Posted on 01/28/2024 7:17:16 PM PST by fireman15
If your external NVMe SSD is limited to standard SSD transfer rates due to connection type it is nowhere close to utilizing USB 3 bandwidth. So the faster ports offer no advantage.
Standard SSD transfer rate:
Read sequential data 550 MBps
Write sequential data 520 MBps
USB 2.0/Hi-Speed: 480 Mbps.
USB 3.0/SuperSpeed: 5 Gbps.
USB 3.1/SuperSpeed: 10 Gbps.
But a natively connected M2 NVMe should be much faster
NVMe PCIe 3.0 (aka Gen 3) up to 3,500MB per second,
NVMe PCIe 4.0 (aka Gen 4) up to 7,500MB per second.
Also, all kinds of other factors influence boot speed.
Standard disclaimer: I am not a hardware guy.
An upgrade from the Apollo Guidance Computer which i read had 4KB of RAM, a 32KB hard disk, and operating at a speed of 0.043 megahertz. 1201 and 1202 program alarms?
LOL- my old neighbor who is gone now said about 20 years ago or so when i told him i had bought a computer with 10 gig HD or whatever it was- “Oh my word- noone needs that much!”
My photos take up almost 1 1/2 terabyte now lol (My new comp has 2 terabyte- which i thought at the time was overkill- but now I’m running low on space... but i do dual boot so that takes up a bit)
My laptop was manufactured in 2019 and the original internal NVMe drive was upgraded but there was no decrease in performance when this was done. But obviously “your mileage may vary” depending on both the computer and the quality and design of the drive.
It is similar to the results one gets when benchmarking SD cards and USB flash drives. None achieve write speeds that are anywhere close to the theoretical through-put of the USB 3 standard. It is only when you use an NVMe SSD in a USB3 enclosure or a USB3 flash drive that actually is NVMe based that you even get close in very short bursts. Even the Sandisk Extreme Pro SD card achieves write speeds up to approximately 140 MBps in an adapter or device that can handle this. The fastest flash drives that I am aware of are the SSK USB 3.2 drives, they achieve up to 520 MBps and are NVMe based.
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-512GB-Extreme-UHS-I-Memory/dp/B09X7DZM1V?th=1
I wanted to assure you that I appreciate any advice and observations that you make about computers or aircraft.
Today, I upgraded the DDR4 memory in my laptop to 32GB. HP and multiple sources said that the maximum allowed on my motherboard was 16GB. But I read in a forum that another HP Laptop similar to mine with a different motherboard but also built in 2019 was capable of using 32GBs despite what HP said. I decided to try the appropriate memory in mine and incredibly it worked.
MSFS 2020 which is not suppose to run well on integrated graphics is now quite a bit more stable, and running cooler. FPS are only up a hair, but I am still extremely happy. Of course, I have it on low quality settings and at only 1600x900 resolution, but for training purposes is not that bad. X-plane 11 is also running better. I am going to run some benchmarks to quantify the improvement, but it is definitely running better.
When my wife and I come into a little money, I will have a choice to make... purchase a better computer and peripherals or put the money into upgrading my avionics more than I had planned.
Thanks for the add’l info.
I don’t seem to require or benefit much from super resolutions either. Almost 70 year old eyes have their limits.
Yes, I am in my 60s as well, and I now have to wear reading glasses when using a laptop. The full 1920x1080 resolution does help to see the gauges on my little laptop screen.
About 20 years ago I purchased the King Schools IFR course and $8000 in new radios and a King KLN89B GPS and was going to work on my IFR rating. But everything went sideways and I eventually sold all the new equipment that I bought. And the whole IFR thing went on the back burner. But I would like to get going on that again, plus I have a couple of young friends that are hoping to get into flying professionally and I would like to help them out.
I have been experimenting all morning with the additional memory. The biggest advantage is that I can turn up the graphics settings and the program does not crash while starting up or flying. I had to downgrade the Ryzen drivers to get FS2020 to run at all; I am going to see if the extra RAM might also make it possible to use the latest drivers.
I read about them needing 4k to read the instruments on an A-380 or whatever but that’s of no interest to me.
Just give me an airspeed indicator (or at least the sound of the wind which is all I had one time), a ball or yaw string, maybe altimeter just to stay below controlled airspace and ideally, a compass.
And I know nothing about modern controlled airspace other than to stay out of it.
But ADS-B is neat to watch on Flightradar24.
Most of my 64 GB will never be touched by FS2020.
If you go into developer mode in FS2020 you can turn on the ugly fps and memory usage display from the menu that goes across the top of the screen.
When I doubled the RAM, the discreet GPU began using a lot more of the shared memory. It is now using about 4 GB most the time and the CPU is now using about 8 GB. Both were using less when I only had 16 GBs installed.
