You are really going to have to further explain yourself if you are going to make comments like that...

I don't run FSX yet. My current system wont handle it, but I am thinking about purchasing a 920 or 940 early next year. My point really was that I seem to be reading in a number of instances where people who have invested in 'high-end' machines, at considerable cost, are still experiencing performance issues. And most are being advised to overclock their 920 or 940's. Is overclocking really necessary ? Do CPU's need to be jacked up to 4Ghz to smooth out performance.

My friend has a Q9550 overclocked, GTX 260 core 216 superclocked edition, and 6 GB 1066 DDR2 ram and he can run FSX maxed out and get well over 35 fps.

But under what scenario ? Flying in the outback ? Or at FTX's YMML with AI (for example) ? I would prefer the latter.

We could however go back to the way the sim was in the 1980's-90's-no sliders, and what you saw was what you got for that time cycle. I hope not-especially now since a time cycle looks to be 4-5 years instead of the past 1-2-and I didn't always like the choice someone else mad for me as to what was important.

I do agree

Moggell,As others have said, the aspect of your research that has let you down, is in buying the ATI GPU ...... this is certainly not a good card for FSX! ......... Objective performance comparisons show the plain old nVidia 8800 GTS 512Mb, eats the ATI for breakfast.There are also many reports and reviews across the web that show that SLI (or crossfire) give lower results that single GPU cards. You could deactivate the 2nd (2x) GPU, but if I were you I would chalk it up to experience and sell the ATI, and buy a 8800 GTS 512Mb (cheap now and still the best with FSX!).With that awful (and expensive) ATI card removed and a 8800 in it's place, you should get much, much better performance with FSX, with your new system.Good luck !

Yup, that fact has definetly been imprinted in my mind by now. I should've come here asking for advice before I went out and "over invested" in a "super card" like the HD 4870X2 when I could've gotten a GTX 280. That would've saved me aprox. $200 and delivered, as it seems, better performance. I won't duplicate that mistake in the future...Thanks/Jonas

But under what scenario ? Flying in the outback ? Or at FTX's YMML with AI (for example) ? I would prefer the latter.

Very good point. The sim as a "package" is too complex for anyone to be able to simply say "I've maxed it out and it runs like a dream" (except, possibly, Jay over here who has a machine that costs an insane amount of $) :( .I do find it interesting however that my machine seems to be able to render some sceneries better than others. For example, I can take off from ORBX's Sydney Intl and fly over the city and see a fairly fluid rendition of it on very high settings (not maxed though). If I do the same over the default New York City (affected by Ultimate Terrain and GEX) I get half of the performance while the amount of details appears to be lower, and still not quite as good looking to be honest. Likewise, I can take off from FlyTampa's Kai Tak and fly over what appears to be an extremely detailed city in heavy weather at 30 FPS. Doing the same in less detailed default citys will then give me noticeable lower performance.So, not only does the combination of hardware affect performance. It does seem that the way individual sceneries are put together are better suited for some hardware/settings than others. This makes it almost impossile to just compare performance.I look forward to being able to actually fly for a change. Back to tweaking... :( /Jonas

One more observation, me being new to FSX...I'm almost done tweaking (using Nick N's guides) and today I installed VFR London X just to see how it performed. I took off from London City Airport and did a quick hop over to Heathrow while sight-seeing London City in daylight. The performance was pretty bad, just as I expected, but "almost" flyable. I then did the same hop again at dawn. The experience was alot better and my guess is I won back ~3-4 FPS but everything was also alot more fluid.I've noticed this effect several times the last week, since I installed: Performance goes up whenever I fly at dawn or dusk. During day or night time I always loose a couple of valuable FPS's and the sim becomes choppy.In FS9 it used to be the opposite and I seems to recall the explanation had something to do with expensive sky blending or something. Is it just me or is this typical to FSX? If so, why and (more importantly) is there something one can do to improve the day-/night time rendering?/Jonas