New gaming rig for FS9 with addons

[Guest mikeyt]

Hi there,Many of you are discussing the best gaming setups for FSX, which is very interesting, BUT... I am an avid FS9 user, and I am looking to build a new system. The reason I have not gone to FSX yet is because I have spent years (and a lot of cash) building up an arsenal of add-on aircraft (PMDG 737/747, Level-D 767, Wilco Airbus Series 1/E-Jets, PSS 757/777/A330/A340pro, etc), as well as add-on sceneries such as Mega Airport Heathrow, Frankfurt, the FlyTampa! series, Aerosoft, and many many more... Of all of my addons only a very few are FSX compatible... And as all of my flying is commercial to and from add-on airports, FS9 with these addons serves my purposes quite adequately!I currently run a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4, old-style with AGP graphics, and 2Gb RAM, with 32-Bit Windows XP.Flight sim does take a really long time to load, not only when you click "Fly Now", but even just from double-clicking the icon on the desktop to getting to the main screen. I could go make a cup of tea in this time! The sceneries take a long time to load. And my frame-rates especially in the add-on airports is very poor - certainly in the single-digits... (made yet worse by the fact I love it to be 'busy' so have plenty of AI too!!!)...I KNOW it's all my add-ons that do this. When I first install FS9, with clean installation and default aircraft and scenery, it loads very fast, and I get around 65fps with the default cessna at the default Heathrow. But in my PSS 777, with Mega Airport Heathrow, lots of AI, AES, Ultimate Terrain, and Active Sky 6.5 running I get excited if I hit anywhere above 10fps!! Oh yeah - and with any sort of heavy weather too, it can turn into a slideshow... I would LOVE to be able to do a landing into there in fog for example, but at the moment - that simply ain't gonna happen!So, could you please advise me - what am I looking for, with today's hardware and technology, to run FS9, with all settings up high, with all the replacement sceneries, and aircraft, and get really beautifully smooth framerates at all times... Is it even possible? Am I asking for the earth?? I know FS9 does not take advantage of multi-core processors, so am I better off with a simple core2duo? Or better off just going for the mutts nuts latest i7 system anyway?? Does a Velociraptor hard drive really make that much difference and if so, what do I put on it, the OS or only FS9 itself? As for graphics - should I invest in a screamingly fast latest gen 1024Mb Radeon 4870 with GDDR5 RAM on board, or will the 9800GTX (or whatever) still be MORE than enough to run FS9 smoothly...?So many questions...and so hard to find answers because all the "gaming" systems you see advertised these days are for the latest games like Far Cry and so on that will take advantage of the latest hardware developments...and I know FS9 simply can't do this.Please help me, you are my last hope!! Many thanks :( PS Budget isn't really an issue luckily, so don't worry about that in any replies!

