Help with visuals for our Classic

[CeeGee]

I was hoping that someone could help us with our visuals for the re-built Comet 4 that we have done. It was FS9 it is now FSX and full of the stutters even after a year of tampering. One OHP, desktop PC  but we have a matrox for the 3 screens soon. Any help with our st...st...stuttering would be appreciated [Win XP sp3]. Thanks, Charlie. and yes the avatar is the cockpit!!

[Bob Reed]

Only thing I can say is...... Pictures? Can you give us computer specs? The more details the better.

[jackpilot]

Looking great!

Well the Comet is a high flyer,  forget the VFR eye candy and revert to smooth FS9.

My guess is that Visuals will make tremendous progress with new tech coming fast and probably a new edition of a Flight Sim which will once again bring everyone back to square one.
Wether it is 3D, flat screens that can be curved at will, borderless TVs, pico-projectors....all at prototype stage and close to production.

In the meantime, my 2¢ is to enjoy the smooth and fluid flying that FS9 offers now, and which we could'nt even dream of only a few years ago!.

[XOrionFE]

I would love to see some more pictures of your sim and hear some more of your background.    Maybe post an introduction to yourself.   

As for visuals, if you decide to go with 3 projectors at some point I can help but as Bob said it would be good to see what your current computer specs are (or if you are planning to upgrade then what those specs will be).    Only the top tier of processors (i7 920+ and a good video card such as a GTX 280 or 480) can hope to run FSX at any decent framerate.  If you use 3 screens in a curve like my setup then you end up using 4 views and this has a huge hit on framerates.    Then you should tweak your setup and build your pc specifically to handle FSX only and I would suggest reviewing Nick Needham's threads on Avsim.      FSX is a performance pig for sure so in the end you may be better off with FS9 as Jack suggested.   Eye candy will not be as good as FSX but you can make it pretty nice with good Addons such as REX for instance.    Also since you are not probably doing IFR mountain flying you wont be joyriding through scenery anyway :-)

Let us know your direction and specs and we can take if from there.   Happy to help out.   And please.....MORE PICs! :-)

Scott

[CeeGee]

Thanks for your respose guys. Firstly, this is the site for our sim:
http://www.flightsim-comet.com/
We have a GTX280 and the PC specs I will get from my brother in law who owns the beast. The PC is a year old and was purpose built for FSX, more to follow on that. We converted from FS9 and to go back will be a struggle to say the least - we just want to eliminate the stutter which is like a cached memory problem.
I will get back to you shortly, and many thanks for your interest - I am pleased that we found this site!! Merry Christmas to you all, fly hi, Charlie.

[Emesis]

Simply amazing....wow! 

Hats off to you gents. Fantastic setup.

Cheers

[jackpilot]

GUYS, WHAT YOU DID IS FANTASTIC.
I edited my post on Classic airliners with a link to your site.
Jack
PS :Glad YOU found us. 

[Maurice]

For some 'unknown' reason, all my building 'problems' seem so minute now. I wonder why 
Your project is a MONUMENTAL achievement! 

Maurice

[CeeGee]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone - it has been a dedication beyond belief for Mike the Boss. He sent over the computer stuff which I reproduce below:
The Motherboard in the Comet is X58 Pro Model No. MS-7522, the
Graphics card is NVIDIA Geforce GTX275, Graphics card is Zotac VGA. This system was provided by Alpine Systems as an FSX dedicated PC. It was Vista 64bit but is now XP SP3 32 bit due to vista problems and the fact that Simkits only produce 32 bit ccu's.

We have over 4 gig of memory which should be ample, and FSX is the only running prog, with the exception of 4 Simkits control units and one Flight Illusion cu for the radios.

Now I, CeeGee, run and alter the FSX folders/files to suit the 1960's comet and as yet, there have been no major dramas apart from the stutter. I have read and incorporated the avsim settings for the FSX.cfg file and have tried them all. There has got to be something that I have missed in the FSX.cfg which is causing the stutter because we have been trying for over a year. I can send anyone who is helping the FSX.cfg file as that may/does have the problem.

Scott, we went with 3 screens just to check the matrox, and had a constant error message that windows could not read the .inf file when it was loading. Have you heard of this one? They have not answered our emails ....yet!!! The matrox will not load without the .inf file.

