*I've put this in the Video cards forum even though it may be more of a processor / storage issue - I don't know

 

Hello all, I've been playing flight sim for around 6 months now and I really enjoy it, love flying aircraft like the Dash 8, and PMDG NGX and T7 (I'd like to fly the Airbus too but performance is just too bad). However, a few years back when I first invested in a PC, flight sim was not considered (TBH I didn't know it was a thing) so my hardware definitely struggles. I can get around 40 fps (internally limited for smoothness) in external views, and around 20 fps max in internal views, however this is on very low graphics settings and almost unreadable textures.

 

I would like to invest some money into getting better, more consistent frame rates, however I'm unsure as to how to go about this. Here's my current specs to the best of my knowledge.

 

GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-USB3 Motherboard
AMD FX6300 6-core 3.5GHz (can be overclocked but I ain't got a clue what I'm doing)
AMD Radeon R7 240 2GB (downgraded driver because apparently the latest hates FSX)
8GB DDR3 RAM
Some 1TB HDD that I couldn't tell you the specs of
FSX:SE somewhat tweaked

 

Could you please guide me in the direction of a new graphics card / processor / ram / storage drive? I don't know where to start in the market, not even the brand, cause it's so huge and varied.

 

Budget wise I'd rather not spend more that £100 if possible but I might be able to stretch to £150, £200 if completely necessary.

 

Thanks very much,
Calum.

It's probably going to be tough, Calum. With FSX the more powerful the CPU the better. And the general rule with CPUs is buy as much horsepower as you can afford. Maybe enjoy learning with the sim you have while you save for a new PC or motherboard? There is an awful lot you can do to enjoy learning about aviation and simulation without having the best graphics, and 20 fps should be fine for doing so. Just my point of view.

It's probably going to be tough, Calum. With FSX the more powerful the CPU the better. And the general rule with CPUs is buy as much horsepower as you can afford. Maybe enjoy learning with the sim you have while you save for a new PC or motherboard? There is an awful lot you can do to enjoy learning about aviation and simulation without having the best graphics, and 20 fps should be fine for doing so. Just my point of view.

Thanks for your reply. I feel quite confident hitting up the network and flying IFR to most places, however I'm kind of being put off by degrading performance, sometimes down to as bad as 8 fps so it becomes very difficult to fly any aircraft to any precision.

 

What would be the real difference between buying a new CPU or buying a totally new motherboard? And what brands / speeds / no. of cores would you recommend?

There I'm out of my depth. But if you post on the motherboard forum here I'm certain you'll get good advice.

Hi Calum,

 

With regard to your buget, I would wait, save more money and buy a new system later.
FSX/P3D is more CPU depended than GPU dependend but both processor and GPU can not be 'out-of-sync'

(Like having a fast processor and a slow GPU)

Hi Calum,

 

With regard to your buget, I would wait, save more money and buy a new system later.

FSX/P3D is more CPU depended than GPU dependend but both processor and GPU can not be 'out-of-sync'

(Like having a fast processor and a slow GPU)

What would you say would be the upper limit of processor power I could go for if I stuck with my GPU?