skywatch Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Hi all, I have been out of the sim scene for a few years... but now I have a spare old XP quad core PC that I would like to put my old FS9 installation on. The 'old' FS9 machine is also XP but with only a dual core and less memory, so I am hoping that the new hardware might make an improvement. So is it possible and practial to do this? Would it be worth the effort? A reinstall on the newly spare machine is out due to all the addons that would need to be set up (took over 6 months the last time I did this!)... Any help or advice would be appreciated. New Year Greetings..... Skywatch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wing_Z Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 XP SP3 is the sweet spot for FS9. Number of Cores has no direct effect on FS9 performance. (if you choose to run 100 other resource-hungry programmes concurrently, well then your entire computer will be slow!) 2GB of RAM has served me fine for a decade. CPU speed and Video card are where you need to look. Threads like this often generate some snake oil comments, but the above is the bottom line. If it were me, I'd overclock the CPU until it smokes :cool:, then back off a notch, and then buy the best graphics card that will still fit your MB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Hi all, I have been out of the sim scene for a few years... but now I have a spare old XP quad core PC that I would like to put my old FS9 installation on. The 'old' FS9 machine is also XP but with only a dual core and less memory, so I am hoping that the new hardware might make an improvement. So is it possible and practial to do this? Would it be worth the effort? A reinstall on the newly spare machine is out due to all the addons that would need to be set up (took over 6 months the last time I did this!)... Any help or advice would be appreciated. New Year Greetings..... Skywatch. If I understand correctly the answer is yes. I have FS9 on a separate dedicated USB hard drive (one of the little 2.5" ones that gets its power through the USB cord). This allows me to take it with me on vacations or business trips and use it on my laptop PC. So you could conceiveably copy the entire FS9 folder over to one of those drives and then use it on either machine, or a laptop, etc. FS9 doesn't have to be officially installed on a PC to run well there (I even did it on my 2nd desktop PC that has Win10). However there is something important to keep in mind. When you use FS9 it writes the current settings and saves flights in two locations other than the folder where the program is (this includes the fs9.cfg file). Both are located under the Users folder on C:. If you plug it into and run it on a PC it's never been on before, it will create those folders and files with default contents. It will work fine, but the settings may be different and none of your saved flights will be there. So when I'm about to leave on a trip with the laptop I do these three things: 1) Copy from desktop PC to laptop PC this folder and all its subfolders and files... C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FS9 2) Copy from desktop PC to laptop PC this folder and all its subfolders and files... C:\Users\\Documents\Flight Simulator Files 3) Edit the SITUATION line in the just copied laptop fs9.cfg file that is in the FS9 folder. Change the username from the desktop username to the laptop username. In the example below, the desktop username is cj7 and the laptop username is cj2, so for me I just have to change that single number, but this will surely be different for everyone. The last part of the line, in this case "Heading for Zion-7", is the name of the last flight used. It could be many different things. SITUATION=C:\Users\cj7\Documents\Flight Simulator Files\Heading for Zion-7 SITUATION=C:\Users\cj2\Documents\Flight Simulator Files\Heading for Zion-7 Then when the USB drive is plugged in to the laptop to run the FS9 program it will have all the latest settings and saved flights that are on the desktop. I find it a great way to fly (so to speak) because there is only one version of the program, no matter how many PCs I use it on. With more than one version, if you install a new plane or scenery, then you have to do it twice. Been there, done that, no fun. Inevitably something gets left behind in some way. I have several of these small drives which I use for backups and the contents of the dedicated FS9 drive are regularly backed up on two other drives. I have written about this on my FS web site which appears in the signature area below. I hope this helps, Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanwick Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 A reinstall on the newly spare machine is out due to all the addons that would need to be set up (took over 6 months the last time I did this!)... 