My hat goes off to the guys who coded this game. Very few games get as real as this game, in so far as creating a realistic look and feel. From what I have seen if you don't tweak your settings the right way performance can be pretty bad, but with most sliders maxed out and autogen to dense I get around 18-27fps. That may in fact be HALF of what I get in FS9, where everything is maxed, but the visual quality is probably THREE TIMES that of FS9, which I find incredible!FSX is just amazing when it comes to eye candy, especially for flying low. Even photo real scenery cannot compare to default FSX when is comes to buzzing tree tops, which is because photoreal hardly has any trees! lol It may look good high up, but my megascenery pack has very few trees and houses. I'm amazed at the level of detail I am finding when checking out the national parks and such. I had no interest in exploring the wonders of the globe in FS9, but with the advent of FSX, lol, the graphics are now good enough to make it quite enjoyable, for me at least. My only complaint is the issue with the props disappearing in the clouds, and the fact some of the VCs are same as they were in FS9.I can't wait until the end of the year when I will be able to run this with most everything maxed. 4GHz Core2 Duo + FSX SP1 + DX10 = Whoohoo!!!! Look how good it looks, and it's running at 23-27fps in these shots. http://sio.midco.net/111lll/imagequad.jpghttp://sio.midco.net/111lll/fsx%202007-01-...05-56-25-68.jpgAthlon 64 3700+ San Diego @ 2.84GHzeVGA 8800 GTX @ 630/2200MHzAsus A8N-SLI PremiumCorsair XMS 2GB

>Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego @ 2.84GHz>eVGA 8800 GTX @ 630/2200MHz>Asus A8N-SLI Premium>Corsair XMS 2GBNo wonder!!! Dual 8800's!!! on a San Diego!!!Yeah, that'll do it!Nice way to spend about 4500 bucks!!:-eek

I think that's only one 8800. Even still, that's quite respectable FSX performance for an otherwise moderate machine. I'm happy that he's happy!Gary

with the two best planes to explore with...excellent stuffI am really diggin' fsx too now, the trees look good with that photoreal pack, and for the first time I am really enjoying flying a glider!cheersjwb - 4xs7

>>Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego @ 2.84GHz>>eVGA 8800 GTX @ 630/2200MHz>>Asus A8N-SLI Premium>>Corsair XMS 2GB>>>No wonder!!! Dual 8800's!!! on a San Diego!!!>>Yeah, that'll do it!>>>Nice way to spend about 4500 bucks!!:-eek No way!! A San Diego + 8800 sys is inexpensive.A 3700+ is about $80-$90, if it hasn't left the market yet...and a 8800GTS is $300, and a GTX isn't much higher.My 3700+ San Diego is amazing in FSX. Core2 isn't enough of an improvement in FSX to warrant changing at this time.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

FSX is also my preferrable sim, for all those places on earth, where someone has not created a specific "detailed scenery area". I do use both sims, BTW.Case in point. Pic#1 --- detailed airport addon for FS9. Looks great, and I use it a lot. Wish all airport scenery looked like this! :D But once out of the detailed addon area (pic:#2 with arrow), FS9 defaults back to it's original ground textures, which are far less than pleasing; at least to me! I too, prefer the "exploration" of new areas in FSX, thanks to it's refined ground texture resolution, that comes as standard.! FS9 addon area- paywarehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167494.jpgfringe of the addon area, back to default FS9http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167495.jpg

You should get a job with MS: With a sales job like that. Of course you'd have to be honest and reveal your set-up and put some provisos on there - it would also effectively exclude 99% of the purchasers and users from your appeal.

My system is not expensive at all, certainly not $4500. lol The MBD, CPU, and RAM costs a total of $430. You can get the 8800GTX for $540. So thats less than $1000.FSX is CPU bound, so for the most part its the $430 MBD/CPU/RAM combo thats gets the performance up there, which is not that much money. The 8800 might enable me to run at 1600x1200 with 16x AA but if I lower my resolution my performance does not go up, which means the 8800 GTX is not required to get the visuals I have. Wow those scenery shots are awesome! My megascenery pack doesn't look that good, at least I don't think it does. lol

>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167494.jpg>Now imagine, getting past the max FS9 resolution for photoscenery (what you see in Portland) and having the same scenery with a FSX higher res version, man that would be even more amazing! (...and a much larger file size, LOL)Regards, MichaelKDFWNot anti FS9, just pro FSX!

