Firstly I recently decided to get back into flight simming after 3 years, so I decided build myself a new computer that would hopefully be able to run FSX well. All the parts are currently in the post so if all goes well I should have the PC built, overclocked and stable next week.Once I have the PC up and running, I will then buy some addons for FSX. I have a few questions about setting up FSX and those addons which I will come to in a moment.So, I'll list the specs for the PC, so you know what I will be running FSX (FSX Gold is in the post) with.Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2CPU: Intel Core i7 930 (looking to OC it to at least 3.5GHz, but I would be happy with 3-3.5GHz if for some reason I cant get above)Graphics Card: Sapphire Vapor-X HD 5870RAM: 6GB OCZ Platinum XTC 7-7-7-? (forget the last one, its either 20 or 24 I believe)Heat Sink: Noctua NH-D14HDD: 640GB Western Digital Caviar Black (contemplated SSD or WD raptor installing FSX/addons seperatly to the OS, but decided against for now due to cost)PSU: Corsair HX-650Case: Cooler Master HAF 932OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-BitOk so theres what I will be building and running FSX on shortly.Now, to the questions I wanted to ask.I have done some searching for all/most of these but so far have been unable to be fully satisfied with the results.I have found various tweak/optimising FSX guides, but was never sure which ones were best (for the hardware/OS I have) to think about applying to FSX. If there are any links to guides/tweaks for optimising FSX I would much appreciate them (I'm sure I will have missed some), also if possible, knowing whether they are right for what I am running. Such as, I have heard things about maybe wanting to set FSX up differently depending on what OS or graphics card you have and such.Now to addons.Again I have searched but have not found a satisfactory answer.These are the addons I will get sometime near the start of may:Ultimate Traffic 2Ultimate Terrain X (USA/Canada and europe)Ground Environment X (USA/Canada and europe)FS Global 2010 (For terrain Meshes)Active Sky Evolution (Evolution is the most recent?), I will use Active Sky for the weather program and...Real Environment Extreme ...this I will use for the texturesAll of which comes to rather a lot of money so the addons below will probably be bought if/when I have enough for them. Possible addons I will add in the future: PMDG aircraft and the FS Crew addons to accompany them, A2A's 3D lights, FS Passangers X and others if/when I have the money.As a side note. I plan on learning to fly the aircraft as realistically as possible, so flight planning, checking the weather and such, even simulating the waiting time while passengers board.I will probably start off in small aircraft and work my way up to larger aircraft such as PMDG's 747 or large military aircraft (C-17 and such). Once I know how to fly it all properly I plan on simulating long haul flights in larger aircraft (as well as short flights to enjoy scenery), if thats the best way to learn to fly properly, as I am very new to the 'theory' side of flying.That discussions probably best saved for the Flight School forum though, so I wont go in to too much detail about that.If there are any other addons that are like FS Passangers but more for the military (or normal) side of cargo transporting and such I would be very interested in them, as I feel it will add another dimension where you sort of make a vairtual career or something, which might be quite fun and give me more things to do other than just fly.Ok so I lied, now we are at the questions about addons part of my post.I'm pretty sure the addons I listed will stay as the ones listed (though I do appreciate other suggestions), the only one I am not too sure about is FS Global 2010, I have no idea how good it is or whether theres something out there thats better (what I really like is that it covers the south pole, as I would be particularly interested in flying over there at night (if its as beautiful as I imagine).Ok so my first question about the addons is to do with installing/getting them to work together.Do I need to do any editing to UTX/GEX/FS Global 2010 files to get them to work in harmony with each other, or will they work straight out of the box?Is there a specific order I should install them in?As for Active Sky and REX, I believe that to get REX to do the textures and Active Sky to compute the weather, you have to start REX, load some files with it, close REX, then open Active Sky and FSX together and it should work, right?I think that was all that I wanted to cover and I hope its in the right section and all.Thanks for reading my post (I know its been a long one, sorry).Any help is much appreciated and thankyou in advance.

Here is a link to a good tuning and tweak guide, by Nick Needham, for your system and FSX: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

...Do I need to do any editing to UTX/GEX/FS Global 2010 files to get them to work in harmony with each other, or will they work straight out of the box?Is there a specific order I should install them in?...

No need to do anything - they will work together. I would install them in this order:

1. FS Global 2010
2. UTX
3. GEX

With GEX you have an option to install replacement textures for some UTX textures.

...As for Active Sky and REX, I believe that to get REX to do the textures and Active Sky to compute the weather, you have to start REX, load some files with it, close REX, then open Active Sky and FSX together and it should work, right?...

That would work! Important is that REX also have a weather engine.There is a thread in this forum about REX and Active Sky: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=282315Good luck :(

Thanks very much for the help and linksCurrently reading NickN's optimisation guide you linked (and I thought my post was long :( ).He goes into detail about using nhancer with nvidia cards, showing pics and stuff, will I be able to duplicate those with ATI's version of nhancer? Addon wise it seems Im sorted... Off to the Flight School forum once I've read Nicks post :( .

He goes into detail about using nhancer with nvidia cards, showing pics and stuff, will I be able to duplicate those with ATI's version of nhancer?

Here is a thread OT: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=282213