muz

...or you could use the driver settings built into either NVidia forceware or ATI Catalyst Command Centre or use something else like nHancer or Ati Tray Tools and setup application specific profiles. (I'm not aware that the V-Sync settings in Win 7 don't work - but I can definitely confirm that V-sync in Ati Tray Tools DOES work properly under Win7 x64). I will test v-sync functionality using purely CCC out of curiosity (as I'm curious if it's a general problem or configuration dependant). I run ATT under Win7 x64 for this sort of stuff, with very basic default settings applied via Catalyst driver settings. I'm not saying your post is wrong - just pointing out alternative ways of doing this, as "there's more than 1 way to skin a cat" and some people prefer using different methods (depending on their needs).

I have no experience with Black Shark (yet - still waiting for it to arrive in in New Zealand). The 9800GTX+ is a very good card and overclocks well. If you are unhappy with ATI's performance in FSX, then you should go with the GTX+. They have really good coolers on them and overclock quite nicely with virtually no increase in heat (in a decent case with good airflow). Bang for the buck I think the 2 best cards on the market at the moment are the GTX+ and the ATI 4850.

Your card is on the supported hardware list - are you sure you are doing a full uninstall of the previous version of drivers, followed by a reboot, then install the newer version? I personally always uninstall the drivers via "add/remove programs", then just to be sure, I manually select each card in device manager, right click it and then uninstall it. Once you have done those 2 steps, then reboot to ensure the PC is a clean state with no references to the old driver versions - then install the new drivers. Works every time for me and there is no need to use driver removal tools if you follow the proper process. If you can't solve your problem, then my advice is to stick with your current version of Forceware and consider contacting Nvidia to query if there are issues with your particular model of card and the latest drivers.

What sort of 8800GTS have you got? I'm running a 320 MB version, that's overclocked to around 650MHz GPU and 1350 MHz or so on the shaders (plenty of headroom in these cards, depending on your cooling). I recommend you examine the following settings: * run a reasonably new version of Forceware (the 169 series is good, plus the newer 178.13's are good too) to ensure you've got an up to date driver with the latest application tweaks (not really relevant to Lock On given its age, but make sure you're running a driver version that's a bit newer than your video card, as that way you'll ensure you got any hardware specific tweaks that Nvida may have changed in the drivers) * DirectX pre-render setting (i.e. rendering frames in advance) can be turned down to 1 from the default of 3 for improved FPS :) * Ensure the multi-core setting for Forceware is enabled if you've got a multi-core CPU, as then forceware will offload some of its rendering to the 2nd CPU :) * consider overclocking your video card if you have good cooling on your 8800GTS If you want to play with application specific settings, then I suggest you look at nHancer, as it's a hell of a lot better than the standard forceware application profiles and allows you to easily over ride them etc.

Heaps in my day job - I'm a senior IT support geek. There's so many to choose from, I wouldn't really know where to start, but off the top of my head, the 2 best ones I would single out would be: Symantec Ghost and Drive Image Pro from PowerQuest. Those 2 would be my favorites.

Very nice setup! I was reading about SoftTH just today - I've only got two monitors (21" CRT, plus 22" LCD Widescreen), so I don't think it's worth my time, but if only I had a few more, I'd copy your setup in a flash - very impressed by the overall look of it - especially with one screen dedicated to gauges in the centre. Nice effort and thanks for sharing.

Hmmm, sorry about the seriously poor formatting there - I used the quick reply feature, so I guess it ignored a few carriage returns and line feeds - you should get the gist though :)

As stated by someone else, try either compatibility mode, or you could give it a go under some form of emulator or virtualization product. Re: the latter, it should be fine as the game doesn't use hardware accelerators for 3d. Microsoft's Virtual Server and various versions of VM Ware are FREE - run it under one that supports hardware virtualization - eg: Virtual Server 2005 SP1. The system requirements for Flanker 1.0 are very low - so it should run very quickly under virtualization a product if you have a CPU that supports the intel VT or AMD-V instructions. System requirements For PC: Minimum 486 IBM compatible at 66Mhz, DOS 5.0 or higher, 8mb RAM, 1MB SVGA card, 8MB HD Space, Software using AMD-V and/or Intel-VT The following software is known to conditionally make use of virtualization technology features: * Hyper-V - Windows Server Virtualization * Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) - a Linux kernel module hypervisor * LynxSecure - Secure MILS Hypervisor from LynuxWorks Supports Intel VT-x and VT-d. * Microsoft Virtual Server — Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 supports hardware assisted virtualization.[11][12] * Microsoft Windows Server 2008 - Server 2008's ability to run multiple virtual servers requires hardware virtualization support[1] * Parallels Workstation and Parallels Desktop for Mac — lightweight hypervisor with Intel VT-x and AMD AMD-V support. * Parallels Server (Beta) — Enterprise version of Parallels Workstation and Desktop for Mac. It will provide support for Intel's second generation virtualization technology, called Virtualization Technology for Directed, or VT-d. * Padded Cell - virtual machine technology from Green Hills Software hosted on INTEGRITY real-time operating system. Supports Intel VT-x and VT-d. * Real-Time Systems RTS Real-Time Hypervisor for x86 * Sun xVM - xVM is based on Xen on x64 * VirtualBox supports both AMD-V and VT-x.[13] * Virtual Iron - Virtual Iron supports Intel VT-x and AMD-V. * VirtualLogix VLX supports Intel VT-x and VT-d. * VMware Workstation — Workstation 5.5 supports Intel VT-x.[14] * VMware Fusion - Virtualization product for Mac OS X for use on Macintosh systems equipped with Intel Core, Core 2 Duo and Xeon processors. * VMware ESX Server - Enterprise Virtualization Server, needs hardware support when running x64 and x32 virtual machine simultaneously. * VMware Server - Supports Intel VT-x and AMD-V. * Xen — Xen 3.0.2 supports Intel VT-x and AMD-V. Xen 3.2.1 supports Intel VT-d. Xen 3.3 is expected to support Intel VT-c.

Having a large Pagefile does not cause performance degradation - in fact, there's no harm in having a huge pagefile. Having a fragmented pagefile does cause issues. Re: pagefile sizing, refer to the following technet article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us specifically this part: "A frequently asked question is how big should I make the pagefile? There is no single answer to this question, because it depends on the amount of installed RAM and how much virtual memory that workload requires. If there is no other information available, the normal recommendation of 1.5 times the amount of RAM in the computer is a good place to start. On server systems, a common objective is to have enough RAM so that there is never a shortage and the pagefile is essentially, not used. On these systems, having a really large pagefile may serve no useful purpose. On the other hand, disk space is usually plentiful, so having a large pagefile (e.g. 1.5 times the installed RAM) does not cause a problem and eliminates the need to fuss over how large to make it." This article applies to all NT based OS'es - including XP Pro.