6 months????!!!! Must be some sim setup!! Mine takes me about 2 hours to reinstall. Dijvid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColR1948 Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 I have a copy of FS9 installed on a gaming PC, but I also have another copy installed on a portable hard drive connected via USB that runs on my laptop and this PC or nay other PC that I connect to. Obviously the faster/better the PC it will run good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 Thank you all for the help and advice, I appreciate the time you gave to help me out here. So, having done more research it seems my FS drive would be too big for making a virtual drive from, so that's not an option. The installation is large, over 800 scenery layers and many free and paid for addons which I really don't want to reinstall all over again. As I said before it took 6 months evenings and weekends to get it all working acceptably. So, where next then? I now think it might be best to move the HDD to the newer machine. The old machine is 2.2GHz while the newer is 3.5GHz, so should be better. I live in Europe where the MS EULA was declared illegal and it's OK to move the drive. So, should I just uninstall the HDD, video card, audio card and network, then replace the mobo drivers with generic and move? Is there a better way to do this? I did consider adding it as a slave drive, but all the addon registry entries would then be missing and I guess a lot of things wouldn't work. Any help or suggestions appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSMR Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Just out of curistoty for the guys running it off their USB, why not just install in on the laptop or 2nd machine? https://fshub.io/airline/RUA/overview Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColR1948 Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 @JSMR, By having a copy of FS on a spare drive gives you the option to play it on other machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Just out of curistoty for the guys running it off their USB, why not just install in on the laptop or 2nd machine? Having a 2nd version means that two versions must be kept updated if they will be the same. I used to have another installation of FS9 on my laptop PC so I could use it when travelling on vacations or business trips. But it was always a chore, usually neglected, to keep the laptop version updated with the latest planes and scenery add-ons. In addition, any settings changes and saved flights were stored under two different \Users folders and required updates from those folders to keep everything current. So they were usually overlooked. Having just one version on a dedicated separate drive allows running it on any PC you have and it always has your saved flights and settings, etc. Plus if you ever get a new PC (or if the main hard drive crashes and FS wasn't recently backed up) there's very little work involved (about 5 minutes worth) in getting it up and running on the new machine. I've written about doing this in more detail in a short article on my web site called "Advantages Of Running FS9 On A Separate USB Hard Drive" (URL in the signature below). And it doesn't take long to switch over to that approach if you decide to do it. The entire FS folder can be copied over to it in a single operation. Once it's done you're up and running just as before. If the USB drive is a USB3 version and there are USB3 ports on the PC then everything is a bit faster. These drives are very inexpensive these days. I have several of them for backup purposes and my FS drive is regularly backed up to two others, so I'm well covered in that regard. BTW, re Windows 10, my main PC uses Win7 but I have a 2nd desktop that has Win10. I plugged the FS drive into it just to see if it would work and it ran perfectly without any issues. For me this approach is much better than before. Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 Hi, OK- I moved the HDD after reverting to generic drivers and it boots into XP home and works! - But, it wants to be reactivated within 3 days! Is it still possible to re-activate it? Should I wait until I get a gfx card and then reactivate it? What happens after 3 days? What would be a good pci-e card to get now? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Hi, OK- I moved the HDD after reverting to generic drivers and it boots into XP home and works! - But, it wants to be reactivated within 3 days! Is it still possible to re-activate it? Should I wait until I get a gfx card and then reactivate it? What happens after 3 days? What would be a good pci-e card to get now? Thanks. Glad you got it working. If you get the No-CD patch those issues will be gone forevermore. I've been using it for a few years and it's wonderful. Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 Perhaps I should have been more clear in what I wrote. It is Windows XP Home that needs to be reactivated, not FS9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Perhaps I should have been more clear in what I wrote. It is Windows XP Home that needs to be reactivated, not FS9. Ok, got it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. My reading was quick and "it" meant FS9. Good luck with it. Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 OK, so I am *nearly* there! I have FS9 running with a few addons tested OK. The one bug is that my beloved project airbus planes no longer work. The problem is to do with the panel and guages. Whenever I try to load it I get a crash report citing FPDA_A330_callout.gau...... When I comment that guage out of the panel config and re-try it just comes up with another guage fault on another file (auto brake if memory serves). The guage files are present in the guages folder and the right size (kB). If I load another plane and go to extenal view I can then load the PA A319 with no problem, but as soon as I hit 'S' to go to cockpit view, it crashes. All other a/c tested work fine so it's baffling me to the point where I probably won't get much sleep tonight!!! So does anyone know how to solve this please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSMR Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Having a 2nd version means that two