The Ultimate FS2004 PC - if it doesn't exist, do we have to invent it?? I have built PCs before on the odd occasion, but not sure whether I wouldn't rather buy a ready-made one when we are talking about such expensive, top-of-the-range items. Matching the components is one hell of a headache. Whatever....Reading posts in this forum, I've come across some pretty sad messages from people who must have spent thousands on their 'ultimate gaming PC' only to find that although it eats Doom3 for breakfast, it doesn't actually play FS9/FS9.1 all that well. My heart goes out to them! So, does anyone have the receipe for (or even, just plain 'have') what they might describe as the ultimate PC for FS2004? I would, in theory at least, be willing to pay whatever it took to have a PC which would take add-ons such as Aerosoft's Manhattan, or Visual Flight's new London scenery in its stride - that is to say, keep frame rates up to 20fps or above, even with traffic set to 99% and display settings towards maximum. Or am I dreaming? If I knew for certain that throwing huge sums of money on, say, an Alienware monster gaming PC would bring be FS joy, I'd consider it. But would it???Finally, a more technical point (probably a very silly one - sorry!). I have always had AMD rather than Intel CPUs (currently XP2800+, with 1024MB DDR RAM & ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics). The new 64-bit fx CPUs are appearing on the market, but as neither FS9 nor Windows XP will run 64-bit programmes, is there any point at all in buying them, except as an investment for the future?OK, enough! Very interested to hear informed comments!Martin :-)

Yes, the ultimate FS2004 PC does exist. Unfortunately, however, it still will not scale up to run absolutely every addon you throw at it without straining, and ultimately will fail to perform perfectly.Actually Martin, me an many others have the ultimate PCs for FS2004. But alas, throw in enough cumulus and voila it fails. I have come to accept this reality. I have assembled all my past PCs over the last 14 years and the one I have now, though not at the top, is close enough. I have excellent performance the vast majority of the time, but certain weather still trashes the machine, on certain occasions. Fortunately, it's fairly rare. I am running everything maxed except for cloud density to medium (dependent on just how foul the weather is). In fair-moderate weather, there is no situation that taxes the system. In foul weather, it's a crapshoot, sometimes it's perfect, other times not. I use the default clouds and use ActiveSky with 5 layers of clouds. I would bet 100% of top end machine users would concur with this experience. I'm hoping the next generation of FS somehow circumvents this quality that manages to find the bottleneck in your system.Noel

Nice system that you built Noel. I use to build my own systems too but decided to get the Dell Next Generation 3 System and save some of the hassles. My FS2K4 settings are all set to the max including the clouds (I see you set your cloud density to medium). I don't have ActiveSky so can't test your theory that 100% of top end users would concur some weather conditions would tax their system. When flying one of my PMDG 737's using real weather (sometimes in violent storms), I get between 30-40 FPS consistently. The only thing that has noticeably slowed my system has been flying into or out of Simflyer rendered airports (I have static scenery installed with the Simflyer scenery so that may be the cause). My system then gets down to around 15-22 FPS depending on the view and occasionally hits below 10 but for just a second or two. I can live with that during the brief stay at those type of airports. I found that not installing my ATI video card drivers correctly makes my flying experiences even worse (I recently installed the latest ATI drivers). I found a nice guide over at TweakTown (http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=569) on how to properly install/upgrade drivers for ATI cards. I followed the instructions and I got a very nice increase in frame rates. Simply uninstalling the old drivers and installing the new ones didn't work for me.I have to concur that there probably isn't a perfect system out there yet for FS2K4 but if we did some tweaking I'm sure our frame rates would stay above 25 FPS consistently even in Simflyer territory. But I'm not going to spend hours tweaking. I'm having fun flying. It is nice to fly through beautiful clouds without the stutters. Take care.Jim YoungSystem Specs:Dimension XPS Intel P4 560 (3.6 GHz) w/HT 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHzRadeon X800XT Video Card w/256MB PCI Express x 16Serial ATA RAID 0 with dual 250 GB Hard DrivesSony Trinitron 21" CRT MonitorAudigy2 Sound CardWindows XP OS

Well, were I to build it again I would probably leave out the SCSI and go with SATA. But I do appreciate it for Gigastudio, which is why I went with 15K rpm drives. Plus the Cheetah drives have a 5y warranty for what it's worth. If I could have gotten 15K drives for SATA, I would have gone that road.Sounds like you have some more horsepower at work, though without comparing apples n apples it might be hard to verify. ActiveSky is really a test at times. Again, it's very hard to say what combination of events causes my machine to slow down, because it's very hard to predict. I know for a fact it has to do with weather, but exactly what kinds seem to be an issue. Almost always I am flying 100% smooth, and certainly no stutters. With certain weather though it can slow down into the high teens, which is still pretty smooth. Comparing scenarios is absolutely critical, yet virtually impossible, unless you are testing machines side by side with all components identical, and of course taking off in the same exact location and time. I heartily recommend ActiveSky. Truly amazing weather in terms of realism. I think there is some evidence the X800XT PCIx is faster in FS9, so perhaps that is the difference with your, it appears, flawless perf in weather, though again, try ActiveSky. When I bought it, my complaint was how hard it was on performance. With overclocking and my 6800GT, I get great perf in almost all conditions: FSG mesh, ActiveCamera, FlightDeck Companion, and ActiveSky.I migrated from ATI 9700 Pro. And one thing I must say: it's great to have zero bugs in any games with this 6800GT. Haven't had any lockups or screw ups as I would get periodically with the 9700.Noel

