hi everyone, i am new to fsx. my system is AMD 64 dualcore 4800, 2GB RAM, 24'' dell monitor (2407wfp-hc) and NVIDIA 8500GT 512MB all running on Vista Ultimate 32bit.what is the recommended graphic card for running FSX in full resolution (1920x1200) with full scenery details?thank, roi

hi everyone, i am new to fsx. my system is AMD 64 dualcore 4800, 2GB RAM, 24'' dell monitor (2407wfp-hc) and NVIDIA 8500GT 512MB all running on Vista Ultimate 32bit.what is the recommended graphic card for running FSX in full resolution (1920x1200) with full scenery details?thank, roi

Even with a new oveclocked i7 you would not be able to run FSX at 1920x1200 with Full Scenery Details. FSX is CPU bound not GPU bound. If you want to crank up the graphics as far as you can you are going to need to invest in a new CPU and nothing less than a Nvidia GTX280 for your video card. You would also want to upgrade to a 64bit OS.Regards,Bob

Even with a new oveclocked i7 you would not be able to run FSX at 1920x1200 with Full Scenery Details. FSX is CPU bound not GPU bound. If you want to crank up the graphics as far as you can you are going to need to invest in a new CPU and nothing less than a Nvidia GTX280 for your video card. You would also want to upgrade to a 64bit OS.Regards,Bob

Hi BobInterested in your comments as I am interested in upgrading and was looking to build a ssystem similar to your spec. How close do you come to running FSX at high end detailsCheersSteve

Steve,I can run with Scenery Complexity and the Autogen sliders at Extremely Dense, Airline Traffic: 65%, GA Traffic: 35%, Ships, Ferries, and Boats: 25%, Airport Vehicle Density: Medium, Road Vehicles: 5% and maintain a locked 30FPS in general aviation aircraft. In complex aircraft I drop the autogen slider to Very Dense, Airline Traffic to 45%, CA Traffic to 15% and turn off Road Vehicles. This allows me to maintain over 20FPS at large complex airports and run a locked 30FPS once airborne. I am also using the following addons Acceleration, UTX, GEX, MyTrafficX, Cloud9 Landclass, SceneryTech Landclass and either REX or ASA. I know that I can run at higher settings with general aviation/frame rate friendly aircraft but I have not yet spent the time to see how far I can push the settings (spending more time in heavies atm). FSX looks reallly good at the above settings running at 1920x1200. Hope this helps you a bit.Regards,Bob

Steve,I can run with Scenery Complexity and the Autogen sliders at Extremely Dense, Airline Traffic: 65%, GA Traffic: 35%, Ships, Ferries, and Boats: 25%, Airport Vehicle Density: Medium, Road Vehicles: 5% and maintain a locked 30FPS in general aviation aircraft. In complex aircraft I drop the autogen slider to Very Dense, Airline Traffic to 45%, CA Traffic to 15% and turn off Road Vehicles. This allows me to maintain over 20FPS at large complex airports and run a locked 30FPS once airborne. I am also using the following addons Acceleration, UTX, GEX, MyTrafficX, Cloud9 Landclass, SceneryTech Landclass and either REX or ASA. I know that I can run at higher settings with general aviation/frame rate friendly aircraft but I have not yet spent the time to see how far I can push the settings (spending more time in heavies atm). FSX looks reallly good at the above settings running at 1920x1200. Hope this helps you a bit.Regards,Bob

Wow - thanks v much Bob for taking the time for all this info...Best wishesSteve

hi everyone, i am new to fsx. my system is AMD 64 dualcore 4800, 2GB RAM, 24'' dell monitor (2407wfp-hc) and NVIDIA 8500GT 512MB all running on Vista Ultimate 32bit.what is the recommended graphic card for running FSX in full resolution (1920x1200) with full scenery details?thank, roi

Just to keep life simple.. and assuming you do not want to spend a lot of dollarsfor the upgrade (and the power supply/cooling requirements that come with it), go to the nvidia web site and look up the specifications for the cards you are considering.One key spec is the memory bandwidth of the card, indicating how much scenery detailyour card can process.Your 8500GT has 17GB/sA 9600GT has 57GB/sA 9800GTX has 70GB/secI would suggest that starting with the 9600GT, you areat a level that will run FSX well at the resolution you are after.

I am running FSX on an Intel E8400 CPU with Vista Ultimate x64 and 8 GB 800Mhz DDR2 with 8800 GTs in SLI (properly used WITHOUT nHancer) UTX USA/Canada/Europe, ASA, WOAI (all packages), GEX, GenesisX, with NO fsx.cfg tweaks (except to the video areas). I do have my system overclocked from 3.0 Ghz to 3.6 Ghz (linked and synced so the RAM is running at 800 Mhz and FSB at 1600). I have all sliders in terrain maxed I have all traffic OFF for boats and cars but I have Commercial and GA at 100% and aircraft shadows all on. I am running my computer on air and not water. My system maintains 56C and below on CPU RAM and GPUs and 46C and below on HDs. I do use multiple drives to ease the burden of I/O and I do not use the OS drive for FSX.Doing all of this was quite an accomplishment and I have to say there is a lot of bad information out there. However, if I can do it so can you. That said I can tell you that FPS varies quite a bit depending on where you are in the world and if I am going to shoot approaches into Frankfurt I will not use these settings. Configuring FSX teaches you what to set where so you can have a beautiful scenery and excellent smooth video while you fly. FPS is meaningless beyond that. I recommend you read through NickN's suggestions for FSX setup, but bear in mind what I am doing with SLI even NickN says cannot be done, yet it can. He also recommends nHancer which I would not wish upon my worst enemy. Still, I learned by following NickN's advice and taking it from there, so that's what I recommend.As to the overclocking stuff... I read up on what the guru's on EVGAs forums report they do and I followed their approach. The best advice I can offer anyone is read ten things before you do one thing and test only one thing at a time. Knowledge is everything.

