OK, so please forgive for beating a dead horse with this question, but as I have read hundreds of posts about people's various systems and performance, I see conflicting opinions about whether a system like mine will do a good job (mid-high or high level) with FSX.I know this is not a science, but will my system hold up?Win XP Media CenterAMD X2 3800+ (running at 2GHz) HyperTransport (2GHz percieved bus)2GB DDR2 PC-4200 533MHz RAM7200 SATA HD (with plenty of room)eVGA Geforce 7600GT 256MB DDR3 VRAM PCIeAgain, sorry to ask, but I will not be able to upgrade this machine anymore for quite sometime and do not want to waste $70.Also, have read that Vista may improve performance of the game. Am I understanding this correctly as it then may open up the use of the 2nd core?Thanks for the help!aprice

No, no. And no.You ought to be able to get some reasonable performance with FSX in a default state, but you will need to pull the sliders back to do so.For the other questions, check the forum for detailed answers. Allcott

>No, no. And no.>>You ought to be able to get some reasonable performance with>FSX in a default state, but you will need to pull the sliders>back to do so.>>For the other questions, check the forum for detailed answers.>>>>>AllcottSo even if I can run the demo OK, the full version is worse? Also, is there some point of where the graphics of FSX are equal to FS2004? My point in asking this is trying to determine whether or not lower settings in FSX would still be better than standard FS2004.Final question would be some suggestion for overall scenery add-ons for fs2004 if I cannot run FSX.Thanks again for all the help.Aprice

>>So even if I can run the demo OK, the full version is worse?Think about this: The demo covers an area of the world with lots of water, and not as much scenery. The less scenery objects you have to display, the better the performance. So the demo will give pretty good performance. But load up a place like New York City, with 1000's of autogen objects, scenery buildings, and big airports, and naturally, you will get worse performance. So it's not so much that the demo code is better (it's not), it's that the AREA that's being rendered is easier on frame rates.If they had put the demo at JFK airport, people would have had heart attacks and conniption fits worse than they did already.>Also, is there some point of where the graphics of FSX are>equal to FS2004? My point in asking this is trying to>determine whether or not lower settings in FSX would still be>better than standard FS2004.>Yes there is such a point. But, I can tell you, that with your machine, you SHOULD be able to run FSX at a level that is visually better than FS2004. I can, by far. And my system is only a little faster than yours. You will have to do a few tweaks, as out-of-the-box your FSX will not perform well for you at all.>Final question would be some suggestion for overall scenery>add-ons for fs2004 if I cannot run FSX.>That is the drawback right now. Many sceneries for previous versions do not work well with FSX, because of the round-earth model among other things.Fs2004 Mesh scenery will work fine...although, supposedly mesh compiled specifically for FSX will perform better due to some optimizations.FS2004 Landclass will work but it will have weird landclass in many places because the codes were changed between versions.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

If you are happy running with the Demo... Then get the FSX, and install it and try it out for yourself.Manny