I recently made the move from FS9 to FSX and as I went from a constant 60+ FPS to around 20-40 FPS I started thinking: what if Vista is causing the decrease in performance? Currently, I run Win Vista Home Basic 32-bit and on FS9 I used to get 60+FPS on my current hardware(see signature). Since I do have a copy of Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit lying around, if I upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate will I see some sort of improvement in FPS?

 

I have already tweaked the fsx.cfg a lot to work more efficiently with my current hardware. If you want to know what kinds of addons I use, you can see my profile.

 

If I need to upgrade to a 64-bit, will there be any changes or not? I do plan on replacing my current video card.

FSX is CPU dependant rather than GPU. Although it helps to have a decent card of course. Looking at your specs you could do with more Video memory. Also your Ram seems a bit under par, at least 1600Mhz and 4GB is the bare minimum. Do not know the CPU but 3.6Ghz should be able to cope.

you could do with more Video memory

Yes, I am planning on upgrading soon, Nvidia or AMD? But more importantly, Vista or Windows 7? Really wanted to get an answer for my question above.

NVIDEA & W7 64bit in an ideal world. If you have the Disc it contains both varieties. (32bit computing is really history in the making)...just make sure you turn off UAC and install outside of the default folder (Prog Files)

I have two hard disks, one is C:\ and the other is G:\. I installed FSX on G:\, will that make an impact on performance? I have the directory set to G:\Games\FS10.

 

NVIDEA & W7 64bit in an ideal world

I am really considering going for Nvidia however I have an AMD CPU and I have heard that Nvidia video and AMD CPU creates a few problems, but I am not so sure on that claim.

AMD CPU + AMD GPU is a bad combination for FSX. If you can switch to a newer Nvidia card you should get a decent bump in FPS but after that your CPU is going to hold you back big time. In answer to your original question, switching to Windows 7 will not likely gain you any performance. Windows and FSX will load slightly faster, but your frame rate is unlikely to change unless you have something seriously wrong with your current Windows install. That being said, Win 7 is a better O.S. than Vista, especially if you go 64-bit so it's not a bad idea, but because you're running Vista Basic 32-bit you can't just upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate 64, you would have to reinstall from scratch. Even though you have FSX on a separate drive you may very well have to reinstall it also. So the question is, do you want to go through many hours of work for something that doesn't really solve the problem at hand which is FSX performance?

AMD CPU + AMD GPU is a bad combination for FSX.

Understood.

 

your CPU is going to hold you back big time

Because there is the possibility of bottlenecking. Mine is @ 3.6Ghz while yours is 4.9Ghz, a big gap in speed/frequency.

 

Windows and FSX will load slightly faster, but your frame rate is unlikely to change unless you have something seriously wrong with your current Windows install.

Guess I will give it a go and upgrade.

 

That being said, Win 7 is a better O.S. than Vista, especially if you go 64-bit so it's not a bad idea, but because you're running Vista Basic 32-bit you can't just upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate 64, you would have to reinstall from scratch.

I am fully aware of that. Going from 32-bit to 64-bit always requires a clean install.

 

So the question is, do you want to go through many hours of work for something that doesn't really solve the problem at hand which is FSX performance?

Lets concentrate on performace.

I would recommend a graphics card upgrade if you can swing it, Geforce GTX 660 or 660 Ti are the best performance per dollar cards at the moment. After that if it's still not fast enough you would need to look at a new platform on the Intel side of the fence.

How is the GTX 550 Ti? Good enough? Kind of on a budget here.

It's a bit on the low end of things now, if you could swing for at least a 560 you'll be a lot happier, preferably a 560 Ti.