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

>My system is not expensive at all, certainly not $4500. lol >The MBD, CPU, and RAM costs a total of $430. You can get the>8800GTX for $540. So thats less than $1000.>>FSX is CPU bound, so for the most part its the $430>MBD/CPU/RAM combo thats gets the performance up there, which>is not that much money. The 8800 might enable me to run at>1600x1200 with 16x AA but if I lower my resolution my>performance does not go up, which means the 8800 GTX is not>required to get the visuals I have. >>Wow those scenery shots are awesome! My megascenery pack>doesn't look that good, at least I don't think it does. lolI live in Canada. Let's see:Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego @ 2.84GHz: $700 (1 gig) + another gig:$100=$800 + $400 for the 8800GTX - $1200 minimum. Then Vista, and then probably another 2 gigs for that = forget it.

Len,Move South.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/

Hey Rhett, (sorry for the harware hi-jack)Just curious why your running at 2310mhz. The Diego's are well known for flying faster than that.When I had my 3700+ San Diego, she ran no problem at 2700mhz with nothing but a cheapo $40.00 Zahlman fan. I even ran it at that with stock cooling. I think the most I peaked was about 47C with 12hr prime95 testing. Easily could push harder but I try not to spend more on cooling than the CPU costs (heck just by a faster CPU) ;)The only reason I jumped to my X2 4800+ Toledo last fall was 939's where finished and I wanted to prolong having to buy all new mobo, ram etc. I checked it out and it had the same 1M cache and clocked out easily the same (well 2750, but close enough). I wanted that one as I didn't want to drop down in mhz as most dual cores where doing at the time.Anyways, not sure if your interested but here's my settings when had the 3700. (Which are the same as my 4800, with +5 on the FSB)HT Freq/Mult: 4xCPU Freq: 245Chip Voltage: 1.5HT Voltage: 1.2CPU Multi: 11XCPU Voltage: 1.5But hey, if you smoke yours you can't have my old one. :( I put the 3700 in a box and it's a keepsake for me with the rest of my nostagla pc stuff. That chip was the first time I jumped ship from INTEL. They change pinouts and I wasn't going with them. Never though I would do it, but haven't looked back since. I think the 939 days will be very well remembered in the history books.Anyways, CPUz SHots attached: First is 3700+ Diego, second is the +4800 X2 Toledo. [EDIT] The "30" in the first pic is cpu temp, just noticed it was in the old shot. He he Intel at that time could barely run that cool stock ....http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167511.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167512.jpgRegards'Garett

And thus this positive thread is sentenced to the relatively silent neverlands of the hardware forum. In future, I suggest you PM any hardware tangents or make a separate post on the hardware forum such that this premature thread death can be avoided ;-)Gary

Thanks for the settings info Garett. I have run mine as high as 2600 mhz or so, but after FSX did the infamous 1733 error crash when I was highly overclocked, I turned it down some.I still have the stocker fan. I am tempted to get a Zalman or Arctic Freezer and go to town with it but just haven't had the time or inclination.I will take your settings and see what I can do, but my fear is that FSX's activation will get thrown off with the new cpu speed, and give me the 1733 error again. And, of course, I have ZERO automatic activations left, so it would be a hassle to re-activate. I'm sure I will have to phone home at some point though.I think I need to tweak my memory settings some if I want 2700 mhz. I did not buy the top-end Corsair ram, it's only their mid-level stuff. When I built the below rig I did not build it to massively overclock, all I wanted was a mild o/c, so I didn't go all-out on the ram. At the time I just wanted something to enjoy FS2004 with but with an eye towards FSX which had been announced...and it's served me well for that.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

Rhett I'm OCed to 2480 up from 2200 and no problems with FSX yetI just tried raising my multiplier tonight back to 11x but the board didn't like it...my fsb is 248, multi 10x, htt 4x....I'm trying to figure out why it won't go up higher....if I raise the multiplier will it OC my RAM further?