Guys and GalsI'm currently putting together a system for a family member who's a mad keen FSX enthusiast but currently has to play it on a laptop.I'm intending to give him a system with FSX, Acceleration, UK Photographic scenery and MyTraffic 5.2? (He's very keen to have non main airports and local liveries and this seems the best option to provide this). It'll also have a Saitek Rudder and Yoke setup. Whatever way I go will have at least 4GB of memory. The screen he's using has 1440x900 resolution, I'd like to ensure this can be upgrade to 1920x1200 later without having to change other system options.I have a number of options which way to go and therefore need some advice in the following areas:-CPU HardwareI understand that FSX is CPU bound and therefore a faster processor is better, however is there a point at which the faster processor gives no benefit?Also I understand that FSX does not use multithreading and as such Quad core processors don't make much of a difference? But if you are in a high density traffic area using MyTraffic will it then use multicore?Simplistically given the choice between a very fast dual core, a Q6600 or an i7 920 which would be the better option?GPU HardwareI have a number of cards available including an ATI 4670 and a Nvidia FX3500, if I've understood the above correctly the system shouldn't need the latest greatest graphics card so would the 3500 be sufficient? Also does DX9/10/11 make much of a difference and if so which card is preferred?OS System.I could install XP, Vista or W7 all either i386 or 64 bit. There seems to be no consensus which is best so perhaps people could give me advice taking into account the above?I realise this type of question gets asked regularly but given the latest updates and newer operating system options it's hard to work out the best option.Thanks in advance.

yes you can easily upgrade a monitor without upgrading other parts. but you will need a fast cpu and graphics card to allow you to play at good frame rates with higher resolutions.those graphics cards might be ok for MS but really you should get a decent one. you can pick up at nvidia 260 gtx for 120 now. install 64 bit. then you can have 4 gig of ram and besides that its just plain faster although it might not make much difference to game play but i have 64 bit. if you chose 32bit, youl be stuck at 3 gig, although there is a way to go above 3 gig with 32bit but i dont knwo if its full proof.why intel? on paper the i7 will be your best choice, but an amd 955 at gaming is just as fast. the i7 will hands down pawn at video coding etc, but gaming theres little difference, and your pocket will be still heavy.and about multithreading. not many games were made with this in mind. but there startting ot make em now. but it will be slightly faster to have a quad over a dual, the other cores will handle the background tasks in windows while the one core for FS.

RaikkyThanks for the response but I'm looking for a slightly more detailed reply that includes specific empiric data or rational.Regards

ok. the faster your CPU, the more FPS you will get. you dont need detailed explanations really. you just need to know the better the system you have, the better its gonna do for you. it cincludes everything.

Re: FSX and the CPU:FSX does use multi-threading, specifically to load scenery textures. This helps prevent "blurries" i.e. blurry ground textures while flying @ altitude. This can prevent "stuttering" that would otherwise be present when the task of loading scenery textures is being executed on a single or even dual-core processor. IIRC this task can scale up to 16 threads but I may be mistaken on the exact number. It is at least 8, however. Since FSX is a largely serial appliation it will always benefit from more CPU clockspeed. The more, the better. FSX FPS is seemingly almost entirely dependent upon CPU clockspeed given a fast enough graphics card and RAM. Re: FSX and the GPU:Nvidia cards are generally faster, but the card in question is a workstation card from 2006. Given this fact I would suggest using the Radeon HD 4670 instead. Re: FSX and the OS:Given a large enough data set (i.e. large view distances and high-res textures, 3rd party aircraft, etc.) the use of a 64-bit OS is recommended. Between XP, Vista, and Win 7 I'd say you're best off with Vista or 7 both for the support of DX 10 and beyond, and the fact that 64-bit drivers for these OSes are much easier to obtain than XP x64 drivers. Between Vista and 7 it's really a toss-up at this point. Vista is proven and 7 isn't even out yet so you take a risk there, albeit a relatively small one given the mostly insignificant changes between NT 6.0 and 6.1. I'm running Vista 64 on 4 machines myself, all run great! So if I were to make a recommendation it would be Vista 64 for now, 7 after more user feedback is available specifically WRT FSX. Perhaps after 7's first Service Pack is available would be a good time.

Thanks TMC, I understand blurries etc... as I've read about them elsewhere.I get the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that since the Aces team were let go people now believe that the MSFS line of products is probably dying out? In the long term that may be a good thing if it forces someone/people to write/rewrite the next Flight Simulator product to take advantage of some of the technical improvements that have come in over the last few years. With 64bit now being available to all and multicore processors the norm a product that loaded all the textures into memory and wasn't so CPU bound.Thanks for the advice, I'll do the build using Vista 64 and see how it performs.Have a good weekend.

I doubt very much we'll ever see any more core improvements made to FSX, since MS still owns the rights to the code and the FS franchise. It would be nice if they would open source the code but MS isn't exactly known for doing such things.

Windows XP Pro x64ATI 4870 OC