Nick,
The biggest improvement I saw, besides a faster processor was the change to a SSD.
The SSD is a lot faster than the old storage hard drive and even a little tweak in the processor speed will yield more FPS.
Lou

btscott wrote on May 27^th, 2012 at 2:48pm:
If that is the case, how come the performance of FSX, increases as I add more RAM, or decreases if I remove RAM? I'm pretty sure that the performance changes I notice in FSX are not imaginary, but are real.

Mark --- Found this thread over at AVSIM. You may have to register to read it if you are not already a member.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/374015-how-much-ram-for-fsx-on-win7-x64-in-a-sandy-...

Here's one reply though:

"Thought I would add a quote from NickN's article on Setting Up FSX and Tuning It:  "FSX is a 32bit application and as such even when run in a 64bit operating system memory amounts greater than 4GB will be of little use to FSX directly, however, when applied with a 64bit OS and i7 FSX SP2 (or RTM/SP1 with edited fsx.exe files) will be allowed access to a full 4GB with other processes and applications running along side having access to more (over and above). Therefore 6GB (3x2GB) i7 systems as addons and aircraft become more complicated will benefit FSX on a 64bit OS. If you switch to i7 you are far better off on 3x2GB than 3x1GB in system memory.""

Nick's FSX tuning guide can be found here:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html

It's the FSX Bible so to speak.

Bruce

AC Guy --- Well, there are actually 2 guides in that thread. One is for tweaking W7(turning off features that use resources) and the other is for installing and setting up FSX.

I think most folks have 8Gb(2x4Gb) of ram. When I ordered my new I5-2500k pc last August the hot setup was 2x4Gb DDR3 1600Mhz with cls7 timings, which I have.

I am not a tech guy, but I read all those threads religiously and am just repeating it like a parrot! Since Flight was announced(bummer) I have not followed the AVSIM Hardware forum quite as closely, but there have been no really significant advances in hardware since I got my latest box.

Some folks have 12 and even 16Gb of ram, but for FSX 8Gb seems quite adequate. That's the conventional wisdom anyway.

Really, the best source of info is Nick's guide and the AVSIM FSX and Hardware Forums. Check out the other forums at AVSIM too. Most hardcore (I'm not one) guys are there. I think their registered membership is around 75,000(can't remember exactly).


Bruce

Yes, 8Gb IS better than 4Gb. Fsx can only use 4 by itself, but another 2Gb is apparently used by W7 64 and can be used by addons such as CS and other programs.

What I understood, though, is that 8Gb is more than can be used in total by FSX and any addons. Again, I'm not the guy to try to explain this. I'm just a monkey see-- monkey do guy! That's why I got 8Gb when I ordered a new FSX pc.

If you read the guide you'll know why you got better performance when you added the 2nd 4Gb.

The computer has changed a little, everything is the same except for, the hard drive, graphics card, and price.
It is no $650USD vs $600USD before.
The graphics card is now an AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M (64-bit) 512MB (Dual)
vs Intel® HD Graphics 3000
And the hard drive has been reduced from 1TB to 750GBs.

What do you guys think now? 

Reason why FSX doesn't do anything with higher then 4 GB is because its a 32-bit program, and 32-bit programs cannot handle more then 3.5 GB. 8 GB is good since you let the OS use it's own portion of RAM leaving enough for FSX

CoolP wrote on May 30^th, 2012 at 9:37am:


I tried to find an i7 model, but they don't have any for this type of laptop. The only ones they have are XPSs and Alienware products are too expensive. But, will a more powerful graphics card also clear up the blurriness in cockpit, such as the gauges being hard to read without zooming in?