Hi there,I'm new to FSX and flight sims in general but would like to get into playing them. I read that FSX was a good place to start because of the great community and lots of addons + mods to choose from. I was wondering if anyone could help me set FSX up correctly so it runs okay and point me in the right direction to the best addons to make the game look prettier without sacrifing too much performance for my pc as at the moment i'm getting 10-15 fps and the game stutters every couple of seconds without any graphic addons installed. There are so many things to tweak I'm just overwelmed. :)Heres my pc spec...i7 920 running @ 3.8gz6 gb ddr3 memoryATI 5870 gcardIntel x-25 ssd hdriveWin 7 64bitAny help would be fantasticps.. any suggestions on what joystick i should get, I want to play all flight sims eventually so something that will last a long time, comfortable and can use with all flight sims would be great.

Hi there,I'm new to FSX and flight sims in general but would like to get into playing them. I read that FSX was a good place to start because of the great community and lots of addons + mods to choose from. I was wondering if anyone could help me set FSX up correctly so it runs okay and point me in the right direction to the best addons to make the game look prettier without sacrifing too much performance for my pc as at the moment i'm getting 10-15 fps and the game stutters every couple of seconds without any graphic addons installed. There are so many things to tweak I'm just overwelmed. :)Heres my pc spec...i7 920 running @ 3.8gz6 gb ddr3 memoryATI 5870 gcardIntel x-25 ssd hdriveWin 7 64bitAny help would be fantasticps.. any suggestions on what joystick i should get, I want to play all flight sims eventually so something that will last a long time, comfortable and can use with all flight sims would be great.

For tuning and setting up FSX, check this link: http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html. Any joystick works great with FSX. I have the CyborgX but the old Microsoft Force Feedback 2 Joystick I use to use works even better and it's a lot cheaper (if you can find one).Best regards,Jim

Welcome to Avsim and FSX! What you ask for is a big undertaking. I think you should start with getting your system to run FSX better. Meaning no addons yet. Your video card is on the weak side and ATI cards usually have trouble with dense cloud formations. So keep the clouds to a minimum. I would definitely use Bijote's tweaking tool here http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html. He is trustworthly and is one of the most knowledgeable people to help tune FSX. There is also Nick's tuning guide to read through here http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html.You will have to play around with FSX options and see how your system acts. I would set the frame rate slider to 24 and turn bloom off. That is all I use. I would give you my settings but I don't have FSX currently installed. I just finished two days ago reinstalling W7.With Bijote's tweaking tool you can upload a copy of your fsx.cfg file and his code will update it, you can then save it and use it, with some settings that should help your system run FSX better.Hopefully many others virtual pilots will jump in here and help you out.

Thanks, I'll give the tweaks you linked a try. Do you think it's worth upgrading any part of my pc to get it running smoother such as upgrading to a Nvidia 580 or wont it make much difference?

For the time being, I wouldn't upgrade any part of your PC.With a couple of tweaks, you should get some nice results.