I have been advise not to rely in MS recommendations for Hardware. My PC has a Pentium 4 1.62GHz with 1.0 GB of RAM but I have an old Sound Card and a nVidia GeForce 4 Ti4200. Can anyone advise me which os the best sound card and best Video Card that I should buy for Microsoft Flight Simulator X? I participate a lot with VATSIM. Many thanks for anyone's willingness to help.David [email protected]

>I have been advise not to rely in MS recommendations for>Hardware. My PC has a Pentium 4 1.62GHz with 1.0 GB of RAM>but I have an old Sound Card and a nVidia GeForce 4 Ti4200. >Can anyone advise me which os the best sound card and best>Video Card that I should buy for Microsoft Flight Simulator X?> I participate a lot with VATSIM. Many thanks for anyone's>willingness to help.>>David Velez>[email protected] those specs, you don't stand a chance at running FSX at an acceptable level, even at minimum detail. If you plan on using FSX, a new system is in order. The fastest on the market these days, are the INTEL Core 2 Duo's (I have an E6700). Even with these systems, some tweaking and compromising is necessary with FSX. I got mine working good now, after my discovery of enabling Texture and Lighting in the Display.cfg file (TnL=2). Some people have reported it helped them also, but others say they see no change! I'm running with low to mid 20's FPS in Dense City areas, and much higher everywhere else. That's with a tweaked Autogen at Dense levels, Scenery at extremely dense, water at 2.0 Low, weather settings maxed, and a large traffic file with UT flightplans at 100%. This seems to be the exception though, as most, even with systems like mine are reporting much worse numbers in dence city areas like NYC.

I echo everything Tom has said in his reply. I have used all of Matt Fox's 1/2-sized textures, TnL=2, plus a few more (now well-known)tweaks, and am now able to get 25 - 35 fps with spectacular scenery and stable, fluid flight, but very few simmers can get this without high-end gpu's and Core2 Duo procs. I would think that performance with FS9 on your machine would not be great, either. I would suggest a C2D proc; a late, high-end nVidia gpu and 2 gigs of very good ram. Prices are starting down now, but you might wait for the DX10 cards to become more available, and also consioder waiting for a major upgrade in FSX before jumping in.Good luck!

HiI have built a new system:Intel 67002 GB 800 memory2 fast harddisks (one for Windows XP, the other for FS9 and FS X)2 Nvidia 8800 graphic adapters (6 monitors using Matrox TH2G)FS9 is running like a rocket!FS X I just installed and not have made any tweaks, just experimenting with the sliders and the zoom factors.I get 30 FPS in the air and 20-25 on the airport, without Autogen. When I put Autogen, the FPS goes down rapidly.I will try some tweaking and see what I get.Any sugetions where I can get the best tweak sugestions?ThanksPeter

Hi Peter,This guide by Ryan Maziarz of PMDG fame is very consise and clearly written with a majority of the FSX tweaks needed for acceptable performance: http://ops.precisionmanuals.com/wiki/FSX_FPS_GuideHappy HolidaysJim Karn

The weakest link in your setup for FSX is your CPU, which you should definitely upgrade to get some decent framerates. The best choice right now is any of the intel Dual Core2s. Second in line would be the graphic card: A 7600GT will give you a good and inexpensive start, while a X1900 or even a 8800 will get you much improved results. Then you might want to add another 1GB of Ram and you should be all set for framerates in the lower 20s. It's not impressive, but the best that you can do right now *shrug*.Is it worth an estimated $600-$1000? I would say no. FSX right now is virtually grounded until Aces delivers a some magic patch.Either go back to FS9 or check out X-Plane.Pat

Guys, thank you so much for your replies which helps me enormously. Everybody a great Xmas and thanks for people wanting to help me.David