Hi fellow simmers,as a passionate FS9 flyer and nowadays owner of FSX, I start to get really desperated about the usability of FSX for me when reading all the discussions on the MS boards.I think it's no secret that FSX simply runs slow on the average Joe's PC right out of the box. The ACES team said that this was intentionally planned this way to guarantee the supposed lifespan of approximately three years.Normally, one would expect this to probably be true, hardware should get faster and faster in time, at least that's what I suppose most of the average Joes think.But taking into account what others already reported and wrote and what my experiences are, I soon started to doubt this could be true. Today, my expectations that FSX will finally run sufficiently fast on new hardware have almost vanished.According to my informations and to what I expect for the next 12 or so months, I cannot see that processor which would bring an additional 30-50% speed increase, and I see no graphics adapter on the horizon which would give the quantum leap needed to make full use of FSX effects.Given the fact that FSX is slow on FPS right out of the box and using the default planes only, I can hardly imagine the FPS that a PC would squeeze out when using 9m replacement mesh with 7cm textures, a weather generator like Active Sky and a complex airplane like the forthcoming PMDG A320 only. And I've omitted AI planes, autogen, high screen resolutions with high AF and AA settings as well as detailed clouds/reflections/effects etc. etc. completely here.In addition, it's questionable whether current hardware development is beneficial to FSX at all or has the exact opposite effect so that a processor which is 8 months away from now will only perform the same as an Intel 6600 today but for three times the money. The same goes for graphics adapters.The assumption to have created a game for the future in my opinion is an unproven theory only (how can one plan years ahead without having the appropriate hardware available), I currently see no sign that this can be really true.So, to all you fellow simmers: what do you think about current hardware developments and how they possibly fit FSX, when do you expect to be able to make use of at least 75% of FSX's capabilities, and what hardware would you recommend to buy when money plays no role?Andreas

Your assessment of future hardware trends versus FSX is quite true - they don't really align. I'd say that unless MS patches FSX to adapt to these future hardware trends, or some third party vendors come to the rescue with addons that essentially patch FSX the same way, then nobody will be running FSX at 75% settings with adequate performance (say 20+ FPS min anywhere) before the next version comes out (and that's if we haven't scared MS off the whole FS franchise). Gary

As for hardware, I decided to upgrade now as I don't see anything revolutionary on the cpu roadmap for the next year. Yes, 4 cores are coming in but I can't see them getting anywhere near current core 2 duo prices. And that's assuming fsx is patched to use 2, let alone 4. I will end up with Gary's specification save for the graphics card. ebay found me an 800xl 512mb for 1/2 the price of a GTO, which was too good an offer to pass up. I'll be watching the dx10 evolution very carefully this year. That is likely to be my next hardware upgrade.