I'm going to school for the next few years, and after I graduate, I'm planning on building a really nice computer to play fsx on. Do you (PMDG) think you will still be selling and supporting products (all FSX) like the 747, MD11, J41, upcoming 737ngx and Dash 8.I'm asking because I really don't want the possiblity of them not being available when Ihave the cash to build a killer system, and I'm thinking of buying them now, but I would rather buy them when I have a computer capable of using them.Please don't flame me lol, I know I sound ridiculous :(

We have no intention of going anywhere Craig.

We have no intention of going anywhere Craig.

Thats good news because flying default aircraft is not an option. Yourplanes are about the closest I can get to flying the real thing.

You do know that you do not have to choose between a killer system and nothing at all. 1000 bucks can set you up with some serious high high-end kit. $500 will get you a pretty handy quad-core or i3 system which will manage FSX with no issues. $250 will get you some 2nd hand kit on ebay that will run FSX reasonably and let you do your school work.

You do know that you do not have to choose between a killer system and nothing at all. 1000 bucks can set you up with some serious high high-end kit. $500 will get you a pretty handy quad-core or i3 system which will manage FSX with no issues. $250 will get you some 2nd hand kit on ebay that will run FSX reasonably and let you do your school work.

Yah, its really come down. The last time I looked was end of last year. I got a macbook pro 13, because it fit my needs really nicely, and I was exclusively looking for a thin and light laptop, and never planned on playing fsx on it. I might still invest in a nice desktop though, I at the current level they are at, can you get good performance for under a grand?

Yah, its really come down. The last time I looked was end of last year. I got a macbook pro 13, because it fit my needs really nicely, and I was exclusively looking for a thin and light laptop, and never planned on playing fsx on it. I might still invest in a nice desktop though, I at the current level they are at, can you get good performance for under a grand?

It's going to be somewhat hard to stay under a grand if you need everything (case, monitor, storage drives etc), but it should be close. Look into a build using an OCed i5 750 and a previous generation vid card like a GTX260.

With laptops, you are paying for portablity and battery life. With Desktops, you pay for performance (and for someone else to put it together). For a 1000 bucks, you can get an Win7 i7-920 @4GHz, 6Gig DDR3 Ram, Terrabyte disks, high end GPU (but not bleeding edge) and a decent monitor. And still have change. Google newegg, overclockers etc.

With laptops, you are paying for portablity and battery life. With Desktops, you pay for performance (and for someone else to put it together). For a 1000 bucks, you can get an Win7 i7-920 @4GHz, 6Gig DDR3 Ram, Terrabyte disks, high end GPU (but not bleeding edge) and a decent monitor. And still have change. Google newegg, overclockers etc.

Yah I'm defenately building my own, I believe I've reached that level of expertise. I bought the laptop because it wasan absolute necessity, not because I wanted one, I've been a desktop guy my whole life, it was tough to get used to it.picking hardware to build a computer exclusely for fsx seems a bit difficult, because from what I have read on here and onother boards, the best of the best hardware does not mean you get the best performance in fsx.

It's going to be somewhat hard to stay under a grand if you need everything (case, monitor, storage drives etc), but it should be close. Look into a build using an OCed i5 750 and a previous generation vid card like a GTX260.

How well do you think my 13 inch macbook pro will fair with the MD11, J41 or the upcoming 737 and dash 8? I'll probably dualboot it with windows xp, its got 2 gb of ram now but I can put more in. its got a 2.26 ghz dualcore and the nvidia 9400 which isn't the greatest. I'm alright with having little to no autogen, ai traffic etc.

The relatively low resolution of the screen (1280X800) on the 13" helps you out. What would worry me is the total system RAM and the video RAM. You really need 4GB of system RAM and 512MB of video RAM for FSX to run at it's best. You can probably get it down a bit by not using autogen and stuff, but it's still probably going to go over the 256MB the GPU on the 13" has. I'd get a 64-bit OS on there too, you'll probably get OOM errors in XP.

The relatively low resolution of the screen (1280X800) on the 13" helps you out. What would worry me is the total system RAM and the video RAM. You really need 4GB of system RAM and 512MB of video RAM for FSX to run at it's best. You can probably get it down a bit by not using autogen and stuff, but it's still probably going to go over the 256MB the GPU on the 13" has. I'd get a 64-bit OS on there too, you'll probably get OOM errors in XP.

So I'm assuming you can't get 64 bit windows xp? If the graphic card needs more memory will it start to use the system ram?

Of course there's XP 64b :)

Of course there's XP 64b :)

Yah I googled that right after I replyed lol.

I don't think there's any reason to run XP, the OS is 10 years old next year. (already is if you factor in the prerelease betas and RCs...) Win7 x64 is what I would run.I'm not entirely sure if the graphics card will use system RAM if it needs more, but that's always going to be a lot slower even if it does because it has to travel across the system bus.