The reason that we have gone with FSX is that it has a multitude of variables that we can use/program to get all the goodies in our classic cockpit working [using FSUIPC 4 and the Simkits codes]. Everything works including warning lights for spoiler extended which was essential for us. Many of the gauges are hand built using bits that we have and the dreaded printer onto card to age the dials. More photos soon, as we have a new engines panel up and running.

I hope that this sheds some light on our project and maybe someone will recognise our problem/s!! Many thanks to you all, Charlie.

[Bob Reed]

YOu say that this computer is running 32bit XP and you have over 4gbs of ram? A 32bit OS can only see 3gbs of ram. Try taking some of the ram out. It maybe a ram issue as it sounds like your stutters happen when the computer needs to load data from the OS. Just a thought and easy enough to try.

[CeeGee]

Thanks Bob, I figured that the extra memory would just not be used, but if there would be a conflict, then it is worth a try.
We flew today to test 3 different FSX.cfg files. By error, the first loaded was the default FSX.cfg. The stutters made the flight a howler and we scrubbed the test. The next 2 cfg files were ones that I had salvaged from my 2 inferior XP machines because on these inferior machines, I do not get the stutters. As you all know, if you develop on one machine for a home build, you have to make allowances, such as the potentiometers etc will require greater control input. This aside, the scenery presentation should be similar on both machines if we are using the same FSX.cfg file [which we are] with one screen. So the other tests that we ran, produced the same results that we always get:
The scenery is fine and in focus.
Autogen is set to normal and is not OTT.
Turns are smooth with no stagger [no minor lurches as the scenery passes]
Scenery elevations are below default settings.
UTX Europe is on. [no veh traffic]
My AI flightplans are minimal [max 2 aircraft on the ground, default flightplans removed]
Weather is set to fair.
The trouble is that every 3 to 4 minutes, the frame freezes [like it is dumping/reloading a scenery cache] for about a second. It is this which is really trying our patience/tempers/beer debriefs. I know that autogen and terrain mesh are probably the culprits but we do not want to fly in an unpopulated sandpit, as it is England in the winter!!! [Brown .bmps in winter?]
Not much more to go on, but maybe it will get an "AH HA" from you scenery gurus.
Thanks again and Bob, we will try to use just the 3 gig and let you know. Happy New Year to everyone, Charlie.

 

[andarlite]

Sounds like it could be a hard drive related issue. When's the last time you did a defrag?

Scott (XOrionFE) already mentioned it in his post but you really should follow Nick's guide to properly tune your system for FSX.

http://www.simforums.com/Forums/topic29041.html


Henry

[ivar hestnes]

Also do a check in the BIOS for the memory timings. I had these interesting stutters until I discovered that the memory timings was not set correct.
And, defrag and Nicks guide as mentioned above

Also turn off automatic updates, and all softwares that go on the internet for checking after updates. Java, Adobe reader +++++++

[CeeGee]

A thousand thanks to all of you guys who are helping us with this problem, you are a great bunch indeed [aren't all homebuilders!] OK, responses in order:

Henry, we are due a defrag and CCleaner for registry errors which we will do pronto and I know will help.
My gut feeling is a hard drive issue as don't forget the PC was returned to us from a Vista 64 Bit to an XP SP3 32 Bit and we do not know what was done during that process and whether the video card was altered in this process [if it had to be]. Thanks Henry

Ivar, you might have to mail us for the memory timings [sounds promising] as we have no idea on that fix. Mail for my FS stuff is whbandb@yahoo.co.uk unless you think that anyone else needs to read it as well.
Auto updates we will disable immediatly as we do not need them.

We installed Nick's guide and UTX Europe at the same time about 8 months ago. We still had the same stuttering problem and his guide is excellent, but we ended up uninstalling everything in his guide and NHancer as it left us slightly worse for graphics - I promise you that we installed it properly, it took 2 days!!!

We just had a reply from Matrox who say that we have to install the software from their website, as the supplied disk is no longer valid, but the hardware is still good. It will be great to get 3 large screens or 3 short throw projectors up but finance is ruling the choice as usual. For those that are interested the total cost of the Comet to date, is less than the cost of a second hand car - but the labour and love costs are [as you know] something else!!!

