system config and display

[Guest HK172]

Dear Fellow Simmers:I am a new player and now wish to buy a new computer for flight sim. Please advice the below systems which one is better:AMD Athlon64 3500+ ASUS A8N-5X Corsair DDR400 512MB X 2 Seagate 80GB 7200rpm Lite-on DVD-ROM 2th max PM400B 400W power Windows XP Home Intel P4 640 3.2GASUS P5PL2Corsair DDR2 533 512MB X 2Seagate 80GB 7200rpmLite-on DVD-ROM2th Max PM400W powerWindows XP HomeShould I use winfast PX6800TDH 256MB or Grandmars X800 GTO 16 display?I am considering using projector instead of monitor, anyone may give advice? May I use projector to show and fly multi-views? Should I buy SLI motherboard and SLI display for multi monitor?Many thanks for your advices.HK172

[Guest Edwin]

Hi HK172,Judging from your login name and your choice of hardware, I'm going to guess that you're from Hong Kong. Wow, I'm excited to have a fellow Hong Kong-er on these forums!With your questions, for gaming, go with AMD. It's a much better choice than Intel, period.For display, I would not get the NVIDIA 6x00 series. Personally, I would only recommend the newer NVIDIA hardware (e.g. the 7800 family). Otherwise, go ATI.I'm a bit confused by your last two questions. With multi-views, that will seriously tax your system and you would likely get a huge hit on your frame rate. There's no harm trying but are you sure that's what you want?And then with your last question, you don't need SLI for multi-monitor. First of all, FS9 won't take advantage of SLI at all (there is practically zero improvement on frame rates with SLI). Secondly, all video cards nowadays come with two outputs (usually one analog and one digital but sometimes two digitals) so if you want to use multi-monitor, all you have to do is to connect two monitors, one to each output. Having said that, I generally think it's worth getting an SLI motherboard since it's only a bit more expensive than a non-SLI motherboard and yet, you get the option of later buying a second video card to improve performance. Of course, if you do get an SLI motherboard, you'll need an SLI-compatible (i.e. NVIDIA) video card to take advantage of SLI.Hope this helps.Edwin

[Guest HK172]

Dear Edwin,Many thanks for your comments. You are right I am a Hongkonger. Let me try to make clear of my question in display.I wish to use projector to project large screen and try to divide the screen (at least) into three different views (said left, front and right) to fly. So that I do not need to purchase many display cards and monitors for the game.Edwin would you please instruct me how to divide the screen and fly in that config.Edwin and other fellows please to let me have your advice / comments.Happy landing

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi guys, here's what I fancy right now... Panasonic's 'AE900-something' widescreen 1280x720 projector for the outside view (no window splitting etc) with 1-2 normal monitors for the panels etc. I havent decided which display adapter will be used and hope to do it with a Radeon or two. The last time I tried to split the forward/outside views over multiple displays w/ multiple adapters, it ended in 'disaster'. :-) Currently, I'm 100-200 Euros away from the projector and anticipate to finish the 'project' this quarter. King regards to HK from an old HK boy :-) Jaap