I really like John's recommendations, and find them very thoughtful and reasonable, easy to implement, in particular in conjunction with powerful computers. Just one thing concerning vehicle traffic speeds - the FS car traffic is already set to a default speed of 60 mph (100 km/hr) which may seem fast to some. It is possible to change this speed in the appropriate parameter file (which uses metric values). Changing that value from 100 (km/hr) to 60 (km/hr) would equal a speed in mph of a little less than 40 mph. Which is probably a pretty realistic average speed on most highways.Best regards.Luis

Not in the US .... if its not rush hour (which its not on FSX highways) we typically drive at 70 - 80 mph.

Hi Tom,Well, I wouldn't call myself and FSX naysayer, just sometimes, I get frustrated.But I am itching to ask you the obvious question: How do you get such good frame-rates without almost no tweaking? Do you also get high teens or low 20's with PMDG 744X too in Megascenery airports like Amsterdam (Aerosoft)? Just wondering...EDIT: Actually I also get in the low teens in mega-airports with PMDG 744X but my traffic, as an example is set to 10% GA and 25% commercial aviation.John

Well John that's a easy one lol Mega airport Amsterdam gives you low framerates in FSX or FS9 it doesn't matter compared to other stuff :(:(

- I don't use any 2048 or 4096 textures for aircraft or clouds- I don't fly complex FPS hogging aircraft (I think the Aerosoft A320 is a step in the right direction in that respect)

- Well to add the same should also hold for FPS hogging scenery and large texture sizes ;-)Will it stop the tweaking circus I don't think so :(

I have a similar system to the one Yankee outlined except for a GTX460 rather than a 480.  The trick to optimizing this system is to learn what the hardware can and cannot do and all the OC / FSX.cfg details.  This is the best system that I ever ran FSX on but balance is still required to make it all work.  Work incrementally (use the default flight) when setting it up especially when installing addons. Then you can gauge how each addon / setting affects the sim.Anyway, have fun with your new system.jja   

Will it be enough for FSX or should wait another couple of decades? :( Will I need to tweak the the FSX cfg file ? :( Will it stop blurries, stutters? :( Will it still struggle to give more than 20 fps? B) Thanks

Looking at what you have outlined I would say it should considering its a lot more computer that what I have in my sig and I am primarly a flyer of airliners into big hubs like DFW, JFK, etc. I think the biggest thing however in getting the rig to work well with specs like that is just making sure that the setup of the OS, all your drivers, security sytem if you use one, and then lastly FSX will tell the story on how well your experience goes.You have problems or something not set properly, bad video drivers, or any of the things mentioned above it can throw a monkey wrench in your whole experience. I read all the time about people with rigs much better than mine struggling to get good performance and dont. As long as you start with a good foundation and go from there you should fly with a rig like that considering I have less system than you do and have no issues whats so every.I will say this as well, when you start follow NickN's guide to a tee, or try *******' suggestions, or you could use a pay service like I did. As an example of the performace I get, I just bought the PMDG 747 last week at Fry's for $30. I installed it and a few days ago made my first round the world trip in the order of KDFW->KFLL->TNCM->KJFK->LSZH->VHHH->KSFO->KDFW. I had the computer on and ran the flight the whole way with no FSX reboots, ASA running the whole time on a networked computer, and UT2 and WOAI providing the traffic. In the whole trip I never got FPS never lower that 19 and normally on approaches into the larger hubs I maintained around 20 to 25 FPS. When in cruise I was always around 40+ FPS.So in other words, if my rig can give me that type of performance, you should be in REALLY good shape. On last thing I will mention though. Even though I am not using any FSX.cfg tweaks, I only run 1024 textures for clouds since I honestly cant tell that much of a difference between those and the higher res ones, I mip map all my AI and user a/c textures, I even go thru and mip and convert most of my addon sceneries to DXT3 textures if they aren't already. Granted it takes some time to do that stuff, but I think in the end it helps to yield better performance.Good luck and let us know how it all pans out for you.

hi,Thank you guys for your replies. So it seems that this system will run FSX quite well. I don't like the autogen stuff so it should help. I am addicted to photoscenery...I will think it over. I have the green light from my wife. I am worried. I suspect her of planning to buy something expensive too... :(