Thanks again for all of your help, you are a great and knowlegable bunch, which makes this site so good and dynamic, Charlie.

[XOrionFE]

Hmmm, I must say I am stumped on this one although my gut feeling is that it is not related to flight sim at all but something else on the computer that is causing it to become over tasked in intervals.     Ivar's suggesting sounds interesting.    Also check that your virtual memory is set to let windows handle automatically.    Almost sounds like you have some type of backup process running.    I would go through all of your processes that are running while the sime is on and check to make sure you know what each is and its necessity to running the computer and the sim.

Again, I cant get over how awesome looking your simulator is and original I might add.   If we had a builder of the month here you would definitely get my vote.  Outstanding.

Scott

[astron]

Hi ceeGee, ive been playing with fsx for 3 years now,and have gone through all of the trials and tribulations it has to offer,remember 3 years ago we really didnt have the computers to run fsx,so we had to adjust accordingly, but now that we do fsx can run almost flawlessly,with the right settings ofcourse. fsx is absolutly cpu dependent and will try and use everything youve got to make it run. I am using windows xp sp3 32 bit like you,2 hardrives one for the windows OS,and various other junk that is on it,and the other is the wd velociraptor,which holds fsx only,3 gigs of corsair dominator ram at 1600mhz,and the 285gtx card,pushing this through a matrox th2go,to 3 52 inch monitors all works perfect 98% of the time. once in a while i can still get a quick freeze,but for the most part all is good. I am alsmost certain that it is a cpu related problem,to much information going through it at one time and it cant process it quickly enough,and most of the time what it cant process is the scenery. that doesnt mean that you should turn all of your scenery down,as that can actualy cause worse problems. I will give you some of my tips and various settings i use.

1. make sure to use the fps lock in fsx,you want to set it to the lowest possible setting you can,and still retain fluid flight,i can run fsx at 60fps but i dont need it that high to see fluid motion,so it is set at 45fps,which works fine for my eyes,another thing that this will do by not running it wide open,is allow fsx to work and process other parts of the program,instead of trying to process info at 60fps it can do it at 45fps which gives it more time to get the info through and done correctly.

Here are the only fsx.cfg changes i have made modified or added.

[Bufferpools]   <------- this line was added,did see an increase in fps,dont ask exactly how this
Usepools=0                 one works but it did             

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=14    <---- this was added,what this will do is change how the cores utilize and process the info,there is proof of this working,start a flight in fsx,put fsx in windows mode,and go and open up your task manager,click on performance and look at your cpu usage when you are flying,without this my cpu usage was always hitting 100% all of the time,now it does not,each core is now working on a specific part of the program.


TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=70  <----- This line was modified basicaly tells fsx how fast or how far out ahead of you to start drawing its been a while since ive changed this but i think that it basicaly what it does play with it but dont go over about 80
                                 

[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1 <------this line was added under graphics,supposed to eliminate any out of memory errors,might help might not,but doesnt seem to hurt anything
                   


[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=5.6  <---- this line was changed from stock 4.5 to 5.6 this will clean up the blurrys add more crispness and clarity to the scenery be careful here moving this number up to high can run you out of memory,play with it.
                     

Those are all of the changes to the fsx.cfg file


Graphics:

target frame rate:45

filtering anisotropic, with check mark in anti aliasing

global texture resolution:very high

Aircraft:

3d virtual cockpit
high res 3d virtual cockpit
aircraft landing lights illuminate ground

Scenery:

level of detail radius:large
Mesh complexity:100
Mesh resolution:1m
Texture resolution:7 cm
water effects:Low 2.x
Scenery complexity: Extremely Dense
Autogen density: normal
Special effects detail:High


Weather:

cloud draw distance:60mi
rate at weather changes over time:medium
cloud coverage density: medium

Traffic:

Airline traffic density:50
general av traffic density:50
Airport vehicle density:medium
road vehicles:15
ship and ferrys:15
leisure boats:15

Here is another tip, get rid of the default Ai traffic,it can be a huge fps killer, i use world of ai,for my ai traffic,it is a free program,you can go and download the installer and pick as many ai packages as you want all for free,also when you install any (woai) packages it will automatically turn off the default ai,which is what you want anyway. the woai traffic is much more framerate friendly.