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Hi there,Many of you are discussing the best gaming setups for FSX, which is very interesting, BUT... I am an avid FS9 user, and I am looking to build a new system. The reason I have not gone to FSX yet is because I have spent years (and a lot of cash) building up an arsenal of add-on aircraft (PMDG 737/747, Level-D 767, Wilco Airbus Series 1/E-Jets, PSS 757/777/A330/A340pro, etc), as well as add-on sceneries such as Mega Airport Heathrow, Frankfurt, the FlyTampa! series, Aerosoft, and many many more... Of all of my addons only a very few are FSX compatible... And as all of my flying is commercial to and from add-on airports, FS9 with these addons serves my purposes quite adequately!I currently run a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4, old-style with AGP graphics, and 2Gb RAM, with 32-Bit Windows XP.Flight sim does take a really long time to load, not only when you click "Fly Now", but even just from double-clicking the icon on the desktop to getting to the main screen. I could go make a cup of tea in this time! The sceneries take a long time to load. And my frame-rates especially in the add-on airports is very poor - certainly in the single-digits... (made yet worse by the fact I love it to be 'busy' so have plenty of AI too!!!)...I KNOW it's all my add-ons that do this. When I first install FS9, with clean installation and default aircraft and scenery, it loads very fast, and I get around 65fps with the default cessna at the default Heathrow. But in my PSS 777, with Mega Airport Heathrow, lots of AI, AES, Ultimate Terrain, and Active Sky 6.5 running I get excited if I hit anywhere above 10fps!! Oh yeah - and with any sort of heavy weather too, it can turn into a slideshow... I would LOVE to be able to do a landing into there in fog for example, but at the moment - that simply ain't gonna happen!So, could you please advise me - what am I looking for, with today's hardware and technology, to run FS9, with all settings up high, with all the replacement sceneries, and aircraft, and get really beautifully smooth framerates at all times... Is it even possible? Am I asking for the earth?? I know FS9 does not take advantage of multi-core processors, so am I better off with a simple core2duo? Or better off just going for the mutts nuts latest i7 system anyway?? Does a Velociraptor hard drive really make that much difference and if so, what do I put on it, the OS or only FS9 itself? As for graphics - should I invest in a screamingly fast latest gen 1024Mb Radeon 4870 with GDDR5 RAM on board, or will the 9800GTX (or whatever) still be MORE than enough to run FS9 smoothly...?So many questions...and so hard to find answers because all the "gaming" systems you see advertised these days are for the latest games like Far Cry and so on that will take advantage of the latest hardware developments...and I know FS9 simply can't do this.Please help me, you are my last hope!! Many thanks :( PS Budget isn't really an issue luckily, so don't worry about that in any replies!

OK, going out on a limb here... so any experts, please pipe in.Having gone from a Pentium 4 / AGP to a modern Core2Duo based system myself,mainly to fly FSX, but also still running FS9... here are my thoughts.The new CPUs are way more powerful than the Pentium line and coupled witha fast motherboard / RAM / video card, they will really make FS9 run well.Read the forums and search for FS9, you'll find many examples of peoplehaving made the upgrade and loving the result.As to specifics... a faster CPU is better, either overclock or invest ina faster rated CPU. 3 GHz or better.Fast memory is good. 2 GB is likely OK for FS9.Video card.. a 9800GTX 512 MB should be more than enough,a 9600GT will likely do it. If you are comparing specs, lookfor memory bandwidth. For FS, that makes a difference.A dedicated high speed drive just for FS is a good thing and will speedup loading times. Velociraptor is better, but even a good 7200 rpm drivewill get the job done. Just do not overfill the drive (<50% full), andkeep it defragged by name, using O&O or similar.Do not partition the drive, just one partition with FS.You can move some of the scenery to another drive if it takes uptoo much room.Follow Nick's tuning cookbook to get best performance out of your system.

[ryanbatc 12,812]

Yeah what I'd do is get the fastest Core 2 Duo CPU you can afford, then overclock it.The E8500 or E8600 would be good choices. Just add a nice cooler, like thishttp://www.crazypc.com/products/ultra-120_extreme-50983.html4GB of RAM (if you someday plan on FSX upgrade, otherwise 2 is fine)XP x64 or 32bit, doesn't really matter with 2GB of RAM.geforce 9800GT 512mb is fineThat's the jist of it

[Guest mikeyt]

Follow Nick's tuning cookbook to get best performance out of your system.

Hi there - sorry to ask - but as a newbie round here, what is Nick's tuning cookbook and where do i find it?? Thanks ... :(

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Hi there - sorry to ask - but as a newbie round here, what is Nick's tuning cookbook and where do i find it?? Thanks ... :(

Quoting:http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/Ya...?num=1208959973Read the first page of the threadsimple as thatThen tune FSX itselfdo read these posts and follow the instructions (follow the link in the first post to the base settings for all systems) to tune FSXhttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...=28735&PN=2http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=163716#163716Use those posts and the supporting links should give you everything you need to know for final tuning

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Quoting:http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/Ya...?num=1208959973Read the first page of the threadsimple as thatThen tune FSX itselfdo read these posts and follow the instructions (follow the link in the first post to the base settings for all systems) to tune FSXhttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...=28735&PN=2http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=163716#163716Use those posts and the supporting links should give you everything you need to know for final tuning

the links do not appear to work, so look here:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=237210