I purchased the original Garmin GPS 95 AVD (aviation database) handheld aviation GPS when they first came out in 1993. The next year for an additional $150 we were able to update to to a GPS 95 XL through a firmware update. It became a “moving map” unit. With the “moving map” it was great for avoiding controlled airspace. Even though the display was very small and didn't even have gray scale graphics, we used it to thread through some pretty tricky airspace. It was a godsend for just $1,300 in 1993 plus an additional $150 in 1994. Of course, we had to purchase new database files every six months; I don't remember what they cost.
https://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/GPS95XL_PilotsGuide.pdf
These days you can get free or almost free software that is much better for your phone, tablet, or iPad.
But I am with you on the instrumentation. My home-built ultralight doesn't even have an airspeed indicator. When hang gliding we usually used a variometer (audible vertical speed indicator) to help find lift. They produce happy bleeping when you are going up and a depressing blooping when you are going down.
I don’t have very many hours total but did manage to get the glider add-on and enable the variometer tone in various flight simulators.
I have always loved getting my feet off the ground. I managed to find ways to do it that were relatively inexpensive. But that is harder to do these days. I never have flown a traditional type of glider... so they use audible variometers as well! I did not know that. It sounds like a lot of fun.
The person who designed my homebuilt ultralight airplane used to take his up in Colorado and shut the engine down and then use it as a glider. It is a very interesting design with a full cantilever wing and much less drag than other ultralight aircraft from the time period.
When I was into hang gliding seriously, we used to have a buddy who came along who was in his 70s. He was terribly pilot and a menace. Much of the time at the best places in Western Washington and Oregon everyone is sharing the same ridge lift. So, you have to keep your eyes on everything going on around you to avoid midair collisions. Fortunately, in this type of situation most people are flying slowly and a minor bump is often not super serious. But this guy had at several minor midair collisions (an oxymoron it would seem) that I knew of. By the grace of God everyone walked away but people tried to stay a long way away from him.
I am a little worried that I might be reaching an age where I am not as capable of flying safely in a skein of hang gliders. Plus, when I was younger I bent a down tube around one of my arms and my arm didn't break... it wasn't even all that sore. So, I am afraid that my hang-gliding days might be behind me. Of course, modern double surface hang gliders are vastly superior to the designs we used in the 1980s and 1990s
Sounds like fun but I concur on not pushing yourself at this point. Hurts at least as much and takes much longer to heal!
The only ridge soaring I did was with RC sailplane (and in simulators).
I liked the Clark Y flat bottomed airfoil in my Tri-Pacer. Very docile stall characteristics. Thinking back, I have to modify what I said about not slope soaring in a full-size plane. Did it for maybe a minute alongside Rattlesnake Mountain in the Tri-Pacer! Aircraft has not much of a glide ratio but the slope lift was plenty strong to maintain altitude. I don’t remember if I shut off the Lycoming or not.
The Tripacer is one of my favorite airplanes. I love our 1969 Cherokee 140, but a Tripacer with a 150HP engine easily outperforms it when it comes to taking off and climbing out. We were very close to purchasing one, but when we took it in for its pre-purchase inspection the mechanic found a bunch of cracked wing ribs and other problems.
The nice thing about a Cherokee is that you can leave it outside for a long time without damaging it. We have always kept ours in in a hangar anyway.
I probably shouldn’t admit to it, but I have taken advantage of ridge lift in the mountains on quite a few occasions. But this does involve more risk in an airplane than in a hang glider because you are flying so much faster.
I remember when I first met my wife... I told her that hang gliding was not actually very risky. Then I made the mistake of taking her to a hang glider club meeting and at least a quarter of the people who showed up had casts on some extremity or another. It had been a rougher than normal Spring which contributed to more than the usual amount of injuries. She was not very convinced when I gave her that explanation. She actually encouraged me to purchase the ultralight because she thought that wheels were safer than legs for landing.
The integrated GPU runs at 100% the entire time that MSFS 2020 is running. The Ryzen 5 APU begins to throttle at 90 C to protect itself. Hopefully the new fan will keep things running better.
This laptop is definitely performing better than should be expected. I have seen a bunch of reviews saying that my setup is not capable of running MSFS 2020 at all. I do worry a little about its longevity with the APU running as hot as it does when running the flight simulator. Every laptop motherboard that I have replaced over the years has been a heat related failure... the surface mount chips come loose. Sometimes you can get them reattached using a heat gun type soldering station, but this is pretty iffy.
One thing that I have learned however is that when you do your research it is sometimes to find a replacement laptop motherboard that will fit in your case that has a discrete GPU. This is similar to HP claiming that the motherboard currently in my laptop was capable of handling only 16 GBs of RAM when it is currently handling 32 GBs with no problems.
The replacement motherboard that I found for my wife's laptop wasn't in the same series of computer, but when looking at pictures on eBay I noticed a motherboard that was identical to hers except that their was a separate GPU installed where there was a spot had no chip on hers. And because this was from a more expensive computer that was much less popular... I actually paid about half the price for it, which more than paid for a difficult to find fan assembly. It was a gamble but it worked out.
My original point in this post was that running a challenging application or game on a weak computer can often lead to the computer's early demise. So, I am already researching my motherboard options for this laptop. I will be taking pictures when I replace the fan this evening.
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