Hello all. I am looking for advice from someone very knowledgeable of FSX and hardware. Here is my current setup:FSXSP2-No AccelerationTrack IR 4 with TrackIR 5 softwareMSI X58 Pro Motherboard (Bios Ver 7.3)Intel Core i7 920 (OC

Hello all. I am looking for advice from someone very knowledgeable of FSX and hardware. Here is my current setup:FSXSP2-No AccelerationTrack IR 4 with TrackIR 5 softwareMSI X58 Pro Motherboard (Bios Ver 7.3)Intel Core i7 920 (OC

Just my 2 cents worth but... I would agree with previous poster and upgrade to a 64 bit OS and also upgrade your ram to something faster. The ram you are running is really slow compared to what most of us run with. I would get 6 gigs of 1600mhz ram with 7-7-7 or better timing. Dont get me wrong, a new VC will help but you a weak on the front end.

A few things:Your video card's frame buffer is inadequate. I suggest you get a new video card with around 1GB video RAM such as a GTX 260/275/285. 3GB RAM and 32-bit XP for an overclocked i7? You should fix both of these.

Thank you very much guys. The advice is very much appreciated. I suspected that you would recommend upgrading memory. Didn't think about upgrading to 64 bit OS. Perhaps you all could answer a few more questions:As I said before FSX is running quite well. The thing that really brings performance down is when I select the weather themes: Fogged In, Grey and Rainy, Major Thunderstorm, Stormy Weather; so in essence, lots of clouds.What is this indicative of? I know FSX is very reliant upon the CPU & RAM for good performance, and lastly the graphics card.Are clouds harder on the CPU, or GPU?Would you all recommend XP 64 bit, or W7 64 bit?Thanks a bunch.-Nick

Clouds are a GPU performance killer.

Clouds are a GPU performance killer.

Alright then, I think I should upgrade my GFX card first because I am pretty happy with the performance when there are not alot of clouds. I am thinking an MSI GTX 260. I can get that on New Egg for $155. My monthly budget is $200. What do you think?

That's a good card at a good price but it's a tough decision if you can only do one upgrade at a time. You definitely want to get on an O.S. that supports more RAM and DirectX10 and newer, as FSX's DX10 code path also offers a performance boost up to 25% greater than the standard DX9 code path. If you can do all 3 at the same time I'd say go for it. The RAM should be alright @ 3GB as long as your software environment is pretty lean and mean (i.e. not a lot of background tasks taking up RAM), so you can do that last.

FSX's DX10 code path also offers a performance boost up to 25% greater than the standard DX9 code path.

Yeah up to 25% greater performance with a host of other anomalies. The DirectX 10 preview in FSX is just that a

Yeah up to 25% greater performance with a host of other anomalies. The DirectX 10 preview in FSX is just that a

Copy that guys. I can do an OS upgrade soon as well. No one recommended an OS though. Right now I am thinking Windows 7 64 bit. I have heard good things about it.

Copy that guys. I can do an OS upgrade soon as well. No one recommended an OS though. Right now I am thinking Windows 7 64 bit. I have heard good things about it.

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Alright then, I think I should upgrade my GFX card first because I am pretty happy with the performance when there are not alot of clouds. I am thinking an MSI GTX 260. I can get that on New Egg for $155. My monthly budget is $200. What do you think?

I would highly suggest you look at the 275 instead. Same amount of cores as the 285 and in the benchmarks I have seen show a OC'd 275 can hold its own against a stock 285. I have a 260 and I can tell you that multiple cloud layers in REX will push the 260 to it's limits pretty quickly, especially with the high def textures. The price point on the 275 is starting to come down to your budget range:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...5-290-_-Product

I would highly suggest you look at the 275 instead. Same amount of cores as the 285 and in the benchmarks I have seen show a OC'd 275 can hold its own against a stock 285. I have a 260 and I can tell you that multiple cloud layers in REX will push the 260 to it's limits pretty quickly, especially with the high def textures. The price point on the 275 is starting to come down to your budget range:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...5-290-_-Product

Thanks for the suggestion AlphaInfinity but I already purchased the 260 and I am quite pleased with the performance. The performance gain of the 275 over the 260 is not worth the higher price to me. I will not be utilizing high def textures anytime soon for I am pleased with the lower res; maybe after the next upgrade in 1 year, who knows.