The only last thing i can think of,is to use the one computer only for fsx and the th2go, and for all of your other cockpit hardware and software i would use a 2nd computer to run that stuff, anyway hope some of this might help best of luck to you,

take care for now,Tom










                     

[CeeGee]

 Again guys, a thousand thanks for your responses. I must emphasise that Mike [my Bro-in-law] is the builder - all I do is correct the 5 Aircraft files so that the Comet behaves and sounds like a Comet 4 [the nose dips with each flap detent, throttles give the right power at the correct rev setting etc, etc] and then do the FSX.cfg, so all praise must go to Mike - I have asked him to register so that he can pass on his nuggets!! Also, I live 20 minutes away from the Comet, so carrying out your suggestions can take a bit of time - sorry.

Ivar and Scott, I think that between you there is the answer so if I get into a pickle, I will pm you for advice [if that is OK with you, as this bit, is new to me].

Tom, very many thanks for that very detailed brief. I have tried most of your suggestions before, but not all at the same time. With your permission, I will reproduce your cfg file and slider settings and see what we end up with. Our systems are similar and we are only running one projector and a "slaved" master PC screen. If we still get the stutter, then Ivar and Scott solution must be the answer. I will do the maximum shedding as suggested above, before we start this. Our famerates are capped at 30 FPS which gives us an average of 25, which is more than enough for our eyes. Your AI point does not apply as I do all our flightplans with period aircraft [on which I have butchered the textures] and the master flightplan folder has long since gone, so we should be OK there. Thanks again for your details AND the explainations [very helpful]. We do have a spare computer and it does make sense to use it - good call!

Maybe I can offer you all something in return. 16 months ago I beta tested FSChatter live for Dave Westbury - FS9 and FSX. This is a live ATC stream thru your Comm2 radio. We have this "on" in our cockpit all the time and it is fantastic [we tune to Amsterdam for their live ATC] This live ATC stream is great for US, Canadian, some European countries, Australia and other places. It is a free 30 day trial and if you like it, you can keep the full version for 10 bucks I think. It just gives the cockpit that busy feel that you would get in any sharp end. The link is: http://www.flightsimworld.com/downloads/viewfile/1889.html
Now be warned Oh members in the UK, you may not record or listen to UK ATC traffic, it is against the law and that is all that I will say on that topic!!

Many thanks again to you all - we have some work to do and we will report, Happy New Year, Charlie.

[astron]

Hi CeeGee, yes by all means use any settings you want,  and yes Ivar is quite correct on the memory,infact the computer i am using now,all of the parts in it were suggestions from Nick needham,he is quite the genius when it comes to computers, also the type of ram and the timings are quite important, for the cpu and the memory to work together, but you can run fsx on 3 gigs,i have proven that, however what i have found is that in using super high detailed scenery in a very busy place,can still tax this computer,and i can still get a small glitch here and there,if i were to do this again i would follow nicks suggestion on a 64bit OS,which would allow me to utilize more memory, and i think you would see all problems like this go away. also i for sure suggest using nicks setup guide and follow it to the tee as it really does make a difference and make sure to use the O&O defrag he suggests,  anyway good luck and have a happy new year

Tom

[mikeh]

CeeGee,
Fantastic effort - For what they are worth - my thoughts

If you really end up thinking that scenery load is an issue look into adding a ram drive into the machine - it acts like a physical drive and put all the scenery on that drive and tell FSX where the scenery resides. Loading is near instantaneous.


The 1 second stutter makes me think that this is not fsx generated - far too long - more like an IRQ timing out. Seen it before - This could be a conflict with some of the periferal software. if possible - put the task manager up on a screen somewhere. If the CPU  Usage history shows any of the cores being a sustained straight line at 100% then this is where the stutter probably stems from.
You can sort out the 'affinity' with utilities like CPU control Make sure FSX uses 2 cores and all other apps do not use the primary FSX core.
Look in the services tab ans see what can be stopped.
Keep the Processes window open during a flight and try and looking at the CPU column (this shows the % cpu time given to individual processes) try and find if a particular process is hogging during the stutter.
If there is none then I suspect we are into IRQ conflicting - but will leave that for later (if necessary)
Best of luck and a good new year

[CeeGee]

Thanks Mike and Tom, as always some very useful stuff for us to be getting on with. Tomorrow is the big day for eliminating the stutters - we will try Nicks suggestions again, but I am not holding my breath. I do feel that Mike and Ivar are right, but we must first eliminate all the basic setup options. The extra PC and ram are very good ideas and we will incorporate them, stutters or not.

