Or not as the case may be...Like many I'm currently enduring a love-hate relationship with FSX, when it works well it is actually quite enjoyable guess what we miss most is all those add-ons from FS9. Have got the Aerosim Jetliner pack working and JF A340-500's on the way which will hopefully improve on the default experience.However I digress. The most frustrating thing for me has been the CTD's and BSOD's which FSX throws, particularly changing viewpoints. I recently bought a new Packard Bell Imedia 2969 base unit, on the face of it more than adequate to give reasonable FSX performance:Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 (2 x 2.4Ghz).2 Gb RAM.ATI 1600 SE 256Mb PCI-E GPU. (Probably the weakest link, but at least the equivalent of a Geforce 7300).However where it starts to fall down is that all this is powered by a mere 250 watt PSU. Barely enough to run the basic configuration, that's before connecting up peripherals such as my beloved Saitek X52 to the USB ports. 250 watts. That's barely enough to power two lightbulbs, so no wonder the machine throws a wobbly when the GPU suddenly demands max power to display that external view. That sort of power level might be okay for playing Minesweeper or watching an mpeg movie but not serious gaming. Not just FSX but older titles such as Freelancer or X3 - just watch those LED's on the X52 drop out when the GPU takes a hit on the power.Remedy now in hand, with a Hiper 580 watt PSU on its way from Ebuyer. That will hopefully supply adequate power with enough to spare for a nice 8800 Geforce card later on.I'm sure there's lots of people trying to run FSX on what they regard nice new high spec multimedia PC's and shaking their fists at MS/Aces when the programme BSOD's. However do stop for a minute and take a look at how much power an intense game uses across the system compared to how much the PSU can output. There are quite a lot of these type of PC's on the market, low cost/alleged high spec but the cost saving is achieved by pruning down certain items such as the PSU to the bare bones.Lots of people also post their PC specs, but not many include what the output wattage of their PSU is!

How right you are.....the power side of a PC, especially with the new power hungry GPU's, is important. Try working out what your system needs from here - it surprised me.http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jspRay

The power supply is the most overlooked component. Off-the-shelf computer systems often cut corners and put a lesser component in their computers, in your case the power supply.See the following articles on info on p/s's:POWER SUPPLY MYTHS:http://www.pcpower.com/technology/myths/TYPICAL DEVICE POWER USAGE TABLE:http://www.pcpower.com/technology/power_usage/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

I've now been running FSX on a variety of systems since its release, from 3 year old laptops to $500 & $2000 new laptops to E6600/8800 systems. I have not experienced a single BSOD. The new E6600/8800 systems I built have 650W 3 rail PSU's and seem to be running fine. I haven't tried to overclock them yet (I've been building systems for several customers).I think I or one of my customers might have crashed to desktop once or twice, but I can't even remember now. I use FSX almost every day. The closest thing I have come to having a problem is that lately when I reduce FSX to the task bar, the only way it will come back is if I open up the task manager and select it in the list, and when I do that, oftentimes the XBox controller settings are all messed up. Pain in the butt that one. But I quit FSX and bring it back up and all is well. Think I'll try to replace the controller settings in the controller.xml or whatever the file is with my settings to see if that fixes the problem.I should note that all the systems I've installed on have eventually been upgraded to 2 GB memory if they didn't have it already. I tried running on 1 GB on several of the systems, but it just didn't cut it. FSX didn't really run that much better, but the general use of the computer while running FSX is astronomically better with 2 GB in my experience.Good luck with your new PSU/system.Thomas(P.S. I didn't even know that Packard Bell was still in the PC business)[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

I have a 650W PCU, use FSX with an X 1950XTX GPU for hours on end and have never seen it blue screen or crash or do anything odd at all.

>The power supply is the most overlooked component. >Off-the-shelf computer systems often cut corners and put a>lesser component in their computers, in your case the power>supply.Manufacturers always use marginal PSUs. Whether you buy an "off the shelf" system, or, if you build your own system and buy a case with a pre-installed PSU, you should always replace the cheap PSU with a good quality one. You'll save yourself the frustration of system crashes and hardware failures. Trust me, this is one lesson I learned the hard way.EwingKATLAlcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a store, not a government agency.MSI K8N Neo2 PlatinumAMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz2GB Corsair PC-3200 512x4 Dual Channel CL2.5 DDR DIMM eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3Sound Blaster Audigy LSOCZ Powerstream 420WWinXPPro (SP1)