8800 GTs in SLI (properly used WITHOUT nHancer)

I am looking into leveraging my 9800GTX+ with adding a second in SLI and am wondering what you mean by "properly" SLI-ed?Also, what is wrong with nHancer?Is SLI even worth it in FSX? I have heard since it doesnt even properly leverage the GPU it is a waste of time.Thanx!

To the original poster: Be careful on vendor web page specifications. Many of the newer cards use DDR3 memory for the nVidia specs.. However, other companies, who produce the cards under license, use lower end components to give the appearance of a bargain. Using DDR2 memory instead of DDR3 is one way to accomplish this.To Illustrate, from nVidia site:Memory Specs:Memory Clock (MHz)800 (GDDR3) and 500 (DDR2) MHzStandard Memory Config256/512 MB Memory Interface Width128-bit Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)25.6 (GDDR3) and 16.0 (DDR2)

Steve,I can run with Scenery Complexity and the Autogen sliders at Extremely Dense, Airline Traffic: 65%, GA Traffic: 35%, Ships, Ferries, and Boats: 25%, Airport Vehicle Density: Medium, Road Vehicles: 5% and maintain a locked 30FPS in general aviation aircraft. In complex aircraft I drop the autogen slider to Very Dense, Airline Traffic to 45%, CA Traffic to 15% and turn off Road Vehicles. This allows me to maintain over 20FPS at large complex airports and run a locked 30FPS once airborne. I am also using the following addons Acceleration, UTX, GEX, MyTrafficX, Cloud9 Landclass, SceneryTech Landclass and either REX or ASA. I know that I can run at higher settings with general aviation/frame rate friendly aircraft but I have not yet spent the time to see how far I can push the settings (spending more time in heavies atm). FSX looks reallly good at the above settings running at 1920x1200. Hope this helps you a bit.Regards,Bob

Hi Bob,I am running at 1680 x 1050, and have similar (but lower I'm sure) performance as you describe above. Since I don't seem to need much more, I usually run at 4.05Ghz, but the most complex bird I'm in is the Super MD80 Pro, which is a very mild add on as commercial aircraft goes. I am wondering how much better your new rig runs, as a comparison against my current rig, expressed as a percentage improvement in "overall performance" . . . defined as frame rate + texture update rate + smoothness. 130%?Noel

hi everyone, i am new to fsx. my system is AMD 64 dualcore 4800, 2GB RAM, 24'' dell monitor (2407wfp-hc) and NVIDIA 8500GT 512MB all running on Vista Ultimate 32bit.what is the recommended graphic card for running FSX in full resolution (1920x1200) with full scenery details?thank, roi

At minimum, you will want a 9800 series card. If you can get something better, that would be great. Of course, FS needs the best CPU you can afford. I am finding that you also need the best GPU you can afford, also. My rig runs FSX well, but then I don't use any addons.Bob

I am looking into leveraging my 9800GTX+ with adding a second in SLI and am wondering what you mean by "properly" SLI-ed?Also, what is wrong with nHancer?Is SLI even worth it in FSX? I have heard since it doesnt even properly leverage the GPU it is a waste of time.Thanx!

Sorry to bring up an old past thread, but I received a request for a reply to this thread (so here I am).The problem with SLI systems is usually the drivers available from Nvidia. What ever you do get your drivers from the manufacturer of your specific cards. Make sure your cards are identical and do not use nHancer. nHancer will allow you more control of specific functions of the card, but usually it breaks SLI functionality. I initially used evga 8800 GTs and I experimented with drivers, the Nvidia Control Panel and nHancer before coming to the conclusion that nHancer is more trouble than it's worth. Also, please note that Nvidia and Microsoft are in collaboration together to get you away from Windows XP (it's my take on it) and so Nvidia has forever broken vsync on XP. If you are using XP you will never get SLI to work again with vsync. Yes, it operates and it responds as if SLI is working, but note that vsync is forever off.My test conditions were to freshly install my O.S. (Vista 64) and FSX along with the addons that I would use everyday (ASE UTX FSGenesis GEX etc). Finally, I used FSXmark07 (available from the Avsim file library) to benchmark each and every change. Additionally, I ran each setting through three times on FSXmark07 and used FRAPs to log the benchmark results. I did this with a single card and then with two cards in SLI. It is important to note that you must leave the FSX settings alone while conducting these benchmark runs, or you invalidate the results per settings. In the end I came up with these Nvidia Control Panel settings as optimum.Now, having shown you the results I must inform you that merely installing nHancer on your system will 'likely' invalidate the operation. You must completely remove nHancer and clean your system of any and all Nvidia drivers before installing the latest drivers (as of right now the latest for evga would be 196.21). If you later install nHancer on your system you will likely break SLI and lose control over the video card.I can confirm that the eVGA GTX 295s respond likewise, except I have anti-aliasing set to SLI32xQ.The only downside to SLI is that the scaling is likely only 10-30% increase in performance for each card added. Likely, the newer 480s will scale to 100% as the benchmarking sites are reporting, and I am anxiously awaiting any and all reports in that regard.Keep the dirty side down everyone!