versions must be kept updated if they will be the same. I used to have another installation of FS9 on my laptop PC so I could use it when travelling on vacations or business trips. But it was always a chore, usually neglected, to keep the laptop version updated with the latest planes and scenery add-ons. In addition, any settings changes and saved flights were stored under two different \Users folders and required updates from those folders to keep everything current. So they were usually overlooked. Having just one version on a dedicated separate drive allows running it on any PC you have and it always has your saved flights and settings, etc. Plus if you ever get a new PC (or if the main hard drive crashes and FS wasn't recently backed up) there's very little work involved (about 5 minutes worth) in getting it up and running on the new machine. I've written about doing this in more detail in a short article on my web site called "Advantages Of Running FS9 On A Separate USB Hard Drive" (URL in the signature below). And it doesn't take long to switch over to that approach if you decide to do it. The entire FS folder can be copied over to it in a single operation. Once it's done you're up and running just as before. If the USB drive is a USB3 version and there are USB3 ports on the PC then everything is a bit faster. These drives are very inexpensive these days. I have several of them for backup purposes and my FS drive is regularly backed up to two others, so I'm well covered in that regard. BTW, re Windows 10, my main PC uses Win7 but I have a 2nd desktop that has Win10. I plugged the FS drive into it just to see if it would work and it ran perfectly without any issues. For me this approach is much better than before. Clayton Ah ok. I get it. You run it off your USB drive on all machines. I thought that wasnt the best way to do it? And could slow down the sim or induce stutters etc? https://fshub.io/airline/RUA/overview Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 Finally I have it all working (at least as far as I can tell). Thanks for the encouragement all. Now time to try a proper graphics card in there instead of the onboard one, should be good I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Ah ok. I get it. You run it off your USB drive on all machines. I thought that wasnt the best way to do it? And could slow down the sim or induce stutters etc? Well, I've run it this way for over two years now without any problems (fps from 50s to upper 80s). You can always try it without making any permanent commitment. Just copy the entire FS folder to one of these drives and then run it and see how it works. No matter which drive the program runs from, it will always access the fs9.cfg and other files that are stored in the folders under C:\Users. Good luck with it, Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Finally I have it all working (at least as far as I can tell). That's good news. How did you fix the guage problem? Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minas Man Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 Thanks for the link to your site CSMJ. Your screenshots look every bit as good as anything FSX can support. :cool: FS2004 is still a good ole gal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csmj Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Thanks for the link to your site CSMJ. Your screenshots look every bit as good as anything FSX can support. :cool: FS2004 is still a good ole gal... Thank you. Yes FS2004 is still a good strong workhorse sim. I never stop learning, especially from these forums. Clayton My FS web site: http://www.cjcom.net/FS-a.htm with screen shots and short articles. Updated regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 That's good news. How did you fix the guage problem? Clayton Hi Clayton, Sorry for the delay, been busy testing it all out. The guage problem was interesting and the cure is unbelieveable! I tried all sorts of things, but in the end I deleted the default flight and made a new one using the problem PA airbus with main panel selected and the issue was cured! - Simple huh? ! I have tried overclocking from 3.1 to 3.5Ghz and so far the CPU is cool and no issues (except a strange situation where all the textures suddenly disappear and then reload) - Next fun thing to look into! ;) Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old_wombat Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 " I have tried overclocking from 3.1 to 3.5Ghz and so far the CPU is cool". Overclocking is NOT a "set and forget" task. You will now need to say once a year open up your rig and clean out any dust. Dust is a superb insulator and the greatest cause of "death by overheating". Depending on your rig, you may be able to install one or more extra fan(s) to increase the airflow around the CPU and also the GPU. Almost anywhere is good, providing you don't end up with airflows that meet "head on". Whether you do that or not, I would exhort you to download and install a temperature and fan monitoring product. FanSpeed and ZPU are commonly mentioned on this forum for that purpose, they are free, and they work well. Steve from Murwilllumbah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywatch Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Thanks for the good advice. Already have 7 fans in the PC and fanspeed installed. I gets a good clean twice a year including fan blades and anywhere dust can hide or block holes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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