Quick, get those $2000-$3000 gaming machines up on EBay, according to Mike over at FlightSim.com; you are just wasting your money. A smooth satisfying experience with FSX (at 10 fps) can be achieved with a balanced $600 off the self machine. Here are some highlights of the words of wisdom plus a link to this informative discussion, get ready for the FSX revelations. >

The principles of balancing apply whether the fps is locked at 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever. Wherever the lock is set, if the FSX installation is unbalanced, the performance of the locked system visuals will not be as good as would be the case if the system were balanced.

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So those of us who have high end machines who lock the frame rate need to do so because our machines are unbalanced? Am I seeing less

Way to misrepresent what Mike is talking about. All he was trying to say is that one needs to adjust the settings appropriately for the system you are running. Some people are happy running on lower end systems (not everyone has thousands of dollars to spend on a computer) and can have it running relatively smoothly. No, it won't look as good or run as fast as a $2,000+ machine, but it will still meet the owner's needs. In his case he has played with the settings to find an appropriate level that works for his system.He never said those spending $2,000 were wasting their money.

>Way to misrepresent what Mike is talking about. All he was>trying to say is that one needs to adjust the settings>appropriately for the system you are running. If that was the case I would have agreed with him and moved on, that

Well, that is what he is trying to say. Maybe in a few more words than many of us would use, but that is the basic message. And it may not be new information to us, but there are plenty of new FS users with lower spec machines that it could certainly help.

Mike always goes on and on... notice how he is way off thread topic too. If anything his propounding will confuse newbies. Do sliders need to be adjusted for the system FSX runs on? Yup. This has always been the case for any FS version.-=paxx=-

I wouldn

djt man, I think you ought to just let it go man...Those kinds of discussions are like cowpies. The more you poke at the discussion, the worse it smells. The answer is not to get into those.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

Just to inject a real world reference, this < $700 rig (O/C'd to 3.6Ghz) will run all default airplanes at: Graphics: Lock at 20FPSRes 19x10DX9bloom-off8xAA/16xAF (from Nvidia control panel)Scenery: All left side scenery tab sliders to 100% (sans water to 2xL) and the right side sliders to 100% (sans one knotch of AG + shadows off).Weather:60mi cloudsTraffic: 20/20/20/10/20/20No tweaking involved, except the CPU O/C (Set the FSB to 400 and Vcore to 1.45. Boot-n-run) The next dollar (or 10K!) is entirely about balancing: 1) Getting back that single notch of AG + additional traffic against 2) A higher averaged FPS. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWi...tNumber=7159746

What graphics card and case are you using with that system? (With a low end case and card it would be closer to $1000 Australian dollars but food for thought non-the-less)Bruceb

Agree with Rhett - seems kinda lame to bring your "debate" with Mike over here - why not just continue it with him over there - if there's anything more that even need's to be said......;-) :-beerchugAnd like Sam, I have 'bout 6-7 in my rig and FSX runs reasonbly well - if there was another bullet worthy of the investment, I'd then consider it.Regards, Kendall#1: E8500 @ 3.95 - HyperTX2 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 4GB Ballistix Tracers PC6400 EVGA 8800GT - XG's 174.74 Seagate 250GB 7200.11 CH Yoke/Pedals/Saitek Throttle Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. 3GB PC4200 - X800XT Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X-530's

Oops, here's the Vcard'd list. The box can be anything and if a user might need an optical, that's an add-on too. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWi...tNumber=7159746$700's bit light for All the pieces, but $800 ought to be plenty. Now, those 42" LCDs are starting to come in at about $800 too. It's a magic time for computer building.

Thanks. Unfortunately down here in the antipodes with a monitor & OS you would still be pushing $1500 for this system - no longer particularly bargain basement.Bruceb

Folks,You've missed a couple of critical points, ones that you would not have missed had you been reading my feature articles as I recommended in my posts at FlightSim.The missed points are that a) an alphanumeric sort of the scenery disk drive can make a very big difference to scenery stutters, and that :( defragmentation of the Master File Table is similarly important and is intimately linked to a), and that c) expansion of the swap file to 4095 MB, along with defragging it, also helps with scenery load issues.All of the issues, including balancing, are discussed in my article series that begins here http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/op-ed/ed395.htm. (You should read the articles in reverse chronological order.)The only important thing I would change is that I no longer recommend the use of Ultimate Defrag. These days I use only two defraggers, PerfectDisk for the offline defrag of the system metafiles (like $MFT$), and O&O Defrag for the online SPACE followed by NAME sorts.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIn the immortal words of Galileo when he was forced to recant his heliocentric theory of the univers, "Still, it [the earth] moves."

>You've missed a couple of critical points, ones that you would>not have missed had you been reading my feature articles as I>recommended in my posts at FlightSim.Perhaps the argument should continue back over at Shelbyville (Flightsim) ;-)Gary

RESET MCP ALT,I'm not arguing, I'm presenting information. Anyway, it can't be continued at FlightSim -- djt kept making posts that caused all the relevant threads to be deleted. That's why he brought his presentation here.