Hi,I'am thinking about buying a new computer:I7 860 oveclocked at 4.2asus P6X58D-E corsair dominator 6 Go DDR3 1600Mhz C8Nvidia GTX 480 1.5 GoWestern digital 1To 64 Mo 7200tr/mn Caviar blackCoolmaster Haf Xcooler Master GX power 750 wSeven pro1 year warrantyWill it be enough for FSX or should wait another couple of decades? :( Will I need to tweak the the FSX cfg file ? :( Will it stop blurries, stutters? :( Will it still struggle to give more than 20 fps? B) Thanks

Most of the recommendations and personal experiences here carry with them some caveat. Will this new system meet all of the requirements you suggested above? Yes....but not without sacrificing somewhere.

Most of the recommendations and personal experiences here carry with them some caveat. Will this new system meet all of the requirements you suggested above? Yes....but not without sacrificing somewhere.

Hi, Your system is similar to the one I think of buying so you know what you are talking about. What limitations do you have? What are the sacrifices that you had to make? Maybe some of them are not important to me.After all those years since FSX was released, it is incredible that the latest computers, which are much much more powerful than my 6 year old machine, still struggle to run FSX !!!It shows how poorly designed our beloved simulator was . I doubt that we will have a CPU up to the task one day :Shame On You:Or are we asking for too much?

Hi, Your system is similar to the one I think of buying so you know what you are talking about. What limitations do you have? What are the sacrifices that you had to make? Maybe some of them are not important to me.After all those years since FSX was released, it is incredible that the latest computers, which are much much more powerful than my 6 year old machine, still struggle to run FSX !!!It shows how poorly designed our beloved simulator was . I doubt that we will have a CPU up to the task one day :Shame On You:Or are we asking for too much?

