Pressed for ideas for last week's birthday, I opted for the bits to allow me to try Tom's wheeze of using an external USB3 HD.
My mobo isn't as up to date as Tom's so the starting point was to fit a USB 3 card to one of the PCI 1 slots on the mobo. Today the next bit has belatedly arrive; a Seagate Goflex USB3/2 external HD. I'll need to find a way to scotch it's ideas of backing up my entire system, at bootup.
Meanwhile I've copied the photoscenery for Southern Ireland onto it and am mid flight from Eiresim's Cork to Dublin. In terms of scenery sharpness it's at least as good as my internal HDs. Scenery is sharp, with no signs of blurring or micro stutters. Out of idle curiosity I've just checked framerates and am getting over 100 fps at all times. It seems a bit daft but the performance seems to be better than with the same scenery on my internal HDs.
With a bit of luck I may have the Beta version of ES's IOM scenery, tomorrow. That is higher definition, with AG trees and buildings, in the areas not populated by Ted Andrews' magnificently accurate versions.
So far so much better than I'd hoped for! Gerry Winskill
