You may be able to increase the performance of your software without adding computer hardware. In many cases, this can be accomplished by using more appropriate settings.
FliteStar will work on a 640x480 display with 256 colors (or shades of gray), but the MS development tools do not always work correctly, as some menu items can cause system crashes. Therefore, to obtain higher chart clarity and reduce the potential for printing problems, it is strongly recommended that you set your display to run Windows with 800x600 or higher resolution in high color mode. Whenever possible, view charts using high color or millions of colors. Also, set the screen refresh rate to the highest your system will support in order to keep the screen view crisp and the flicker to a minimum. See your Microsoft Windows User's Guide or the documentation that came with your video adapter and monitor, or contact the dealer who sold you your video card and monitor if you need technical support changing video drivers.
To change your video settings, right-click on the desktop and click Properties on the shortcut menu, or click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display. You can adjust your screen resolution and colors here.
When using FliteStar, you should close all other unneeded Windows applications. Because of the detailed graphics screens within the software, FliteStar can noticeably slow down other applications.
If using this software in the cockpit, your computer should have the ability to draw 12V (or 24V) power through a power cord adapter. One inexpensive solution is to purchase a small cigarette lighter inverter (which can be purchased at almost any electronics/computer store very inexpensively), allowing you to run your computer off 12V using your computer’s standard power cord.
| NOTE | Do not plug an inverter into a 24V system unless the inverter is designed for that input voltage. It could destroy both the inverter and your computer. |
FliteStar is a high performance software application that makes significant demands on your system. Like most Microsoft Windows compatible software, FliteStar will benefit from extra random access memory (RAM). Generally, it is best to let Windows manage your memory for best performance.
Windows uses a swap file that stores information to disk in a manner that can be retrieved more readily than the file system provides. If the drive that has the swap file is too full, Windows will run more slowly. To find out where your swap file is, click Start > Settings > Control Panel. Click System, select the Performance tab, and click the Virtual Memory button.
The system by default will have Windows manage Virtual Memory. If this is the case, it is on the same drive Windows is installed on. If it has been set to a different drive, that information should be in the window you are seeing. This is the swap file drive and directory. Do not make changes to virtual memory unless you are familiar with how Windows uses the swap file.
Now that you know which drive has the swap file, make certain it is not overcrowded. There should be at least three times as much free disk space on that drive as you have RAM for optimum performance. If you have more than 64MB RAM, your system will probably perform adequately with 128MB free on the drive, but if the drive only has 10 or 15MB free, you are not getting much benefit from it.
For Windows 2000 and Windows XP, you should have at least 128MB RAM, and over 200MB free disk space. It is also very possible that too little free space could cause the system to freeze or crash.