So I'm in the market for a new flight sim rig. I've been running primarily FS9 on a Sony Vaio laptop for the last 6 years or so. It's been a great machine and it's still going strong, but that's really old in computer years, and since it's also our primary computer for stuff like photos and documents, it's time for a new machine.

 

I've always wanted to try my hand at building a computer, and this seems like a good time. I realize it's probably also a good time to update to FSX, but I'm still most comfortable with FS9 and I've got some add-ons I really like. So I would like to build a machine that will run both.

 

Which brings me to my question: Is there any hardware I should avoid if I want to be able to run FS9? Do I need to stick with a 32-bit OS, or will everything be okay with 64?

 

The design of this machine is still in the philosophical stage. I really don't know an awful lot about PC hardware, and FS9 and FSX are both old enough that I probably don't need the latest-greatest-mind-blowing stuff in order to get a significant upgrade from where I am now. My budget is not infinite, but I am willing to spend a little for things that are worth it in terms of what I'm trying to accomplish. Where do you get the most bang for your buck? Seems like a good video card is key, and the right RAM.

 

Suggestions welcome. Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

 

 

Do I need to stick with a 32-bit OS, or will everything be okay with 64?

 

64bit OP runs FS9 fine.  Unfortunately not all addons are happy to exist in that environment eg. Reality XP gauges.  FS9 will use up to 4 GB of ram but only if you make the exe. large address aware, or 3 GB if you happen to stick with 32bit OS.

Thanks for the reply. I've already got one or two gauges that don't work because I'm on Vista now, so not much change there...

 

What I'm looking at is something like this set of blueprints from Maximum PC:

 

Ingredients Part Component Price Case Corsair Vengeance C70 $110 PSU XFX P1-750X-XXB9 750W $85 Mobo Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 ATX $160 CPU Intel Core i5-4670K $240 Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO $35 GPU EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB 02G-P4-3765-KR $250 RAM 2x 4GB G.Skill Ares F3-1600C9D-8GAO $65 Optical Drive Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD Burner $20 SSD Samsung 840 EVO 250GB $150 HDD Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003 $65

 

or an Alienware X51 as an out-of-the-box alternative with an AMD Radeon R9 270 card.

 

They're pricing out about the same. The X51 comes ready to go out of the box, but will most likely be harder to upgrade in the future if I ever want to. But it does beg the question of will I really save by building my own? Is there anything in the materials list there that I can't get in a ready-made machine like Alienware makes?

About the 32 bit OS - FS9 will only use 3GB WITH the large address flag, otherwise only 2GB.

 

A 64 bit OS can use 4 GB ram with a 32bit program such as FSX. No need for the largeaddressflag with the 64bit