Hello everyone !This is my very first post on this forum and I wish what you're about to read would have been different. I "live" on my simulator (FS-9), so you can imagine how much I love this-- my dream is to become a real pilot.I have invested over $4,000 in hadrware, software and printed material...Yes I have taken this seriously !I have done intensive research on "how to make FSX" run smoothly...The answer is: "I am truely sory;" "I have not encountered a device capable of running FSX smoothly." The ultimate test I tried: ... Ten minutes from my house, there's the world's largest and most powerful electronics store I know of. Here you can buy almost anything that uses electricity (almost). Guess what? They have a custom-built computer to fly the FSX, selling for $4,000 US...And yes it has Intel's Quad Core Q6700 2.66GHz / 8MB Cache / 1066MHz FSB / Kentsfield / Quad-Core / Socket 775 / Processor, and PNY's 8800 video Card ($600.00), and Windows Vista, 4Gigs of Xtream memory. While no one was watching I changed all the setings on the simulator to medium setings, then to high setings...--->Results: Very Disappointing... The simulation was slow (fair frame rate). I had to lower almost all setings to get a smooth-life-like simulation. Yes very disappointed. :( What was Microsoft thinking when they built this software? Will we ever run this thing smoothly...Maybe, but 10 years from today or $10,000 from my Bank Account? Disappointing !

There's more to it than just grabbing the sliders and throwing them to the left.There are many things to take into consideration to gain the best performance for a specific system and there will be a fair amount of give and take and testing.If you take your time and read the numerous posts on tweaks and FSX configuration you can achive very acceptable frame rates on not so new hardware.Can't say that I am disappointed at all. ACES did a great job getting out SP1 and SP1 made significant improvements. Can't wait to see what the next service pack brings to the table for both DX9 and DX10.I do have one question, What's your definition of smoothly?

Not to be rude, but a lot of us already figured that out... ie - that no current hardware will run it near-maxed settings. But, with new CPUs in the pipeline, I'm sure we'll get there in time hehe

I bet 20-30 knowlegable people here (Ryan, who responded to this thread, is probably one of them) at AVSIM could spend 30 minutes tweaking that rig and get FSX running 50% better on it than could the store techs.Having said that, though, you discovered what a lot of us discovered in the last year--that no computer system made today can run FSX to it's fullest. Some people seem to be getting close though...RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

No kidding, who's that guy in the other thread, got his up to 5 GHz on water??? yikes....sorry OT ;)Thanks for the compliment Rhett :)

What's your def of slow?That system needs to have the CPU o/c to 3-3.2Ghz, and it will fly with settings turned up with selection. Will have very fast load times and be able to lock frame rate at 25 1920x1200 at all but places like JFK / over New York city. Plus you'll have 2-3 cores ready to run other programs, such as Google Earth real time tracking flights on a 2nd monitor, etc.Any you can build it a lot cheaper than $4000 too, and FSX will be very enjoyable on it, IMO.

good grief, 4k??My private pilots license cost me $4500 - throwing some more cash right now for my instrument....I spent roughly 1600 on my setup, and that includes trackir, rudders, stick, and all other hardware/software upgrades. Im not really sure I could spend 4 grand on a system right now, even if someone forced me....All it really takes is smart buying and building. Research out the arse! Mate your components well, ask others - read reviews and benchmarks...then do some small fsx tweaks and your off..!But I do have to say, if it was real flight or sim flight - I would part with this system instantly....Danon O.

I have a different view. I have a Dell quad OC to 3.47GHZ, dual 8800 GTX cards, 2 GIG 1066 ram, FSX SP1, LD767 SP1 installed dual monitors (24" and 21") and I am getting a solid 30 fps with all the sliders at exactly 1/2 way. I was hoping for better and pushing the sliders to all max gets me around 12-14 fps. I'm not done tweaking but at 50% settings I am OK. I did get my forst out of memory crash and had to turn off some memory hogging programs running in the background. I have 1.45 GB of my 2 GB of memory committed during flight. I think I need to spend $300 more and get 2 GB more ram.

The first thing I would want to know about that "electronics store" setup is whether they had even bothered to install SP1 on their copy of FSX. If SP1 was never installed, then all the other comments about FSX performance are essentially meaningless. Also, if I've learned ONE thing from the "experts" on this forum (and I am far from being one of them), it's that you can definitely achieve good FSX performance through tweaking and compromise. You can't just throw money at a system and expect good results. Read through some of the other posts around here, and pay special attention to the people who have achieved good FSX performance on relatively inexpensive systems. (Hint: they do a fair bit of tweaking, overclocking, and testing to get the best possible results with their particular hardware.) ACES has stated very clearly that the FSX sliders were never intended to be turned all the way up on TODAY'S systems. (And neither were FS9's sliders, at the time of FS9's release.) The developers gave themselves some headroom for future hardware improvements, which is a perfectly rational design decision imho. Finally, I have yet to see a test result showing a quad-core CPU which outperforms even a modestly overclocked Core2Duo. Among all the various factors in achieving good FSX performance, two are at the top of the list:1. Install SP1, then tweak it a bit to get the best possible performance. 2. Overclock your Core2Duo CPU to its maximum (stable) level. Do these things on your $4,000 system, and you should be happy. Unless your expectations were unreasonable to begin with.