Hello,

 

I've had FS9 on my desktop for the past year but my computer finally died. I am planning on purchasing a computer with the following specs:

 

Processor 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 processor (up to 3.90 GHz) Operating System Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English

Memory¹ 8GB² Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz

Hard Drive 2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 6.0 Gb/s

Video Card AMD Radeon™ HD 7570 1GB GDDR5

 

Should i run fsX or fs9 with these specs?

 

I currently have all kinds of freeware scenery, airplanes and cloud upgrades. I have also purchased some pay-ware things like FlyTampa st. barts and the PMDG 1900. However, I am not satisfied with the graphics on fs9. My friend has a bare bones laptop running fsX and the graphics are much better than mine. Is there a way to make the scenery in fs9 comparable to fsX?

 

I plan on purchasing all kinds of pay-ware scenery and aircraft for my next setup. Either way I would like to make the leap to fsX but if the above system would not be able to run it then perhaps I will stay with fs9. Also, if you could please let me know what scenery upgrades are out there for the various sims. I am familiar with Aircraft upgrades, but I have no Idea what "textures" are or how any of the scenery stuff works, much less which ones to purchase.

 

In conclusion, my computer skills are not the greatest and any advice in creating the best setup with the above system would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

.

Why not run both....I do.

That computer choice is not so bad but rule #1 when buying an FSX PC: Never buy a pre-assembled PC but build one yourself instead? Why? You'll save loads of money (and I mean loads), and you'll be able to change whatever you want to your hardware.

 

Don't know how to build a PC? So didn't I. I remember upgrading a part on my Acer desktop PC a few years ago, I actually had no clue about anything inside that thing. I didn't even know where the power supply was or what the video card was.

 

But at one day I decided to take the gamble and build it with the help of many guides and videos: and with success. I'm so glad I did it. Don't be afraid, that isn't much that can go wrong except for two things:

 

1. Always put spacer between the case and the motherboard

2. Always apply thermal paste between the CPU and the CPU heatsink

 

Here is my PC that should fit your needs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K. The -K version is overclockable which massively increases performance. Dunno how to overclock? Same story with PC building I told you above.

 

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77V

 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 CL9

 

Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660Ti. Usually, FSX is happier with NVIDIA cards

 

Power supply: Corsair AX650. 650W is more than enough

 

Drives: 1 OCZ Vector 128 GB for OS, 1 OCZ Vector 128GB (or 256 GB if desired) for FSX only, 1 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB for storage.

 

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100. This CPU is definately going to need water cooling when you overclock it.

 

Case: if money is no object, Corsair Obsidian 900D. Everything will fit inside there.

 

 

But this is not the whole story. By default, even on this PC, FSX would will not run THAT great. You'll need to make adjustments to a configuration file called fsx.CFG. Don't worry about it for now, but remember Google is your friend and so is AVSIM. But keep in mind that tweaking this file is essential if you want to achieve the desired performance.

 

If you get all of these settings correct, you should never see your framerates drop below 20 ever again, and 95% of the time you'll be a achieving 30+ FPS.

 

Regarding scenery add-ons:

 

Ground Environment Xtreme is a great add-on that replaces the default autogen and land textures with good looking new ones. Ultimate Terrain X is an add-on for landclass like roads, water, vegetation and night lightning but can be pretty hard on FPS. There is also an add-on called Real Environment Extreme which is great for cloud textures, sky textures, dawn and dusk textures, runway textures, water textures, and much much more.

 

 

 

Good luck!

.

Why not run both....I do.

 

I agree! The spec of your computer is very similar to my latest one and it runs both FS9 and FSX without problems. FS9 however runs really smoothly with significantly higher frame rates (I have my maximum set to 60fps and it almost never drops below this) than FSX. You do however need to heed the advice given by Arjen to modify the cfg (and this applies to both FS9 and FSX, but it is not at all difficult and there is plently of advice available online as to how to go about it.

 

Bill

I agree! The spec of your computer is very similar to my latest one and it runs both FS9 and FSX without problems. FS9 however runs really smoothly with significantly higher frame rates (I have my maximum set to 60fps and it almost never drops below this) than FSX.

 

Bill

That computer choice is not so bad but rule #1 when buying an FSX PC: Never buy a pre-assembled PC but build one yourself instead? Why? You'll save loads of money (and I mean loads), and you'll be able to change whatever you want to your hardware.

 

Regarding scenery add-ons:

 

Ground Environment Xtreme is a great add-on that replaces the default autogen and land textures with good looking new ones. Ultimate Terrain X is an add-on for landclass like roads, water, vegetation and night lightning but can be pretty hard on FPS. There is also an add-on called Real Environment Extreme which is great for cloud textures, sky textures, dawn and dusk textures, runway textures, water textures, and much much more.

 

 

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the replies. It turns out Dell was having a super sale and I purchased an nearly identical setup, this one having a 7870 GPU and Windows 8 pro, for an amazing price. Building my own system with similar specs would have cost much more. In regards to scenery upgrades, I purchased FS Global 2010 so I can use it for both FS9 and FSX. I also purchased the REX usb drive with setups for both FS9 and FSX, as well as UTX USA. When it comes to addons, which one (UTX or GEX) reduces frame rates more? I noticed you mentioned UTX does but ive read if you just turn down traffic and/or night lighting it will have zero effect on frame rates. I've also heard that GEX takes the largest fps hit of the three X's. Despite much research, I am still lost with the .CFG file. I guess I'll get one of my computer savy friends to look this one over. My rig is supposed to arrive by March 4th and I can't wait to get it running! :lol: