I'm currently building a new system for FSX. It's gonna be E6600+P5W mobo+2GB_DDR2_800 etc.I still havent' decided yet about GPU. As all of us have known, FS is more dependend on CPU+RAM combination rather then on GPU. So the question is whether it's reasonable to invest into 7600GT (~$180) and save $100 on 7900GT?Thanks for you responseDmitriy

Not sure all people realise that a humble ATI 9800SE provides the same performance on the same PC as a 9900XTGTPROthingimy :)I would wager at least one beer that CPU and RAM will be the dominant factors. The GPU won't be doing the meaty work of moving cars/animals, weather, FM, AI, instruments, etc, etc.

Hi,There is a hardware forum for questions sach as this!If you are going to upgrade to Vista and DX10 then buy the less expensive card now.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

>I'm currently building a new system for FSX. It's gonna be>E6600+P5W mobo+2GB_DDR2_800 etc.>>I still havent' decided yet about GPU. As all of us have>known, FS is more dependend on CPU+RAM combination rather then>on GPU. So the question is whether it's reasonable to invest>into 7600GT (~$180) and save $100 on 7900GT?>>Thanks for you response>DmitriyToday at avsim we got an earful/eyeful of some of the guts in FSX and performance implications. Here's my summary.FSX will drive as many displays as the underlying OS supports.Terrain textures are now 1024x1024, and there are a lot more of them.FSX is multithreaded, but not yet as optimized as folks would like. There are certain subtasks that will get "thrown over the wall" to be executed on another core or CPU, so you should definitely turn on Hyperthreading, not set core affinity, etc, and let the OS handle thread scheduling.The concept of 1GB graphic cards being useful was mentioned if you want the absolute best visual experience. However, the "Terrain guy" mentioned that he runs on a 256MB card and is happy.The SimConnect interface supports running different processes on different computers - think of a PMDG with the FMC on a separate PC, doing all the various calculations for fuel and top of descent, etc and not robbing a single cycle from the FSX engine. Think of true shared cockpits, even for complex addons (they will of course have to be written to permit this).FSX is 32bit.There is more granularity available in the various sliders and in the .CFG file settings to tweak things.You can now take a batch of settings, and SAVE those settings (kinda like a profile), so that you can optimize the sim engine for the various kinds of flying you do. This in my opinion is VERY cool.Just like when FS9 came out, you won't be able to run FSX well with the sliders maxed, until hardware catches up (and that could be a while - think years). However, running with the default settings is likely going to look a good bit better than FS9 running maxed, so PLEASE fly a little before you start tweaking.Now for some of my advice:DX10 will require Vista, so you are looking at Q1 '07 at the earliest to build the "super system of the year".There's a LOT of data to move in and out of the engine, so disk IO is really gonna matter now that we have relatively insane CPUs and GPUs.I haven't heard anything to indicate any super new developments in CPUs/motherboard chipsets coming in the next 6 months. Both Intel and AMD have great stuff out, and we'll see evolution and not revolution for a while now.With these factors in mind, I'd recommend a system builder:Pick your CPU family (AMD or Intel)Pick a good almost-bleeding-edge motherboard with as many PCIExpress slots as possible. Add at least 2 GB (4 would be best)of RAM in the configuration that gives you the best throughput. Buy the CPU that gives you best performance for the money, not the top-line CPU.Get the fastest hardware RAID subsystem you can afford (mirroring will really help since FS is read-intensive, and it will also give you some protection against failures).Get a pair (or more) of 10,000 RPM drives, looking for the best data transfer rate.Buy one good DX9 PCIExpress card at 256MB.Run FS9 (should be super) and FSX (should be very good) on that machine, and when Vista comes out, let the market settle and THEN make your investment in new video hardware, and perhaps a newer CPU.That's my plan, anyway.Best wishes,

Thanks Timothy,It seems like the concept of SLI/Crossfire will be absolutely helpless for FSX (if you don't have any other games except for FS9/FSX) on your PC.

Just remember that there are no DX10 cards availiable right now. Even if you blow $1200 on Quad SLI 7900's, it will do you absolutely no good for the DX10 version of FSX. Anyone who wants to run FSX at it's best should not be looking at buying video cards now - wait until the DX10 cards are out - should be by Christmas or just after.

I understand that, otherwise I would't have opened this topic.My primary concern about DX10 cards is whether they will be PCI-E cards or not, and whether they will be compatible with 965 chipsets or not. The point is that I'll be willing to spend up to $500 on new DX10 card, but I don't wanna spend abother $800 for new CPU-mobo combo.

Pretty sure they'll be PCI-e....no idea what they'll be compatible with though

Yep, that's the question everyone wants answered before they spend any money on new hardware. What will be needed to support a DX10 graphics card? IMHO it would be very unwise to set up a new system now, without knowing if your MoBo will run a future DX10 upgrade.Noel.

I _THINK_ that it's a safe bet that the DX10 cards will be PCI-Express. I'm not aware of any new interfaces coming out anytime soon, although newer motherboards may increase the number of PCI-Express lanes. So it may be possible to see motherboards with four 16-lane slots, using high-speed switches on the motherboard.But, as others have posted, the new CPUs make a big difference in FS9, and I expect that FS9 may be my main platform for another 6-8 months, until the "can't live without it" FSX-only product comes along (like maybe the PMDG 737NGX).So, given that motherboards are relatively cheap (compared to other components, I'm not too worried about having to waste the $200 on a motherboard. I'd be really unhappy to have to replace a high-ticket item like a CPU or graphics card.

>Thanks Timothy,>>It seems like the concept of SLI/Crossfire will be absolutely>helpless for FSX (if you don't have any other games except for>FS9/FSX) on your PC.>>>>I don't know. Isn't the concept of this that the applications don't know there are two GPUs (the OS might), and they can be set up to render alternate frames (so the bandwidth is essentially doubled?) I'm sorry that I'm not as up on this technology as I'd like to be.

"Just like when FS9 came out, you won't be able to run FSX well with the sliders maxed, until hardware catches up". The only hardware technology on horizon are quad cores which won't do anything for FSX! So we'd have to wait years to enjoy what we saw on screen shots? I was really hoping that DX10, would improve the performance so as to allow us to max the sliders! sigh!

With the changing of the MB, you have to pay for new OS too.

Guys, I think you're way to optimistic about DX10 and Vista. Tdragger has said many times here and on other forums that WinXP_SP2 and DX9.0C were the only software that they had used in development of FSX. So, my logic tells me that current version of FSX, that we'll see within month, is pure XP/DX9-based platform. All the funny screenies that you have seen are so-called "concept screens", i.e. how it should look in the eyes on designer, and not how it looks on existing hardware.Furthermore, as practice has shown, the first wave of any NextGen product is always a crap. So, I would skip the first wave of DX10 videocards and wait for the second wave that might appear on the market ar the end of 2007 at earliest.

While the software is native DX9, there will be an FSX UPDATE for Vista ("soon after Vista", so I believe the additional layers/calls/whateverthehelltheyare for DX10 are already well understood.FSX is the "showcase" platform for DX10, so I'm POSITIVE that they will take advantage of it.