Share via

Oh what a difference the CPU makes.

  • Article

So I got this new machine at work.  It's one of them new-fangled Core 2 Duo machines that Intel's making.  And man does it show just how CPU bound we really are with all of our draw calls.  The machine specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (a huge leap ahead of the dual Athlons in my other two machines), 2 gigs of ram and a GeForce 7900 (a bit faster than the 6800 and ATI x1600 in my other machines).  I was shocked to turn all of the settings up completely (including autogen) and find myself getting 15 FPS solid.  And this is on FSX retail.  This wasn't even on SP1 with all of the performance enhancements.  Granted, the whole machine is a step up, but the huge difference in CPUs seems to be the really big win and it makes sense.  Wer're pushing way too many draw calls onto the CPU for FSX retail.  Fortunately, SP1 addresses a lot of those issues, as well as takes advantage of both (or all four if you're really rich) cores on the CPU.

So hooray for CPUs!  And for those of you who don't want to buy a new CPU, hooray for SP1.  Look for it soon.  I'll post as soon as we get done testing it and get it ready for release.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I was flying the default flight over the San Juans, so you're right, I do need to check Seattle before getting too excited.  I'll check that when I get back in the office next week.  However, this was not SP1, so I'll check those numbers as well.   It was a stock speed core2. SP1 will support multiple cores for terrain loading and terrain rendering as well as autogen batch rebuilding.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Was that with everything maxed out?  I am able to get more FPS than that on my Dual Athlon 4200, ASUS A8N-E mobo, 2 gigs of RAM, 430 watt PS and a single GeForce 6800 (cheap one too, because I knew I was going to have to upgrade to a DX10 card).  I don't have all the settings cranked, but I am able to get things looking reasonably decent.  Your machine should be getting much better performance.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I can run it full out on my work machine.  It's an intel core 2 duo x6800 @2.93 Ghz.  2 gigs of ram, Nvidia 7900 graphics card.  Every single setting completely maxed.  If I am in Seattle, perf will still drop below 10 frames occasionally, but mostly it's locked at 20 fps and higher if I make it unlimited.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    It's an x6800 @ 2.93 Ghz.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Now try overclocking it to 3.5Ghz and see how good   that gets. :) Manny

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2007
    I have a dual AMD processor, ASUS A8N-32-SLI motherboard, 2 Gigs of RAM, 680 watt PS and two 7800GS in SLI. I tried every tweak in the book and finally took FSX off the computer. This is after having the computer checked over. Best I ever got was 5 to 8 FPS.

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2007
    That depends on where you fly of course....15 in Seattle or 15 in smaller towns :)

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2007
    I'm not sure whether the above statement is true... didn't they say that it's impossible to  change FSX to multitreading? It's interesting how some people contradict each other. I really hope it's true that FSX will use 100% of all cores in order to get reasonable FPS...

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2007
    Sounds great.  Where were you flying at the time, and which view gave you 15fps?  Is that a stock speed core2, or overclocked?

  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2007
    Torgo, Can you please share the specific model of your Intel Core 2?

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2007
    No wonder you got better performance.  6800 smashes all in its path.  Can't afford the £550 price tag though!

  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2007
    would like toknow what it takes to run fxfull out

  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2008
    Hi, is it true that AMD gonna stop their business until 2010 ??