Hello,Just a heads up..I'm long-winded. So, if this post is too long, pay a friend $5 to make you an audio tape so you can listen to this post the next time you and a friend/sigificant other decide to drive cross-country.With regards to sacrafices, it depends on the monitor I am using at the time. With the 30" Dell, the "cost" is a little more than the 23" (for obvious reasons). I do use the Dell predominantly though for flyig while the 23" is regulated to FS Commander or whatever else I am doing.First, the main thing you want to decide is what exactly will you be doing in FSX. Are you a GA person that likes cruising around the outback or mountains of Alaska, or are you a landing at KLAX in bad weather sittig in the nose of a 747 type of person? I am an airliner type person. While I do enjoy GA at times, it is most often the type of GA flying where you head into busy airports (not your local flying clubs or "strips" out in the middle of nowhere).Next, what is it graphically that you care MOST about. You can make some quick and choices here. Chances are, if you prefer flying along the coast of California or the Caribbean or some other seaside scenery, turig down the water graphics is probably not something you would like to do. However, if your trips consist mainly of flying from Las Vegas to JFK Airport in a 767, than dropping the water down quite a ways can be a quick way to pick up some performance. I fly around California into and out of busy airports so I am pretty much screwed either way. :( I know quite a few people who fly airliners and don't spend much time looking outside the aircraft so they turn down autogen and water and don't really see any graphical differences....tell that to a user of Orbx PNW and they would just look at you with a blank stare. Inversely, tell a strict GA user that you need to fly from KLAS to KLAX using the HEC trasition and you need to program the SID for RW1L and a Star for RW25L and they would probably wander off before you were done with your sentence. The point of all this? I talk to much. The other point? We all have different desires/expectations within flightsim. In order for any of what I say to matter, it is improtant to also take into account the add-os I use, as these can affect performance:GTXUTXREX2UT2FS GenesisASESince I perfer complex airliner/airports, here is what I usually "sacrafice" if I need too (again, it really depends on the airport and weather):TerrainWater - Never higher than Med. 2x (A lot of folks use High 1x with good results, last time I tried it, I think I picked up about 4-6 FPS)Autogen - Dense or very dense (sometimes Full, but that depends on the add-on)Mesh Resolution - 10m (I use FS Genesis)AIRoad Traffic - 8% (Turn it off if you don't care about this. Road traffic can hurt.)Ships and ferries - 20% (Turn it off if you don't care.)Liesure Boats - 20% (Turn it off if you don't care.)Airport Vehicle Density - MediumGA Traffic (UT2) - 50%Commercial Traffic - (UT2) - 100% (but I would recommend 75% or maybe a bit lower depedning on where you are at and what you are flying...that's why I listed it here)AircraftAircraft casts shadows on itself - OffBloom - OffDX10 Preview - Off (this may actually help your performance though if you have a DX10 card, just know that it is locked, IIRC, at 2xFSAA)WeatherMax Viewable distance - I use ASE and set it to about 40-50 (I actually think any further looks unrealistic). In-game, if I am not usig ASE for some reason, I have it set to 60.Thermal Visualixation - NoneGraphicsFSAA - 16xFSAA and 8xSS*Some will say, "Just use 8xS, it looks almost as good. Well, to put it simply....no it doesn't. The 16xFSAA with 8x Super-sampling pretty much eliminates 100% of ANY shimmer. My PMDG cockpits that once had this issue are now pretty much completely devoid of any panel shimmer whatsoever. In fact, I can't really remember when I had panel shimmer after using these FSAA settings (thanks to Tabs from PMDG for pointing out the Nvidia Inspector Super-Sampling settigs). Having said that, these high FSAA settings do ot hurt nearly as much with a GTX 480. The GTX 480 blows through FSAA. However, at this resolution, high FSAA levels will start to show a little bit of hurting in some games...not much mind you (of course, I don't play Metro 2033 though, lmao). This GTX 480 completely decimates my GTX 285 when it comes to FSAA performance and comparing it to my older 8800 GTX falls uder the "completely rediculous" category. In closing, be mindful of your expectations and you will be fine. If you are looking for a system that can max out FSX in every regard while at the same time using very hiugh levels of FSAA and get a rock solid 30 FPS in the type of flying I do, one does not exist yet (unless you can OC to 5.5ghz with phase change cooling). If you are the type of person that isn't looking for "OMG!!!111 100% full right sliders" to enjoy FSX, you will probably be happy as a clam with a system similar to mine (on a side note, what does "happy as a clam mean", why not "happy as a starfish"? The reference to a clam seems arbitrary.) Unfortunately, FSX is just one of those apps. that is heavily CPU dependant, and while graphics cards make pretty decet strides each tech evolution, CPUs do not. Games are being designed nowadays with emphasis on GPU use, and processors are being designed for multitasking performance. FSX, falls uder the "needs blistering CPU speed" category, which again ufortunately, does not get as much attention it seems. I've had my system set from 3.8 ghz to 4.3ghz and I only saw about a 3-4 fps differece between the lower and higher end of the spectrum. A while back, somebody had posted performance results at 5.0+ ghz with liquid nitrogen and FSX did pretty darn well. For those of us in the mainstream, we are at the mercy of the chip makers. A few weeks back, a person asked me what's the foolproof way to set up their computer so they could fly complex airliners in Flightsim without ever worrying about performace. I told him to install FS9. Hope this helped! It gave me carpal tunnel. :(

I'm saving up for that 480. Hopefully by the end of the year prices will be a little lower too. Any recommendations on the brand of card? Thanks for the information.

I was recently in about the same situation as you...my old beast of a computer died, and i went out and bought a nice quad [email protected] with 6gb of ddr3 ram and it has a 1gb geforce 9800GT vid card. FSX runs beautifully on it, and before i wrote this reply i tested it out at KSFO and it ran at 25fps. Some of you may say so what?, but i have Ultimate Airlines 2 installed and the AI sliders are at 100 percent. This isnt a stock install of fsx either, im running the following addons, Ultimate Terrain USA, Ultimate Terrain Europe, Ground Environment X North America, Ultimate Alaska X, Sound Environment X, Flight Environment X, Ultimate Airport Enviroment X, Ultimate Airlines 2, Active Sky Evolution, and Air Hauler. Not to mention several fly tampa scenery addons. I keep the sim locked at 30. anything more is a waste IMO, and that leaves cpu time for other things, such as air hauler, and FS commander. Im pretty happy with how the sim runs, i have all my sliders maxed except i keep the weather radius to 60 miles...as i tend to fly low and slow most the time and dont need the sim worrying about rendering clouds it would take me two hours to get to anyhow. oh and the leisure boats slider is at zero...the big ships slider is at 100...this saved me 10 fps it seemed when i was near water. those little boats are fps killers. only thing i changed in the cfg files was the mult?? line which was at 40 i upped it to 60blurries...i dont see much of them...stutters...well not as bad either but i think fsx will always have them, even if you flew it on a cray.

