ssd first impressions

I guess this topic has been beaten into the ground by now. However it is still new to me in the area of practical usage.

 

I got a 240gb ssd drive by san disk which I know is not really the best out there.

 

I had my dvd burner plugged into sata 0, c drive was sata 1.

 

I added the ssd to sata 2. I cloned one to two. Booted off the new ssd and everything was pretty much fine.

 

When I first ran fsx Acceleration, acceleration asked me to re enter my serial numbers. Ok that was not so bad, it could have been worse. In the past my serials have not been accepted and I have had to go through the major pain of doing phone registration.

 

At any rate. My old c drive is now e and f giving me plenty of storage space. The new ssd is c drive.

 

Conclusion--

 

I will say that windows does seem to be faster. However when I really max out the scenery with something like Aerosoft New York I am still watching my frame rates drop down into the 9 fps range.

 

I was really hoping this 'fix' would do more for my frame rates then that.

 

I have a pretty extensive library of add on aircraft and those does seem to load a tad bit faster.

 

Loading terrain might be a tad bit faster.

 

So.... I guess to really have a screaming fast fsx rig i would need to bump the ram up to 16 gb from 8 gb.

 

I would need an i7, I would have to go from nvidia gt to gtx series 700 or more.

 

None of that is really going to happen any time soon so it is just nice to think about.

 

I have read about how others have done ssd installs and I really did feel my way was the simplest.

 

I used macrium reflect to clone my original c drive and other then that I have listed all of the steps so I will not do it again ad nauseum.

 

 

With all of that said I hope to get back to some virtual airline flying now that I have completed 'brain surger' on this pc I run.

SSD drives have never helped frame rates, only loading times. For frame rates you need to look into a faster processor.

oh wow that bums me out, I was hoping maybe more ram or an nvidia gtx because a new processor is really not in the cards for me at this time.

 

Like it or not, I still thank you for the reply. One day maybe I will learn to get ALL of the facts before investing in hardware. I stills see the benefits of an ssd but I guess that is something I should have known before hand.

Under a 64 bit Windows OS, FSX can use at most 4GB of virtual address space, so 8GB of RAM is plenty.

 

What specific video card do you have? Just saying a 2GB video card is like listing your aircraft based on the fuel tank size. While important, it is secondary to the GPU, or engine of your aircraft, for performance. If it is a low end model like a GeForce GT 610, then a faster model such as a GTX 750 would help a bit with performance and allow you to turn up some graphics settings a notch or two. On the other hand, if you already have a GTX 750 or better, a faster GPU isn't going to help much, unless you are running multiple high resolution (ie. >1920x1200) monitors.

 

SSDs are great for overall system responsiveness, and I find it noticeable going back to using a system running on a HDD.

 

I would recommend browsing through the PC Hardware forum here. There are many threads talking about what hardware to buy.

Enjoy that loading speed, it was the primary reason I got an SSD, didn't like waiting minutes for FSX to load. Other than that I didn't expect, nor experience, any other FSX performance gains. Sandisk is a good choice, don't worry about that, it should last for years. I too use a sandisk SSD for my C drive; not top shelf performance, but other than running benchmarks most mortals can't tell the difference (if you are running sata II, any SSD will be capped at about 250MB/sec anyways). Be thankful you did not get stung with a Samsung 840 evo, now that is a crippled ssd from a 'premiere' ssd maker.

Enjoy that loading speed, it was the primary reason I got an SSD, didn't like waiting minutes for FSX to load. Sandisk is a good choice, don't worry about that, it should last for years. I too use a sandisk SSD for my C drive; not top shelf performance, but other than running benchmarks most mortals can't tell the difference (if you are running sata II, any SSD will be capped at about 250MB/sec anyways). Be thankful you did not get stung with a Samsung 840 evo, now that is a crippled ssd from the 'premiere' ssd maker.

 

Thanks. Long ago I heard it is never good to have too many desk top icons, but at least now, when I forget to tidy up the desk top I don't have to wait for the icons to paint on the screen. I do notice better win7 performance.

 

Really what I have was never exactly slow compared to some systems I have used but it doesn't seem to be such a bad thing to want even more performance.

 

I am glad this migration was so seemless for me. I give a lot of the credit to macrium reflect which I think is some of the best free software you can ever get your hands on from a system maintenance point of view. I remember the old days of Norton Ghost and I could never figure it out for the life of me. Essentially it just does the same thing as Ghost in that it is just creating an image of the drive. I am getting a little greedy on my wish list but since my c drive is now under 300 gig it would be nice to clone it to an external. That way when my windows install does get corrupted with time. I get windows back, with fs9, fsx, and p3d (1.4).

 

I think in the mac world they call it time capsule software.

 

In response to the other post I have to admit that nvidia gt720 is kind of lacking as video cards go. I might sell an older computer and put some money towards a gtx plus I might actually get a few bucks for the gt720 on e bay.

 

Also it might just be my imagination but P3d seems better to me now then fsx in improvement. It may just be because p3d starts you out with a slider during loading, while my fsx just kind of waits a bit with the splash screen then asks me if i want to load ai carriers.

 

I guess in the grand scheme of life all of this sounds really trivial but for the system gurus at least you get my drift?

Don't buy an i7 yet. Not until you learn how to (what I call) 'finalize' a NEW system install. Until you do your system will seem sluggish and glitchy. You will seemingly be doing exhaustive (but fruitless) experiments with 'this-n-that' (ie: SSD, video card, etc). You will 'throw money' at the problem and not get a 'return' (ie:improvement). You will scan the net for 'solutions' and read/print out/follow a myriad of 'suggested' proceedures and routines. Being a Ubuntu user doesn't help in that you think software (scripsts or coding) will (eventually) make the difference. It won't. You essentially revert to the 'use a bigger hammer' mind set. Won't work. It ain't broke. You just did not do the necessary UPDATE of the Motherboard chip set drivers. Simple as that.

 

Let me explain. When you buy a Motherboard the chip set drivers are OLD and OUTDATED (and may even of been for a Pentium and not the latest CPU types). The seller woundn't know as it was all done 'at the factory' and they could care less. And I assume you DIDN'T ASK anyway-right? What you get is a lot of bloatware and 'generic' chip set drivers. It is up to you to get rid of the bloatware and update the cip set drivers (for your particular Motherboard and OS (32 or 64 bit)). Doing it now that you have a lot of 'stuff' installed may not work. It might be best to 'start over'. If you don't believe me then you will 'play' with system tweaks until the cows come home and never be satisfied with your system's performance. And rightly so. You got a 'word processor' and 'email' system (as that is what the seller assumes is all you want and all they offer). Have I got your attention yet? Stop messing around and go get the up to date chip set drivers and install them. You will be glad you did. Otherwise all bets are off and I will see you in (all) the forums all year talking and talking. Got my drift?

Chuck B