HINTS

MMX?

FAQ

Many people are reporting problems installing FS6. On this page you will find information how to solve the problems. I just put public information together. If you still have problems installing the product, please direct your question to Microsoft.

The information at this page isn't updated since april 1997.... Weekly hardware updates can be viewed at my fs98 site....

• If you own the Sidewinder you will like the installation file to add keystrokes to the buttons. You can do this for all different games on your desktop.

• Switching the flying area takes a looong time is you are using a 2x CD-ROM. You can best install the whole 145Mb stuff or buy an 8 speed CD-ROM.

• And if you don't like the "Microsoft" video at startup anymore you only need to rename the video file. It can be found in the main :/fltsim6 directory with the name "mslogo.avi". If you rename this file into mslogo.xxx you will not see the video anymore and FS6 starts up much faster.

My first conclusion of this is that you better don't buy this product at this moment if you only want to buy it for FS6:

1. MMX will give you about 10-15% more speed, but as FS6 is not written in MMX code, it will not take full advantage of this product. Intel claims a 50-60% advantage when software is compiled using MMX code.

2. Later this year MMX based motherboards will be released using better chipsets and in the fourth quarter of 1997 the release of the very fast AGP graphics bus is expected.

I found the following six statements on the Internet:

1. Well, the longer you wait, the cooler the hardware will get. :-)I'd base
it on how slow what you have now is, and how desperate you are for an
upgrade. The Pentium Pro with MMX (code-name Klamath) is currently slated for
April release. From the buzz I hear from sources close to Intel, this
will be a very hot chip, one that promises to be more than just a PPro
with new instructions.

However, I'm going to hold off until the fourth quarter for my upgrade,
because the other hot thing in the works is the AGP graphics bus. This
is a fast local bus that will take video off the PCI bus, getting rid of
one of the biggest graphics bottlenecks and allowing for some amazing
graphics performance. By 4Q 97 Klamath, AGP, and some hot new AGP cards
including the Intel/Lockheed-Martin chip should be available.

If I needed an upgrade right now, I'd go for something decent but not
too expensive -- say, a fast Pentium motherboard with a Rendition or
3dfx card -- and plan on going Klamath/AGP around the end of the year.
(Or you could buy a Klamath and then replace the motherboard
with an AGP model later in the year.)

2.
Beware of the current Pentium MMX Motherboards and
supporting chip-sets.
The current MMX Motherboards will NOT support:-
1. Synchronous DRAM (only EDO or fast-page)
2. AGP
3. 33MBps hard-disk access, which may bother the "power-video"
user
The limitation is the 440FX chip-set, which will be updated to
the 440LX in June 1997. These don't plug-in either -- fine-pitch
surface-mount soldered, so a Motherboard (and memory)
swap is necessary.
So you may not want to hurry out and buy your MMX machine
or motherboard right now, unless you are a 486 or sub-100MHz
Pentium owner.
The MMX Overdrive processors (plug-in replacements for your
current Pentium) and up to 200MHz are due 4Q97. Also, the very
interesting Cyrix M2 plug-in replacement is expected to be
available around the same time.

3.
Actually, AGP is not "a true pentium local bus". AGP is a modified 32
bit 66 MHz PCI bus, with an option of 133 MHz transfers. It will have a
different connector than PCI and will in most cases only be used for the
graphics card. Intel will NOT produce any chipset for Pentium that
supports AGP, but the 440LX chipset for the upcoming PPro MMX (Klamath)
will support AGP. Expect to see Klamath systems with AGP in the second
half of this year.
The new Microsoft 3D hardware standard is the "Talisman" architecture.
Talisman is designed to minimize the bandwidth requirement and will NOT
need AGP in its reference design. However, Microsoft is working with
Intel on a host-based version of Talisman where more work will be done
by the CPU; this version will probably need AGP.

4.
"To shoehorn the added capabilities into the existing Pentium die
size, Intel had to make a few compromises. MMX CPUs cannot execute MMX
and floating point instructions at the same time... But a handful of
applications that switch frequently between floating-point and MMX
operations could run slower on MMX Pentiums than on non-mmx Pentiums."

5.
I've been using 2 systems for FS6/95. Both are Dell 200 Pentium (one
with MMX one without) / 32M SDRAM / 512K Cache / #9-332 Video Card /
Sony 8X CDROM. Results:
NO MMX / 26 to 45 frames per second
MMX / 19 to 33 frames per second

Does anyone else have any additional data on this topic? By the way the
floating-point performance is down about 20% in the MMX system using
SPEC FP and down by 23% using Ziff Davis FP benchmarks.

6.
Your going to see an immediate increase (at least with Dell), Besides it's
larger cache and other hardware improvements in the system to take
advantage of the processor, the MMX chips "Talks" better to hardware. The
problem is that FS 6 does not have MMX instructions!

If you want to know more about MMX you can visit Intel's MMX site.