nvidea gtx960 graphics card

I have just replaced my gtx550ti graphics card with a gtx960. There is a noticeable improvement in the visuals, particularly with VFR scenery in UK and Netherlands and in high density scenery such as Aerosoft's Heathrow. I have spent a week or so twiddling both the card settings and the FS settings and all seems well. But does anyone have any suggestions for other things that I might tweek to make it even better?

I have a AMD Phenom X4 processor and I STILL fly FS9 under Windows XP (32 bit)!

But does anyone have any suggestions for other things that I might tweek to make it even better?

I have a AMD Phenom X4 processor and I STILL fly FS9 under Windows XP (32 bit)!

 

Not a tweak as such, but since you have a GTX960 AND a Phenom CPU you could upgrade from XP x32 to Windows 7 x64, add some RAM up to 8, 12 or even 16gb and make it the best!

It has been stated in a published benchmark that in Win7 a complex math processing thread will be passed to the more efficient graphics processor on the card as opposed to using the floating point processor in your motherboard CPU (is the GPU is free). FS9 is written in 32 bit code so the advantage of Win 7 trapping that code and processing it faster on the GPU should help. FS9 uses for its model rendering your CPU so w7's trapping that code and using the GPU is credited with the extra performance.

 

 

 

On the other hand migrating from XP to W7 is not automatic and requires a reinstall of most apps or in some cases copying them and fiddling with some items, sometimes in the registry. However once that is done you should be set for Win 8.1 and with reservations Win 10.

 

I am now running on an Intel 4th gen I7-4790K. I use the GTX970 to allow for future complex graphics processing for digital photography. (Newer camera processing requires 64 bits.) FS9 (and Steam FSX) run just fine.

However once that is done you should be set for Win 8.1 and with reservations Win 10.

 

I'd have reservations about Windows 8.1 as well - both Windows 8.1 and 10 are designed for laptops with touchscreens and other 'mobile devices' rather than desktop PC's, and don't support older disk installed software such as FS2004.

Many thanks for this advice. I was thinking that 64 bits was the way to go.

But some of my other software (MSword, video editing etc) is, like fs9, rather old and will not run on newer versions of Windows. However it does what I want and I don't feel the need to buy newer replacements.

So, can I have XP and 7(64bit) on the same machine, or should I have two machines, one of them dedicated to flight simulator?

(More of a thought than a question)

Thanks again.

Yes, you can have a dual-boot system with XP & win7 on separate partitions or separate drives.