turning your computer on and off every night causes more stress than overclocking.

I suspect that autogen is the real framerate disaster area. I use VFR Generation X Version 2 photographic scenery and VFR Airfields to fly around England and Wales, and most of my detail levels are set to maximum.Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83Ghz4GB PC2-8500 RAM512MB GeForce 9800GTSoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Music500GB Sata-II hard disk

There is nothing wrong with overclocking the CPU if it is done within reasonable limits. Both 8 and 9 series I7 have an auto overclock function. If the system detects that you are running a program that is using only one core it will automatically overclock that core for you. This is something that has been built in by the manufacturer, so no damage to warranty and no reduction is life. I don

as usual, I read what other FS gamers have to power their PMDG add-ons. The J-41 sucked the life blood from my PC. I'll be lucky to get in the mid teens when it is all said and done. My system is two years old and again has fell short of what programers has intended for the overall peformance of their products, i.e rain drops etc. I have a quad core P5NE-SLI, 8800 ULTRA with 2 gigs of balistics tracer ram and windows XP 32. It's time for a huge upgrade. Other than calling "that guy" to do a system unification on my PC, I've pretty much decided it's time to upgrade. Any help would be greatly appreciated in what need to a have a smoking hot PMDG running PC.Thanks for your attention!!Chris

Chris,it all depends on the cash you have to spend...Currently, the i7s are the best bet, go for the highest clockspeed you can afford, get adequate cooling to give you soem "legroom" for overclocking. Match the processor with a suitable board; I make no suggestions, as this is often a personal like/dislike zone (though best to support DDR3 to get the most out of the i7)... Get 64bit Windows7, a fitting GPU for the processor/board and 6Gb DDR3 RAM. Get the fastest drives you can afford, Raptors currently fit that bill, but are not cheap... get at least two, one for the OS, one for FS, use something else for storage...This should allow you to run FSX at good settings with smoothness. What features you want to have is a personal matter, so I make no suggestions of "slider positions".Andrew

I suspect that autogen is the real framerate disaster area. I use VFR Generation X Version 2 photographic scenery and VFR Airfields to fly around England and Wales, and most of my detail levels are set to maximum.Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83Ghz4GB PC2-8500 RAM512MB GeForce 9800GTSoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Music500GB Sata-II hard disk

Hello, planes use it, because I can run everything at maximum about 50 FPS but with FSX aircraft, nothing else! PMDG die with my pc! and is very similar to your pc! GreetingsAndres Soler

Thanks for the reply Andrew. I know opinions in the gaming community are all over the ball park. People like to promote products with the intent to sell and not to give you the best bang for the buck. I have had several people, to whom I respect say that getting dual 8600 gts are still by far todays best choice for flight simming. Cheaper still than buying a G295 for around 6 bills.rergards,Chris

Hello everybody! nothing wanted to take advantage of the time greeting and thank you in answering! Right now I'm checking the settings and when I get something I love as is and tell them upload photos so you can see! Meanwhile anyone with ideas or I can continue helping would be very good and thanks for the help. Anyone with Quad core, discuss your experience! Thanks and sorry for my English! I do not speak very wellAndres Soler

Chris, without owning one of the 295s, I would say it is a little overkill in FS, as the current engine just doesn't utilise the graphics core(s) really. FS is still a CPU limited game. Furthermore, SLI has no advantage whatsoever in FS, so dual cards are going to be a little pointless...If you want DX10 preview, then you will of course need a card that supports DX10... I am not sure if that is anything 8000+, I am not sure if the 7 series nvidias for example support DX10, I would guess not...You are totally correct though. Some "recommendations" are way over the top. I saw some comment that the hardware industry would ride the recession purely on the backs of the FSX Acc upggraders buying i7 extremes and all the works... :(Andrew

I'll offer this to Andres:First my computer specs:Asus P5QC motherboardQ9550 QuadCore CPU oc 3.6 GHz4 GB OCZ PC2 6400 DDR2 RAMBFG GeForce 275 GTX (stock speeds), 182.50 video driver and am using nHancerCorsair 850HX PSU1 WD Raptor X 150 GB SATA HDD (dedicated to FSX)2 Seagate 320 GB SATA HDDs1 Seagate 1 TB HDD (running the operating system)SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty ProPioneer DVR-111D DVD-RW PATALite-On LH-20A1S DVD-RW SATANEC MultiSync 90GX 19" LCDWin Vista Home Premium (64 bit)I'm running FSX with Acceleration, REX2, GEX, Utimate Traffic 2, Radar Contact, TrackIR 4 Pro. I follow all of NickN's tuning tips for both FSX and Vista64 (see elsewhere for those...google works well)Aircraft payware includes PMDG's J4100, Flight1 Cessna Mustang, and too many others :( My fsx.cfg include a bufferpools setting of 450000000, affinitymask=14, and FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33. I usually lock framerate at 26 but in urban areas will sometimes set it at unlimited while using the FPS Limiter (available via google search).I get very acceptable framerates (things are smooth) in the J4100 with scenery and autogen sliders at dense...in some rural areas, very dense. AI traffic is commercial - 60% and GA - 40%. I set the road traffic at no higher than 10%. In more urban areas, I'll knock back the autogen slider to normal. I usually don't touch the other sliders, which are set near their limits, except for water, which is set to Low 2.x. Hope this is a useful guideline for tuning your system, Andres, but of course, your mileage may vary. Good luck.

Chris, without owning one of the 295s, I would say it is a little overkill in FS, as the current engine just doesn't utilise the graphics core(s) really. FS is still a CPU limited game. Furthermore, SLI has no advantage whatsoever in FS, so dual cards are going to be a little pointless...If you want DX10 preview, then you will of course need a card that supports DX10... I am not sure if that is anything 8000+, I am not sure if the 7 series nvidias for example support DX10, I would guess not...You are totally correct though. Some "recommendations" are way over the top. I saw some comment that the hardware industry would ride the recession purely on the backs of the FSX Acc upggraders buying i7 extremes and all the works... :(Andrew

Take a look on the avsim forums. Users with that card have complained of less than stellar performance and a few have sent them back for 285's/

Good point... I read just a couple of hours ago that the card has a dual core architecture, and that does not work at all well with FSX, similar to the fact that SLI does not work well either...A lot of the high end builders are steering clear of the 295 cards...Mind you, at that price I would too, but for other reasons!:(Andrew