I am upgrading from FS9 to FSX (Gold). I have an AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core with 4 gigs of RAM. How will this do with FSX Gold? Any tips on overclocking? Etc. Thanks, Maestrogn

Thanks Torkermax. I thought that some download from MS, or even the Accelerator package that comes with Gold was supposed to solve the core problem and that all 4 cores would be utilized.

Thanks, Torkermax. Any idea on frame rates? I'd like to stay with the present CPU (recession, don't you know) and will only buy a new CPU if I absolutely have to. Maestrogn

The best is to try it out yourself "IF" you have FSX package.

FSX Gold should arrive via UPS today. Just trying to get a heads up if this is going to turn into a very expensive upgrade from FS9. Thanks for the help.

You can than test it your system but as tokermax puts it don't expect anything much which he is right, as on my X3 445 3.1 I pull around 22-29 fps on mid-high sets.

Thanks for that reply. I had a reply on another forum that suggested upgrading the video card (to GPU?) first, and then processor. Does that make sense to you? Not having any experience with FSX, what frame rate is considered desirable and where does the 27-29 fit into that scheme. maestrogn

Thanks for that reply. I had a reply on another forum that suggested upgrading the video card (to GPU?) first, and then processor. Does that make sense to you? Not having any experience with FSX, what frame rate is considered desirable and where does the 27-29 fit into that scheme. maestrogn

What GPU are you using currently ?

I'm away from that computer, but it is a quite old ATI video card. I just looked at some higher end cards and got instant sticker shock. It may force me to stay with my tricked out FS9 (with all kinds of scenery add-ins). I would love all the FSX eye candy ... but $250+ for a GPU right now is a bit of a stretch. Any advice? maestrogn

I'm away from that computer, but it is a quite old ATI video card. I just looked at some higher end cards and got instant sticker shock. It may force me to stay with my tricked out FS9 (with all kinds of scenery add-ins). I would love all the FSX eye candy ... but $250+ for a GPU right now is a bit of a stretch. Any advice? maestrogn

Well there is a thing called as bottleneck, if you upgrade to a high end gpu than the current CPU you have may not match it and cause fps issues and vice versa, you would probably need a 5770. or a nvidia 450.

My research and being an AMD user for yrs. Waste of time. FSX can barely use two cores. Innovative yes just as the AMD 64bit architech set a standard. But any gain for us dumb FSX users, no.

Sorry but that's wrong... First of all, FSX will use all available cores as long as you tell it to do so, i.e. add the [JOBSCHEDULER] section to your fsx.cfg.

[JOBSCHEDULER]AffinityMask=14You are telling FSX to use only CORE1, CORE2 and CORE3... so what about CORE0? It STILL runs the FIBERS! because they are not bound to the AffinityMasksetting. So, what you are doing is making things now much more efficient. So now, FSX will run like this:CORE0 CORE1 CORE2 CORE3CORE0 is responsible for: FibersCORE1 is responsible for: main schedulerCORE2 and CORE3 are responsible for the Texture Manager AND Object Batching (Autogen)

Now regarding your Phenom 9850, it will run FSX just fine. Remember that people use to run FSX on P4s! You will have to lower your settings, tune down AI traffic a little and forget about some eye candy such as the (useless) road traffic, but it will run it.

was shot running on a Phenom II X2 560, I had REX, GEX, UTX, autogen at Dense, road traffic on and FPS was locked at 30, no variation... the occasional stutter is caused by FRAPS. This was a real world test, not a half-speed shot/twice speed encoding trick as most FSX movie directors do by the way. Ok, the BD-5 is not exactly the most demanding plane in the FSX world, but let's just say that I run the VRS SuperBug with Traffic X set at 75% locked at 20fps at KSEA. People like to blast AMD because they don't "deliver"... Have you look at the price bracket they are in and the bang for bucks they provide? Pretty amazing, but yeah, not as powerful as the 300$ sandy-bridge CPU running on a 200$ motherboard. A Phenom X4 with 4gb DDR3 and a good mobo will cost you max 250, which is half of a sandy-brdige setup will cost you. So it's a budget CPU with amazing performance for the cost and will run FSX as long as you setup FSX for it. Cheers!

Thanks, Iam. Nice video. It will be a very interesting test this weekend when I try to run FSX. I'm saving your text so I can refer to it as I set things up. My main concern is my old ATI card, so I might have to spring for a newer video card ... Speaking of cores, the reason I bought the Gold edition of FSX was so it could use those 4 cores right from the git-go. Thank you so much for taking all that time to explain to this total neophyte. maestrogn

The Phenom's are good. And yes people do like to blast AMD , they have always given the bang for the buck , of course excluding the new Bulldozer chip. You should to OC the Phenom to atleast 2.8 - 3.1 and as "iam" mentioned use the JOBSCHEDULER in fsx.cfg and a very important tweak is Bojote's don't forget that plus you should use an external limiter. Later you could go for a higher end system when the pockets permit.

Thanks to all for the help so far. I'm at the machine right now, so I can report that my video card is ATI Radeon HD 4200. I assume that's bad? Also, to Ironmaiden -- what is the Bojote tweak? M

4200 probably won't just cut it but before spending try it. Bojote tweaks your fsx.cfg for your system. everyone uses it. http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html And also use the shader model