News from the classic is that nosewheel steering is now enabled using the original nosewheel steering wheel on the Captains yolk. I have not even asked how the potentiometers were bent to do this! there is also a control light which tells you if the steering is engaged. Pic below.

Our TH2go works - yehaaa, at last we have surround vision although the main screens have yet to be decided. I think that of all the expense involved with homebuilding, the visuals is the biggest and most important. I feel that we will probably go for projectors purely because we will not have to worry about screen edges conflicting with our windscreen struts [and we have the space for three short throw projectors].

We will join you in the Charm of Classic Airliners topic, just to try and convert those of you who are electric panel junkies - swipe me, what is wrong with steam?? 

We will keep you informed of the stutter progress and thank you all for your help again, Charlie.

[CeeGee]

Sorry about the delay, we both have daytime jobs and tax returns [spit!]. OK, now both Mike the boss and myself are way, way out of our comfort zones with this, as Mike is the Aircraft Engineer [still working for real as such] and I am the FSX man specialising with gauges and AI, but a jack of all so to speak, which I have done since FS98 floppy disk 2  We are both pilots for real as well, although it is a few years since we kicked the tires and lit the fires which is why we are so pleased to find all you knowledgeable guys in this forum.

So this reply is to Scott, Tom, Ivar and Mike. Firstly these are the PC specs most of which is double dutch to us:

MSI X58 Pro motherboard consisting of:

•Support for Core i7 LGA1366 CPUs at 4.8-6.4GT/s QPI
•Intel X58 northbridge and ICH10R southbridge
•Six 1.5V DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 24GB of memory
•One Realtek RTL8111C Gigabit Ethernet controllers
•Three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (x16/x16/x4)
•Two PCI-EXpress x1 slots
•Two PCI slots
•Seven SATA II ports - six from Intel ICH10R (supporting Intel Matrix RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 and JBOD), one from JMicron JMB363
•One IDE port supporting one device from JMicron JMB363
•One eSATA port from JMicron JMB363
•Ten USB 2.0 ports - six on rear I/O, four via pin-outs
•JMicron JMB381 IEEE1394a Firewire supporting two ports - one via pin-out, one on the rear I/O
•Realtek ALC888S 7.1 Channel High-Definition audio codec

Common Components:
•Intel Core i7 920 (45nm, 8MB L3 cache, 20x133MHz; 2.67GHz)
•Corsair 6GB DDR3 1,066MHz at the lowest timings where possible
•Graphics Testing: Zotac GeForce GTX 280 [ours is NVIDIA Geforce GTX275]
•PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750W PSU
•Seagate 7200.10 250GB SATA hard drive
•Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
•Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1 [NOTE, NOW XP Sp3 32 bit]
•Nvidia Forceware 180.48 WHQL

I saw from release reports that this was intended for i7 64 bit but note our "degrade" above. This Stack was provided by a professional FSX graphics company and they did the degrades.

Now, as you all suggested, we did the set up using Nicks guide and full defrags but we still have the stutters - everything else is fine [no blurries, ripping, shimmer, jerking, flashes or autogen spikes - none!] I had no idea how many CPUs there were so we hit Ctrl/Alt/Delete and this appeared, the PC is at rest with no progs running:

1st pic below - I can't position them either....

It would appear that there are 8 CPUs? We fired up FSX and our CCU boards x 3 and the radio interface x1 and the MTh2g and noticed that at full stretch [Heathrow with AI] the CPU 0 was operating at 90 percent.  We incorporated the following lines into FSX.cfg [on this XP machine]
[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=14
and the CPU 0 was running at 15% CPU 1 at 90% and the rest at about 5%. My question is how do I spread the load accross the CPUs? The CPU average whilst running FSX was pegged at 21% and there seemed to be oodles of memory available. Oh and we still got the stutters. Spreading the load might help here but we are not sure how to do it.