Hi Noel,In a previous post you wrote, "I use the default clouds and use ActiveSky with 5 layers of clouds."Have you given FS SkyWorld 2004 a try? It is Chris' recently released fanatastic add-on package. Coupled with AS it takes the sim to a new level. There are frame rate friendly clouds included in the package that look even better the default clouds. The add-on is here in the library.Cheers,Greg

Greg, no I haven't but I tried the other day--server not available. Do you feel clouds actually look as good or better than default? That was my complaint with Chris' former version. Fortunately I've had the processor power to use the default clouds. Can't wait to try his new program.Noel

I like the clouds alot. There are numerous packs to choose from, and they can be mixed and matched per the user's choice. Other features as well (sky textures, night, and others). Very easy to configure as you wish, too. Comes with an easy to use installer that eliminates the manual texture switching when using other cloud packs. If you get tired (or simply want a change) from the cloud combination you're using this week it takes just a minute using the installer to change things.Few payware add-ons are as good.Cheers,Greg

Thanks for this. To be honest, my frame rates are usually more than acceptable, once I am up and away from busy airports. Several months ago I downloaded some cloud replacement textures from the AVSIM library and on the whole even heavy clouding does not now bring my frame rates down to unacceptable levels. I used to use ActiveSky in FS2002, but thought the weather depictions in FS2004 was really pretty good, so haven't changed things.What does bring my PC to its knees, FS9-wise, are add-ons like the new London scenery - London like it really is, but taking off from EGLC I get little more than 5fps, even with traffic at 0%. Areosoft's Manhattan scenery gets better fps, but still only just into double figures. Ultimate Traffic takes a big slice off my frame rates at busy airports, so I scale back on the traffic there and things are not too bad.I am seriously considering buying an Axis PC from Evesham, here in the UK (not sure where you folks are!), which, having priced things online, works out at very little more than the price of putting it together myself. It has a pretty impressive spec - and so it should for

I think it would be possible to build the "ultimate" FS system. The key to FS9 performance is CPU speed so the obvious choice is to go with a Vapor Phase Cooling System and overclock the CPU like there's no tomorrow. You should be able to get 4.5+GHz out of a P4 EE CPU. A fast videocard helps a little so the natural choice is a 6800U or X850. More than 1GB RAM is considered overkill but go with 2GB anyway, just in case. For storage, you'd go with two 10k RPM drives in RAID0, or if you want it to really fly, find a pair of 15k RPM SCSI drives :)-P4 EE 4.5+ GHz-2GB RAM-Radeon X850XT-2x76GB 10k RPM Seagate SATA drivesSuch a system does exist today. Now the big question is: Who can afford it? Not many :-lolOh and the final part: Configure the system and FS9 correctly! Too many high-end users post screenshots with blurry scenery and complain about stutters when in fact their systems should run FS9 really well.

I am already looking into the 15k rpm drives - but I think, cost wise it'll have to be 10k - not a bad option. I am always a bit scared of RAID 0 though - if one disc fails, the lot goes. RAID 1 seems a safer option, with a lot of the speed advantages. RAID 5 would be ideal, but no one seems to offer it.Martin

>I think it would be possible to build the "ultimate" FS>system. The key to FS9 performance is CPU speed so the obvious>choice is to go with a Vapor Phase Cooling System and>overclock the CPU like there's no tomorrow. You should be able>to get 4.5+GHz out of a P4 EE CPU. A fast videocard helps a>little so the natural choice is a 6800U or X850. More than 1GB>RAM is considered overkill but go with 2GB anyway, just in>case. For storage, you'd go with two 10k RPM drives in RAID0,>or if you want it to really fly, find a pair of 15k RPM SCSI>drives :)>>-P4 EE 4.5+ GHz>-2GB RAM>-Radeon X850XT>-2x76GB 10k RPM Seagate SATA drives>>Such a system does exist today. Now the big question is: Who>can afford it? Not many :-lol>>Oh and the final part: Configure the system and FS9 correctly!>Too many high-end users post screenshots with blurry scenery>and complain about stutters when in fact their systems should>run FS9 really well.Actually that system is probably not enough to max FS 2004 out. I am on a 2,75 gig A64 Clawhammer and I am not even remotely close maxing FS 2004 out. Default perhaps but what

Oh about FS Skyworld 2004? 6800 ULTRA 32-bit or DXT 3 fps friendly?

If you can afford it you can certainly keep throwing $$ into your hardware but don't expect that you will get your money worth of performance boost. Look at my specs below. I bet your system above with FX55 will be significantly more expensive than what I paid but the performance gain will be minimal (over mine). I personally would go with X800 XT.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Yes, I am put off by the nightmare scenario of spending huge sums and even then not getting what I want from FS9. No one seems to mention the hard drives either - the IDE variety are pretty slow. A SCSI Ultra320 RAID setup would be infinitely better, but hugely more expensive too of course. Definitely somthing not to rush into - and the goalposts are being shifted all the time of course..Martin

If you run a lot of photorealistic scenery then you may have some use of ultra fast harddrives but otherwise you really don