Hi,I'am thinking about buying a new computer:I7 860 oveclocked at 4.2asus P6X58D-E corsair dominator 6 Go DDR3 1600Mhz C8Nvidia GTX 480 1.5 GoWestern digital 1To 64 Mo 7200tr/mn Caviar blackCoolmaster Haf Xcooler Master GX power 750 wSeven pro1 year warrantyWill it be enough for FSX or should wait another couple of decades? :( Will I need to tweak the the FSX cfg file ? :( Will it stop blurries, stutters? :( Will it still struggle to give more than 20 fps? B) Thanks

I'm saving up for that 480. Hopefully by the end of the year prices will be a little lower too. Any recommendations on the brand of card? Thanks for the information.

I would go with Evga. Great customer service. Lifetime warranty. A forum you can go to. I have always liked the Evga cards I have owned.

hi,Thank you guys for your replies. So it seems that this system will run FSX quite well. I don't like the autogen stuff so it should help. I am addicted to photoscenery...I will think it over. I have the green light from my wife. I am worried. I suspect her of planning to buy something expensive too... :(

I hear you. My wife and I have a deal - If I get a toy, she gets the same amount of money to spend as she sees fit. The tough part is she usually put it in her savings and doesn't touch it. In addition, she is the only one employed in the house right now. It make me feel like I waste a lot of money but you only live once. I just hope she isn't saving up for an apartment:)Anyway, I think your system will do fine as long as your expectations are in check. For the most part, none of us are running with sliders maxed but we are getting good performance and visuals that are better than what you get with FS9 at the same slider level. There will be a few trade offs but you won't be disappointed if you install everything correctly.A couple of things:Follow Nick Needham's guides to the T.After everything is stable, play with *******' tweaks to optimize. I found that a combination of *******' recommendations and Nicks NHancer specs worked best for me. YMMV.Turn off the FPS counter. 15FPS in FSAX will look very different than 15FPS in FS9.Make sure upgrades and tweaks do not nullify the warranty. If you change the settings in the BIOS or upgrade the video card, is that warranty still valid? If so, don't pay extra for it. For my last few systems, I hand picked the components and had a reputable shop build the system and install the OS for me. In 7 years, I have never wished that I opted to pay for an extended warranty. If you live near a Microcenter in the US, they are a great place to start. FYI, I am running 2046 REX textures, multiple add ons (Airport scenery and payware aircraft), 100% UT2 Traffic and a plethora of WOFAI+GA traffic set at 100%. Road and boat traffic is set at 40%. Autogen is almost at max as well as most sliders. The only things that gives me problems are mesh resolution and 4096 clouds.

Hi, I'am thinking about buying a new computer: I7 860 oveclocked at 4.2, asus P6X58D-E, ... Thanks

I hope you really meant to spec an i7 930 for that build. An i7 860 will not fit/work in that mobo, and one would be very fortunate to get a stable 4.2 OC with one. I also suggest replacing that RAM with 6G of Mushkin redline or ridgeback DDR3 1600 cas 6; evga is highly recommended for their top rate customer service (speaking from firsthand experience). As for the end-all FSX slayer it won't be, but lots of joy will be had. My FSX experience is that something has to be pulled back to get smooth performance in stressful situations. As in: max traffic (aircraft or cars), with max cloud cover distance + cloudy weather, with max autogen/density urban center + major airport = stutters and poor fps!!!

I also wanted to mention that IMHO, the tweaking circus has ended for those of us with proper, well tuned systems. Since ******* completed his work, the search for the next new miracle tweak seems to have subsided.