!

Sorry, but I'm an XP freak, windows 7 seems promising, but Vista is a place where I will never go.

Sorry if this was no use at all...

PB

Vista is ok as long as you know how to work with it there are things about vista that are realy nice about it

oh FYI set you battery management to high performance it will give u about a 20% boost in frames

[Quicksand]

Thanks, Ryan. I'll give that a try. I'm new to Vista as well, so this will be a learning experience in that respect also. PB, I did a lot of shopping around, and the price of this machine ($898), was all I could afford. I heard a lot of good things about this system, and I hope I made the right choice. Overall, only a few glitches, and they were caused by my unfamiliarity with the new OS. It does well so far. I'm sure as time passes, I'll have many questions, though, for I do not consider myself very computer savvy....

[RyanJames170]

from what i can tell as you go down the list ie from power saver, balanced, to high performance you get more out of the computer becuse it either under clocks the CPU or runs the HDD at an lower RPM or both all i know is this Hi Po for games and Power saver for when you are moveing around places i can pull about 2:45 from mine on an 40 watt batery going to get an biger one soon i think. but not untill i have my desk top up to snuff.

if you want help on vista just post and some one will give you an answer
i do agree Windows 7 is going ot be faster but still there are things about vista that make it quite nice.

on an note if you happen to have an 2-4 GB USB flash drive laying around you can use that using ReadyBoost to give you some frames or atleast speed up load times in the game. i can give an short tut on how to do that if you like.

Ryan

[Quicksand]

Wow! I changed the power setting to high performance, and changed my target frame rate to 30, and it is still running smoothly, with frames at 30, with an occasional drop to 24 or so, depending on my surroundings, and what particular aircraft I happen to be flying! I think I'm going to like this rig.. Ryan, right now I don't have many aircraft in FSX, and the sim load time is very fast. I'm sure though, that if I cram as many planes into FSX as I did FS9 on my PC at home, it will slow considerably. I may ask you about the flash drive trick then. Thank you guys for your ideas.

[jeansy]

welcome over here

try unlocking your frames, believe it or not, it you more out of it

[RyanJames170]

Wow! I changed the power setting to high performance, and changed my target frame rate to 30, and it is still running smoothly, with frames at 30, with an occasional drop to 24 or so, depending on my surroundings, and what particular aircraft I happen to be flying! I think I'm going to like this rig.. Ryan, right now I don't have many aircraft in FSX, and the sim load time is very fast. I'm sure though, that if I cram as many planes into FSX as I did FS9 on my PC at home, it will slow considerably. I may ask you about the flash drive trick then. Thank you guys for your ideas.

when you want to know about it just drop my an PM i recommended an 4 GB one