Hempstead

Watch this.

Just passed OCCT CPU + RAM stress test for one hour with flying color (and I have been flying DCS and MSFS 2024 with it for about 2 weeks). The CPU Tdie temperature never went over 60ºC, staying at around 58ºC (core temps were at some cool 32ºC). RAM temp was at about 42ºC. That's 32x logical cores going full blast at 100% for an hour. System Spec: Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero CPU: AMD Ryzen 9950X3D RAM: 4X Crucial DDR5-6400 DIMMs, 128GB (not on the MB QVL, but Crucial site confirmed the compatibility) SSD: Crucial T705 4TB Gfx Card: PNY RTX5080 OC AIO Cooler: Asus Ryujin III 360 Power Supply: Seasonic Prime PX-1600 All fans are Noctua NF-A14x25 gen 2, the AIO has 3x Noctua NF-A14x25 gen 1 (very quiet) Note that, the T705 SSD is a PCIe gen 5, and so is the gfx card running with PCIe gen 5. The T705 does run hot... 50ºC at idle. I am thinking about adding a fan just for it. But a gaming rig's SSD workload is not very high. It's very bursty but not very much sustained load. I would agree that the X870E had a very rocky start with PCIe 5, particularly with RTX5000 cards when it just came out. And it also had some trouble with DDR5-6000+ RAM and 4x DIMM at the beginning. When I first got the system up and running, it was very unstable... but as soon as I updated the motherboard with the latest firmware from Asus. It was rock solid, except Win11 and Nvidia driver still has that problem of once the screen blanks it won't come back, including the installer of Nvidia driver Nvidia App itself. I RDP into it, and it won't come out of the blank screen when I logged off RDP. But other that, it's been rock solid. JayzTwoCents was just testing DDR5-7800 (unstable) and -7600 (stable) for his 9950X3D rig today. -6400? Right... Of course, YMMV. And.... BTW... I didn't change a thing in BIOS. Didn't bother tuning anything.... yet. You have to establish a baseline before you push the envelop.

Keyboard and mouse, where to put in my pit? https://blog.hempstick.org/2025/06/where-to-shove-my-keyboard-and-mouse.html

I have 4 sticks of DDR5-6400, 128GB, on an Asus X870E Hero, Win11 Pro. It was very unstable... until I burned the newest firmware on the motherboard. It's..... kind of stable now. Not sure if it helps DCS at all. I have no baseline to compare it with other than I can get 45fps min. < 1,000' agl, and 90fps > 1,000' agl in Germany map, or any map, with a Quest Pro, and a PNY RTX5080 OC.

F-16 front panel 10 degree fixing quick connect adapter, and keyboard/mouse tray. The great thing about this extrusion build is that you get to "invent" all kinds of stuff to attach to it. https://blog.hempstick.org/2025/05/10-degree-quick-connect-adapter.html

Hey Fred, I am getting a CTD upon switching to VR in MSFS 2024, with the following error message in event viewer. Once I uninstall the XRFrameTool, I no longer gets the crash. Let me know what I can help to get you the dump or any info you need to track this down. I like the XRFrameTool quite a bit! I want it back! Faulting application name: FlightSimulator2024.exe, version: 1.4.20.0, time stamp: 0x00000000 Faulting module name: XR_APILAYER_FREDEMMOTT_d3d11_metrics64.dll, version: 0.2.0.139, time stamp: 0x680e99b7 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0000000000033f84 Faulting process id: 0x9208 Faulting application start time: 0x1DBC79C4DE92F20 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Limitless_1.4.20.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\FlightSimulator2024.exe Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\XRFrameTools\lib\XR_APILAYER_FREDEMMOTT_d3d11_metrics64.dll Report Id: 213bbfaa-26ef-4f64-86ec-6598ee3354f9 Faulting package full name: Microsoft.Limitless_1.4.20.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe Faulting package-relative application ID: App

@Qcumber Thanks for testing & publishing these. My new gaming rig is very similar to yours, except a slightly higher spec. that really doesn't matter to DCS. Saves me a lot of time tuning this stuff!

It's been one of the most difficult builds I have ever had since the 1980s. It's all down to the combo of Win11 & Nvidia driver, a 9950X3D + RTX5080 build. It's not unheard of to have to reinstall the OS multiple times for a build, and I had a share of them. The difficulty this time is that it just crashes without leaving an OS event, except a dump. Now, unless you are an MS Windows engineer with access to their source code, which some of my neighbors probably do, the dump file is useless to us. So, I am reverted back to Asus motherboard QCode and guess. The blank screen randomly, even with the latest Nvidia driver just released 2 days ago didn't help. In fact, the latest just crashed the OS. Hell... the damned Nvidia App crashed the OS while installing the latest GAME READY driver! And then the OSD wouldn't work, etc. etc. There were even an AMD and ITEC USB update failed to install, etc..... until I did the Window cumulative update twice! So, somethings got patched once, and twice, and the order of the patches/drivers installation matters! WTF??? I have never seen crap like this since the 80's! I have finally stabilized it... but it's been a shooting in the blind affair.... and I don't like that. Anyway, if you are going this way, I advise that you install Win11, patch everything to the gill, and install "all other" drivers before you do the Nvidia thing. Some of you might argue that this is the "right" order of installation... not really... depending on how you get here. In the olden days of Windows installation leaving you with default 640x480 VGA resolution, and some of their stupid pop up dialog box were longer than 480 pixels... the very first thing you do after the OS is up is to install new gfx drivers so you can see the dialog boxes' entirety! Plus, usually the gfx driver was the least troublesome one to install. I mean, it has to work, or you see nothing and nothing can be done... until recently that is.

And the news/rumor making the round is that Nvidia might be increasing the prices of gfx cards! Not sure how true that is, but the PNY 5080 OC card I got for MSRP is now listed by the same retailer for USD$200 more than I paid.

Finally got all the parts of my 9950X3D + PNY RTX-5080 OC + 128GB RAM machine, brought it up and seemed stabilized. And got some DCS modules installed with minimal setup. Jumped into an F-16 on both Mariana and NTTR maps. Texture and Terrain Texture both set high, DLSS on, QuadView on…. Quest Pro device res. set to the highest, 90Hz, PD 1.0. Got pretty much 90fps all around. Have not done much testings yet, like with a lot of explosions, AH64, F-4E etc. yet. But, the first impression is very smooth and very little to no stuttering.

I used to use a piece of marble designed for rolling croissants. Bolt the rudder pedals to the marble, as long as the marble is heavy enough it won’t move around. You can get it cheaper from HomeDepot and the likes. A piece of chopping board will do too. The good thing about wood is that you can easily add some “nails” facing downward to “grab” the carpet.

Irony of irony. Quest 3 runs a version of Android OS.... i.e. a Linux.

https://www.hempstick.org/download/manual/Hempstick-UserGuide.pdf, pp. 34.

Yippee! I got my hands on a 9950X3D at MSRP, sorta! All I had to do is flew to Taiwan, walked into the first shop off the escalator in the infamous/famous KwangHwa Market and asked about it. OK OK, I have some business to do in Taiwan. So I thought I’d give it a shot. That market hasn’t disappointed me since the 80’s. With the RTX 5080 I already have, I can finally start ordering other parts for the new gaming rig.

Man... in VR, I just look at F4, and my FPS tanks to like 10fps. Gives a new meaning to the phrase "What are you looking at?".