Any guesses on when a system will become available (at typical retail high-end prices) that will be able to run FSX with most sliders hard-right and video card settings maxed for IQ, at a smooth and steady 25 frames or better, with PMDG-grade aircraft addons and the best mesh & scenery currently available, at 1600x? Run that baby on! Any thoughts on if n when this might be available? Will it not happen in the foreseeable future because FSX will not be ported to multi-core code before FS11 comes out?I'm inclined to forego a PC upgrade until this benchmark can be met, and so far I am disinclined to install FSX until I have something hotter than this rig from all I read here.Thoughts on the question above?Noel

Hi Noel,I don't know if anyone can make a real guess when the hardware will sufficiently advance to be able to run FSX at full-right settings. When ACES developed FSX they took a gamble that processors would keep increasing in speed. However, as we have all noticed, they increased in the number of cores, while the speeds have remained mostly flat.Hindsight is 20-20. Were they to make the design decision today, perhaps multiple core processors would have factored into their equation.Roadmaps at both Intel and AMD/ATI look bleak for the near future as core speeds aren't really increasing like they used to.ACES may be able to squeeze some performance out of what we have now with SP1 but our only hope is recoding of the game for true multicore support.Whether that happens or not is a very closely guarded secret.In the mean time, enjoy what you have and take a wait and see approach. You know the game will be there when you're ready. There are plenty of posters on this and other forums that buy the latest and greatest hardware whenever it hits the streets. They really help all of us with our buying decisions.Regards,Jim Karn

Unless SP1 or the DX10 patch makes a fundamental improvement in the city scape area of FSX, then I think you'll see FS11 before the current roadmap of hardware yields the results you (and I think I can safely say the majority of us) desire. Gary

I would guess 1.5 to 2 yearsbut there are too many variables, like what effect SP1 and more importantly DX10 has on the sim.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case