Whilst on the subject of CPUs, I develop for FSX and use an i7 quad core for all my development stuff [FREE I hasten to add]. Now in keeping with the Comet development, I do everything first on my stack then, if there are no dramas, take it to the Comet. I noticed when I had finished my install that my CPUs were spiking every minute with FSX running and the same is true for the Comet. What program does this - it is not AI, as that is 4 x per second, and scenery is constantly updating? The pic 2 below shows what I mean - note the spikes at the edges of the CPU screens. It sort of occured to me that if our stutters are happening at the top of one of these "updates" whatever they are, then maybe that would be an area to look at.

The final point is that whenever the Comet gets a stutter, there is a corresponding trough in the CPU graph [not a spike as I would suspect] so something is frozen or turned off momentarily?? Thanks for your time, and sorry about the waffle and pic positions! Charlie.

[blueskydriver]

Here is an old thing I remember; do you have the Index Service of the hard drive unchecked? If not, right mouse click on the hard drive icon (in My Computer), select properties, and then uncheck the box for it at the lower portion of the window.

Win7 does indexing as well and I think that can be turned off the same way or through the control panel. In either case, this might change the stutters a little...you have to test it.

BSD

[ivar hestnes]

First it seems a little odd to me that a "professional fsx graphics company" has downgraded you to XP 32 bit. Thats one of your stuttermakers, as you will not utilize more than 3,3gb of ram in total. (For windows and FSX).

If you had 64bit operating system, you could use 4 gb for FSX and the rest for windows. FSX can use as much as 4gb ram if you have that.
So if you have 6gb ram, and maybe 1 gb ram on your graphics card, that is 7gb ram in total, and now you can only use half of it.

Also the memory timings... Check out the specs on the RAM. They should say something like 7-8-7-20 or similar. Make sure that this matches the timings actually set in the BIOS. If not correct, you will get stutters.

If your CPU is a 2,67ghz (Original), that is a bottlenect too. As fsx needs HIGH cpu frequency. You should do some studying of overclocking it. I would suggest to google something like this: "i7 920 MSI X58 overclock" and study alot on it. You might find a BIOS template... But read carefully, and dont trust everything that is written. You should aim for 3,8 or more ghz. This will also reduce your stutters.

But your 32 bit operating system is something you should consider upgrading to win7 64, as FSX works pretty well with that OS.



Also a side note regarding SSD-drives... Win7 has built in intelligence for handling SSD drives. But for Win XP, you can kill your SSD in relatively short time. Make sure you dont Defrag an SSD drive. Disable indexing and defrag. You can only read/write a certain number of times to each "cell" on a SSD, and indexing and defrag will kill your disk in relatively short time.  ( as I have read on the internet from various resources).

[XOrionFE]

I have to agree with Ivar.  Before anything else you need to get those computers on Windows 7 64 bit.    I would also be really concerned if they were loaded with Vista then downgraded without a clean wipe.   In either case, I would do Windows 7 64bit.    In addition, and you wont like to hear this, but I would format the drives and start from scratch using Windows 7.    Follow Nick Needhams guide for preping the computers for Windows 7 and FSX and follow the guide to the letter.

Sorry but I think until you do that you will just have one problem after another.

Scott

[andarlite]

Also a side note regarding SSD-drives... Win7 has built in intelligence for handling SSD drives. But for Win XP, you can kill your SSD in relatively short time. Make sure you dont Defrag an SSD drive. Disable indexing and defrag. You can only read/write a certain number of times to each "cell" on a SSD, and indexing and defrag will kill your disk in relatively short time.  ( as I have read on the internet from various resources).

While it is true that SSD drives have a limited life span of flash memory cells this issue has been addressed with wear leveling algorithms that will even out the life expectancy of all memory cells. With the latest generation of SSD drives, I don't think this is even a factor to worry about anymore. Although as Ivar suggested, it is a good idea to disable indexing and defrag. There is absolutely no reason at all to defrag an SSD drives.

The built-in intelligence for SSD drvies  that is in Win7 is called TRIM, but it addresses performance. While you can use your SSD with XP, (and you will not kill it any quicker than in Win7) you just won't be amazed by the performance you think you should be getting. Make sure the SSD drives you are getting supports TRIM and you should be using it on Win7 if you want to reap the benefits.

Regards,
Henry