Hello,I've been a long time user of MSFS...ever since '95. I have every "quality" add-on for FS9. I have recently made the switch to FSX and though I had the rig to handle it flawlessly. I was wrong, so I upgraded some things. I have installed FSX, Acceleration, and SP2. I use UTX, UT2, and GEX. Many, but not all, of my addons from FS9 are compatible w/ FSX. My only problem is that when I am sitting on the runway at KEWR....with minimal settings....my FPS are around 13 max. My System:- Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit- Core 2 Quad LGA 775 Q9650 3.0Ghz 95w 1333 FSB - ATI HD 6870 1G GDDR5 256-bit 900Hz graphics card- 8GB Patriot Viper Extreme DDR3 1866 PC3 15000 RAM- 1TB Western Digital 7200 SATA Hard Drive- Nvidia N-Force 790i SLI ATX Motherboard LGA 775 1600/1333 FSB- 650w PowerIf Im not mistaken- thats not too bad of a rig. Should be able to handle FSX w/ no problems. I've been stuck in the FS9 ages for too long- let me know what is lacking on my system so I can upgrade yet again! Thanks- Hiiflyer

Hello,I've been a long time user of MSFS...ever since '95. I have every "quality" add-on for FS9. I have recently made the switch to FSX and though I had the rig to handle it flawlessly. I was wrong, so I upgraded some things. I have installed FSX, Acceleration, and SP2. I use UTX, UT2, and GEX. Many, but not all, of my addons from FS9 are compatible w/ FSX. My only problem is that when I am sitting on the runway at KEWR....with minimal settings....my FPS are around 13 max. My System:- Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit- Core 2 Quad LGA 775 Q9650 3.0Ghz 95w 1333 FSB - ATI HD 6870 1G GDDR5 256-bit 900Hz graphics card- 8GB Patriot Viper Extreme DDR3 1866 PC3 15000 RAM- 1TB Western Digital 7200 SATA Hard Drive- Nvidia N-Force 790i SLI ATX Motherboard LGA 775 1600/1333 FSB- 650w PowerIf Im not mistaken- thats not too bad of a rig. Should be able to handle FSX w/ no problems. I've been stuck in the FS9 ages for too long- let me know what is lacking on my system so I can upgrade yet again! Thanks- Hiiflyer

Your system could potentially run FSX satisfactorily, but I only saw a noticable performance increase on my socket 775 PC when I got around the 3.9-4.1GHz range. That was with a dual core E8400 (Basically your processor with two less cores). Getting up in that range of clock frequency, I could tell a marked difference from 3.0GHz! Hint Hint. That being said, what's your traffic set at? Graphics settings? Your hardware isn't bad at all, but there are other variables.

I imagine it has more to do with FSX.CFG settings. Have you tried the online FSX.CFG tweak tool?The best upgrade you can make is either overclock your current processor or upgrade to a newer machine. But you're correct, you do have a pretty solid machine.EDIT: Zach beat me! As he said, you really need CPU power. You ought to be able to clock that Q9650 in the 3.5 to 4 GHz range pretty easily. The higher the better.

Hello,If Im not mistaken- thats not too bad of a rig. Should be able to handle FSX w/ no problems. I've been stuck in the FS9 ages for too long- let me know what is lacking on my system so I can upgrade yet again! Thanks- Hiiflyer

You've got a nice system... as mentioned above the FSX settings are likely the issue/solution.Start as a test by turning down traffic to zero and fair weather. Water 1Xhigh.No shadows, no bloom, no DX10.Fly around a bit and see how it goes.. You can always turn up the settings again.

Thanks for all the replies guys. Im doing the fsx.cfg online tool as we speak (type). I will look into overclocking the CPU as well. Any other thoughts- feel free....

Be sure to look at how other ATI card owners are setting up FSX. It's different than if you own an nVidia card.

Gentlemen,Thank you all for the replies. Sorry it's taken me a while to post the results, I've been experimenting. I took a crash course on overclocking and successfully overclocked my CPU to 3.6, anything over was either too hot or unstable. I have a new CPU fan/heatsink on the way. I did all the tweaks to the fsx.cfg file as I could. Once I get the new fan I can probably get it up to around 4.0. After considering all the add-ons that I have for FS9, I have decided to stick w/ it. FSX has it's advantages, but with 132 add-ons for FS9, I can not justify the switch given the serious hit on performance. I've got everything cranked to the max flying into a very detailed O'hare with over 40 FPS. Same situation in FSX would result in around 10 FPS. Regardless- thanks again for all your help. At least I learned how to OC my CPU!