I have been hearing that solid state drives are the way to go with FSX. I am looking to upgrade to Windows 7 and use a fresh copy of FSX gold. I was thinking if I was to get into a software update like that two solid state drives would  be in the mix as well. Small drives 60GB each would handle the operating system on one and FSX on another. My current hard drives have less than that on each as my Flight Sim computer is used for flight simming only and nothing else. A large external if necessary would handle anything else.
Any one tried out an solid state drive yet for flight simming?

I don't know much about them. I hear FSX scenery files should be "defragged" by name order and SSD's DO NOT get defragged.


Here's a couple reviews...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3636/western-digitals-new-velociraptor-vr200m-10k-...

I have tried FSX on two brands of SSD, OCZ Agility2 (120G) and Intel X25-M (80G). 

Both are running in IDE mode.  The OCZ will run about 166MB/s where the Intel is more like 230 MB/s (using HD Speed to test).  That's a huge difference and it definitely shows in FSX.

I would recommend steering clear of OCZ as the drive has issues (it disappears sometimes) and some other quirks which there doesn't seem to be a fix for.  If their forums are any indication, there is no sense of urgency to fix it either...my first and last OCZ SSD purchase.

The Intel, OTOH, has performed flawlessly.  Just install it as you would any other SATA and you're good to go. 

My pleasure I had intended to write up for the forum on my experience with a new build, two brands of ssd, and specifically what happened with different drivers
and configurations, so your post was timely and halted my procrastination.

I had been without a desktop computer for roughly nine months.  I was finally home last Fall and in dire need of an FSX (and new build) fix, so I made the three hour trek to Kansas City, abode to the nearest MicroCenter.  I did minimal research before heading out (and as always that kicked me in the rear later on).  I ended up with the following:

i7 950
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R v 2.0
12 GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600
Asus 470 GTX 1.25 GB
OCZ Agility2 120 GB
Intel X25-M 80 GB (2)
Hitachi HITACHI Deskstar 1TB 7200 RPM SATA
LG CD-DVD 24x
H70 Cooler
CoolerMaster Storm Scout and then CoolerMaster Storm Sniper 3 x 120mm
win 7 64b

H70 would not properly fit in the Scout.  I could tenuously secure it with only two screws through the back, but the case could not be closed with H70 overhang. 

There was plenty of 5.25 Drive Bay space so something could be rigged up that way, but I really wanted it all done just so, and so I went back and got the Sniper case which has plenty room for the cooler.

I did driver installs with latest from Gigabyte website, FSX install, then started testing.  nvidia 266.58 and Inspector 1.941 were used with the settings recommended by Nick_N. http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-and-nhancer-settings-for-new-drivers-updated...

Additionally, airplane shadows on ground and a/c itself, lens flare and advanced animations are enabled, while DX10 and light bloom are disabled.

There was a marked smoothness increase in FSX with the latest BIOS for this board, version FE, and the following comparisons are using that version.

My "stutter/smoothness" test consists of:

Load default Ultralight/Friday Harbour flight let it fly a few seconds

Then hit S key which switches view to Outside Spot

Then hit A key which switches view to Locked Spot. 

The camera will swing behind the a/c and then overtakes it on starboard side before coming to rest ahead.  I have found if this "swing around" goes smoothly, and without tears, etc., it's a fairly good indicator of how FSX will run entirely.

The first setup was with Agility2 running FSX and one of the X25s (both in IDE mode) running windows.  Boot and windows were great performance, but the swingaround was slightly jerky and stuttered.

Next setup with Agility2 running win7 and FSX on Intel drive.  Incredible difference.  Swing around completely smooth, and very nearly stutter free (it might hiccup if you panned around 360 over and over and over).  very high frame 120+ rates possible w unlimited (eventually settled on 30 fpm since monitor is 60 Hz).

I was able to do the AHCI registry hack, and so I set the drives as above to ahci mode, made bios changes, and all the drives loaded in that mode.  FSX did NOT like that.  Windows seemed faster, but FSX took longer to load and was not nearly as smooth as in ide mode.

This m/b has three different raid drivers, Intel, JMicron, and Marvell.  I reloaded windows and the drivers, and then ran FSX in RAID0 config with both Intel drives.  There was stuttering, tearing, and much degraded performance  with
each one; none of them allow you to assign a stripe size of 256k or higher.

As noted earlier in the thread, the Intel SSD really trumps the OCZ.  It is well worth the extra expense, assuming it has a normal lifespan, and just what that is for SSDs, I guess we shall see.

Moral of the story:  Leave ur SSD in IDE mode, as Nick says!

westside wrote on Jan 29^th, 2011 at 11:51am:


I have been using an OCZ 120 GB SSD for several months with only Windows 7 and SFX installed. Although little difference in FSX performance was noted which in my opinion is already outstanding, overall load times for not only FSX but for everything else, has improved significantly (in some cases almost instantaneous). And no need to Defrag. For me, this was an outstanding upgrade to an already fast machine. I maintain about 20 GB of storage in reserve on this drive.

FLFlyGuy wrote on Feb 7^th, 2011 at 9:38pm:


FLFlyGuy,

My SSD is an OCZ 120GB Vertex 2 series and my BIOS SATA configuration is set at ADVANCED not IDE.

Out of the box, I put my new SSD in my computer case, connected it to my motherboard with a SATA cable and its been running great ever since. My computer boots super fast as well as greatly improved startup times for FSX. Again, I have reserved this drive for Windows 7 and FSX and FSX add-ons. Of the 120 GBs I have approximately 20 GBs left in reserve. For me, it added a spark to my computer and well worth the investment.

Regards,

FlightAce

Quote:


The Advanced Host Controler Interface is noted in my BIOS as Advanced and the only other choice is IDE. I checked it before replying to FLFlyGuy, since it has been almost two years before building and setting up this PC. Maybe if I was running two video cards, RAID would come up. By the way, what board are you using - obviously not a P6T?

Yes, it was the manual for the ASUS P6T Deluxe Version 2, however the manual is dated to December 2008. It was the manual from the ASUS website, here:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=iRlP8RG9han6saZx

Section 3.3.6, page 84, page 14 of chapter 3 aka 3-14.

I am on a crappy Gigabyte P35-DS3P (REV 2.1) as in my signature. Might be a year or more before it's replaced since I don't have the money. Donations appreciated.