Just got a brand new pc any tips for installation?

Hi there,

Xbox series x user but switching to pc. Just got a Ryzen 7 delivered with 3060 ti.

Just installing now and it’s going to take ages. Anything else I need to do before I play the game once all the downloads are installed?

Cheers

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I know it sounds obvious, but make sure your PC is thermally (and operationally!) stable before you get going. Run some tough benchmarks for an extended period (well, say 30 mins at least) for both CPU and GPU and make sure there are no weirdnesses detected. Use OpenHardwareMonitor (or similar) to monitor your CPU, GPU and case temps during this and make sure they are within sensible limits. If you have any issues at all at this point, sort them out before you try to use MSFS or you’ll be in for a world of pain! Install the latest Nvidia drivers and chipset drivers for your motherboard. Don’t bother overclocking - do this later when you’ve settled in and got everything working.

Next - play the sim unmodded for a bit. Make sure it works and is stable before you start downloading hundreds of aircraft, liveries and airports. Tune the graphics settings to your required combination of eye-candy and framerate. Sort your controllers out.

Now hit the community websites and look for some add-ons that suit your interests. If you like airliners, look at the FBW A320 - it’s leagues beyond the stock version. If you do go down this route, invest a bit of time in learning how it works. Go through a cold and dark startup process (there a ton of tutorials on youtube) and start to learn the systems. This is vital to being able to manage a relatively complex aircraft.

Oh, and just fly and enjoy :slight_smile:

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Thank you very much. I chose the build and got a trusted and independent company to fulfill it but I will make sure everything is up to date.

Thanks for the detail it’s much appreciated!

On my last build, I re-installed Windows completely clean (wipe and install from a USB stick) so my PC was clean of any bloatware. Then I only install exactly what I wanted, and I now know my system is free of anything under the hood messing with performance.

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Congrats on the PC!

Once installed, I’d put it through it’s paces “as is” meaning, play with the graphic settings and find what looks and performs best for you before you start to put in add ons, mods etc…

It’s good to have a baseline so you know what the mods are doing to your system.

What did you end up getting? what specs?

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Thanks!

I got the ryzen 7 5800x, rtx 3060 ti, 32gb ram 1tb m.2, x570 tuf

Hopefully good enough! Not really interested in 4k I can take it or leave it and as long as I’m getting 30-35 fps I’m happy. This system is just for work and msfs only.

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Oh and just one important thing DON’T start trying to update your BIOS unless you really need to , 99% of the time you don’t need to
It won’t make your PC run any faster and you wouldn’t realise the change anyway

The reason is if you don’t know what you are doing you could brick your new PC

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke…don’t fix it

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Not so sure I agree with this. Plenty of tech from modern CPUs relies on microcode from the BIOS, so it’s pretty important that this is kept up to date. e.g. my own B550 mobo has had a stack of bugs that AMD have fixed over the last 12 months. You don’t need to install every single beta BIOS that’s released, but I would certainly stay current with the production ones, no less than I would keep my GPU drivers up to date.

As it happens, modern motherboards are pretty hard to brick with a BIOS update. I happen to have a TUF board myself, and they are dead easy - download the update file onto a USB stick, reboot to BIOS and install. One note about the TUF boards (at least mine, anyway) - you should always save your configuration as a “profile” before applying a BIOS update as they always (at least with mine, anyway) wipe the config back to default after an update. This is no problem as it boots back to the BIOS after the update, so you just load back the settings from the saved profile, reboot and you are good to go again.

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As most have said above fly vanilla without any community add-ons. Don’t download any of the free world updates etc until you are happy with it (or run these overnight).

You might want to look at locking the frame rate in game for a more stable experience.

Once you’ve done a couple of flights then try raising the graphics options if you want. You’ll have something to compare it against that way and see how much of a hit you take on fps.

Enjoy and have fun!

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Thanks again all for the sage advice!

Sounds like the OP is on a prebuilt. Installing a bios may invalidate his warranty. As you say most boards are hard to brick these days, but not impossible.

There is a lot to be gained from capitalizing on some of the later revisions, but not all revisions are good. Not all hardware will work out of the box with a newly installed revision. Definitely read up on what you are doing before taking the plunge. More importantly make a back up of your original profile and revision along with finding out what you have to do to get back to square one.

This old adage of don’t update a bios unless you have a problem does not sit well with a lot of AMD users. The Ryzen system, for all it is maturing, is still an ongoing project. The innovation level at AMD surpasses anything any CPU supplier has ever done before. There can be a lot of difference between early Agesa revision and the newer one. There is also the fact that the latest chipset driver may not be running at full potential on an older Agesa revision.

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Get a 512GB min mechanical drive to keep a backup of the “OneStore” folder in before an update. It could save you from having to re-download the whole sim.

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512GB way too small get 1 terabyte separate SSD drive. install MSFS2020 to this drive. Use a separate directory for MSFS add-ons both freeware and payware, Get freeware Addonlinker to add all to community by links.

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Yes they are easier but unless you need to do it for a specific new CPU or an important upgrade it’s not necessary

Plus upgrading a bios can induce bugs not present before

So if in doubt and you don’t want to mess with downloading onto a usb and installing the upgrade then no need to potentially cause a problem that doesn’t really need attention

Just my 2 cents of advice

I have an intel CPU so maybe that’s my basis of opinion

Chipset drivers yes , but you can upgrade those without entering the UEFI

And you are correct that the OP says it’s a pre built system so it may invalidate the warranty

Is this really true? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it even for a minute.

The only scenario when this is remotely true would be if you applied a BIOS update to an out of warranty piece of hardware, which then died. Obviously, in this case you would have no warranty left and thus no support, but in the case of OP this is a new machine.

Would be interested in a link to any custom builder or major OEM that says that BIOS updates would invalidate their warranty…

Well good thing is im up and running and all good so far. Been slowly reinstalling my library and trying settings out. Its all lovely> I had more trouble installing than anything.!

thanks again!

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I never actually said it would. If you are going to give advice on the internet make sure it is correct. If you don’t have the full information at hand, then it is best to add a caveat. I cannot stand up, and say I know all warranty details.

People have a tendency to jump on you. (exihibit number 1 my lord.)

But either way First google links I found.

https://asrock.com/support/index.asp?cat=BIOS

I have mine backed up on a micro SD card. Don’t bother with mechanical, too slow.

You did actually read the thread you shared, which is fully of people saying “lul wut” and recommended that the shop be reported for poor business practices? One, isolated shop trying to welsh out of honouring a warranty does not a pattern make, I’m afraid.

Also why did you post a link to a BIOS download page for a random motherboard manufacturer? Just plain confused by this.

My advice to OP remains the same - update the BIOS, especially on a new machine. Check with the supplier if you are worried about warranty, but it won’t be a problem.