I have been looking at new systems for FS9 and with the march forward to 64bit, Vista and FSX , i believe we are now in a position where a PC for FS9 cannot be improved upon, as the software would not run. So with that in mind, there must be an optimum system for FS9 that cannot be bettered? Hopefully with all our input together we can work out the best PC for people...ProcessorFS9 cannot make use of a Quad core processor as its not designed to make use of multi-cores. So a Core 2 Duo is the best processor we can get with Windows running on one core and FS9 on the other. After looking at the chips available, it looks like an E8600 offers the fastest clock speed at 3.33GHz. Processor = Intel E8600Operating SystemFS9 does not seem to make use of 64 bit Operating systems so for our ideal system, 32 bit should be perfect and is well tested. I do not think there is much difference between Vista and XP in terms of running FS9 but for ease of use, I think XP wins.Operating System = Windows XP SP3 32-bitGraphics CardWe have the choice of 512MB or 1GB cards in either ATI or nVidia flavours. I have read that 1Gb cards take over 1Gb of system RAM so a 512MB card should be able to run FS9 properly without slowing down the system.As for the perfect card, it comes down to a matter of preference between nVidia and ATI, with the best ATI card being the 4870 and the nvidia being the 9800GT 250. After looking at benchmark tests the 250 jsut pips the ATi soGraphics Card = Nvidia 9800GT 250 512Mb RAMIf we go with our previous recommendation of Windows XP then the most memory we can use is 4GB. We then need to consider the speed of the RAM, with 1066Mhz being the fastest I have found.RAM = 4GB 1066MhzMotherboardI am looking for suggestions for this as have not used enough boards .HDDAlso looking for best suggestions.I expect people will disagree with a lot of the above, but I have made a starting point and if people can suggest better PC specs for FS9 then we will be closer to knowing what the ultimate FS9 PC will be....

Those specs look good. You might want to overclock that E8600 to 4.0 GHz, which wouldn't be too hard to do on that cpu.The main reason people use x64 OS's is because you can have windows recognize more than 3.25GB of RAM. FS9 hardly uses more than 2 in my experience so Win XP x86 (32bit) would be an alright choice.Video card should be fine, as long as don't want to run a huge monitorHDD I'd recommend a Velicraptor:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136322Motherboard, a P45http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359

FS9 cannot make use of a Quad core processor as its not designed to make use of multi-cores. So a Core 2 Duo is the best processor we can get with Windows running on one core and FS9 on the other. After looking at the chips available, it looks like an E8600 offers the fastest clock speed at 3.33GHz.

Whether an application (game/FS9) can take advantage of multi-cores or not, the efficiency of the CPU is what matters as far as performance is concerned. A Quad core i7 running at 3.3GHz is still going to be more powerful than a Core 2 Duo running at 3.3GHz regardless of whether or not the game was designed to make use of multi-cores.That being said the Core 2 Duo E8600 is more than capable of running FS9, just not as well as an i7 at the same clock speed.

FS9 does not seem to make use of 64 bit Operating systems so for our ideal system, 32 bit should be perfect and is well tested. I do not think there is much difference between Vista and XP in terms of running FS9 but for ease of use, I think XP wins.Operating System = Windows XP SP3 32-bit

FS9 along with a lot of other 32 bit games/sims work fine with a 64-bit OS. I've never seen any performance hit from running FS9 on XP Pro 64-bit, Vista 64 or the Windows 7 64-bit RC. For gaming a 64-bit OS is the way to go.

We have the choice of 512MB or 1GB cards in either ATI or nVidia flavours. I have read that 1Gb cards take over 1Gb of system RAM so a 512MB card should be able to run FS9 properly without slowing down the system.

I've been running FS9 on 1 and 2 GB cards for a while now and they don't