Recently I had taken a lot of time off from the flight sim community because my computer just wasn't performing to the point where it made simming anything other than a pain. I've got a new rig and what I believe are fairly decent specs, but what can I expect? Also, I haven't installed anything yet, as I'm torn between FSX and P3D--what will give me the best performance?

 

I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to performance, so here's what I've got. (Also going to be picking up some sort of cooler in the next day or two.)

• Intel Core i7 6700k @ 4.0ghz
• EVGA Geforce GTX 960
• Gigabyte GA-H170 Gaming 3 Motherboard
• 16g DDR4 RAM
• 750w PSU
• Windows 10 64bit
• 1TB Hard Drive

 

 

Thanks in advance for the input! I look forward to getting back into the hobby. (Any fun add-on suggestions would be appreciated too! Something to get me hooked once more.)

 

Very nice setup you have there with some good specs but the graphics card isn't the strongest. Dont take offense at that comment, you will see why by the end of my post. You have a good solid Base that with a graphics card upgrade in the future is a seriously high end rig. All of the sims still rely on a strong cpu more than anything and you already have that now.

 

I prefer prepar3d and get better performance and graphics with it at high resolutions but it requires a stronger graphics card to get the most out of it.

 

However fsx is currently only £10 on steam at the moment so I would buy it anyway.

Prepar3d is more expensive so despite being a prepar3d user(I actually have both installed) I'd say start with fsx because it is cheaper and also more suited to your graphics card as it relies on the cpu slightly more than prepar3d.

Fsx can be made to look good but you will need Steve's dx10 fixer as a minimum before starting with any other add ons. Most add ons these days will work with both, but not all so just check before you buy- it's means you can swap to prepared later without necessarily having to buy p3d versions.

You will be able to run prepar3d without issue by the way, you will just have to turn things down somewhat.

 

It depends on what sort of simming you want to do as well. If you aren't bothered about load's of Ai traffic and a selection of realistic atc add ons then look at xplane too.

It looks and flys very well with some fantastic aircraft and scenery available too. Version 11 is available in a beta demo to try. Worth a look which ever way you end up going although like with p3d to max out xplane you will need a graphics card upgrade at some point.

 

Chris

Very nice setup you have there with some good specs but the graphics card isn't the strongest if you want to max out prepared.

 

I prefer prepar3d and get better performance and graphics with it at high resolutions but it requires a stronger graphics card to get the most out of it.

 

However fsx is currently only £10 on steam at the moment so I would buy it anyway.

Prepar3d is more expensive so despite being a prepar3d user(I actually have both installed) I'd say start with fsx because it is cheaper and also more suited to your graphics card.

Fsx can be made to look good but you will need Steve's dx10 fixer as a minimum before starting with any other add ons. Most add ons these days will work with both, but not all so just check before you buy- it's means you can swap to prepared later without necessarily having to buy p3d versions.

You will be able to run prepared without issue by the way, you will just have to turn things down somewhat.

It depends on what sort of simming you want to do as well. If you aren't bothered about load's of Ai traffic and a selection of realistic atc add ons then look at xplane too. It looks and flys very well with some fantastic aircraft and scenery available too. Version 11 is available in a beta demo to try. Worth a look which ever way you end up going.

Chris

 

Great input! Always wanted to look into XP in the past also, but have never tried it out.

 

 

Recently I had taken a lot of time off from the flight sim community because my computer just wasn't performing to the point where it made simming anything other than a pain.

 

And yet that continues. Large cities and/or large airports continue to bind, no matter the hardware. P3D, even at this point and even with the latest and greatest hardware, can't deal with large urban areas. We will await the contrarians and defenders, but they will mostly likely be using few addons and with low settings.

Don't expect miracles. Simming is still is a pain if you like eyecandy and complex aircraft.

 

I would install P3D v3 if I were you. I suspect we'll have v4 in 2017, so if you are short on cash, stick to FSX for now.

I wouldn't invest any money into P3D at this point. Once they are going 64bit, you'll probably have to buy a new version of it anyway and you'll probably have to pay upgrade fees for some or a lot of addons. So I'd only consider P3D once they have moved to 64bit.

And since its a dying platform, I wouldn't recommend FSX either - too much time required to optimize it, too little time flying it.

At this point, XP11 seems to deliver the best performance out of the box and has lots of freeware going for it, so I'd suggest giving that a try (though your graphics card may indeed find XP rather challenging). Once the release is stable you can also expect addon devs to update their payware aircraft, etc. Of course, there are more high-end aircraft available for FSX and P3D right now, but given some time I expect XP to be a serious contender to P3D, because with the new release they seem to attract a lot of new customers (myself included).

Is the DX10 fixer really a major improvement worth buying? I am on the fence.

Only you can decide... Some like it, some don't. Very hard to answer such a question. I'd rahter spend my money on P3D and have DX11 without any need for "a fix".

Your choice of simming platform depends upon how you want to fly.

 

For me who likes to simulate a commercial heavy pilot environment, XPlane is useless.

 

FSuX you will spend far too much time tweaking and "fixing" it, even the FSX:SE version.

 

That leaves P3D.

Not a bad setup there at all. P3D all the way. FSX is (burnt) toast

Is the DX10 fixer really a major improvement worth buying? I am on the fence.

Steve's DX10 Fixer is definitely worth it - it improves FSX running in DX9 no end with cockpit shadows/ shaders, etc

 

I have similar specs to you and I run FSX Gold with Acceleration.

I have Orbx Global FTX and England as a region - as I live here!

I recently added ASN16.

I have a few payware airports and A/C

 

I finished my build and basic instal about two months ago and spent a couple of weeks researching and tweaking, experimenting, making mistakes, sorting things out, etc

 

Now the tweaking's done and I'm 16,000 miles into my Around The World trip in the beautiful Alabeo DA42 Twinstar.

 

I have no plans to change the platform for P3D or XP11 any time soon until either of them can provide compelling reasons to do so.

 

It's all discussed here - sometimes ad nauseam - but the overall impression I get is to get YOUR rig running to YOUR liking, in YOUR way.

 

Happy Simming!

 

 

 

 

For me who likes to simulate a commercial heavy pilot environment, XPlane is useless.

That is of course not true. Simulating commercial heavy jets is exactly what i always wanted. After having tried P3D for 2 months i came back to X-Plane, just because i prefer it. What i hate the most in P3D ist that you have to run thousands of other programms to have weather, Vatsim-connection, FS Realtime etc. and that the engine is extremely old and has its well known 32-Bit limitations. And i really dont see what could be simulated better in P3D that you can't simulate in XP, except perhaps plugins like GSX that are really nice and doesn't exist in that quality in X-Plane. And the weather-tool like AS16 is still better that's true. But saying is it uselless is of course completely wrong and exagerated.

You will certainly get decent performance in both P3D and FSX. Your rig is very capable, and that is one of the best processors that you can get right now. There will be times you have frames issues in FSX simply because of the antiquated coding that went into the game that makes it inefficient, especially on the CPU end. As others have said, the only change you may want to make soon would be an upgraded video card sometime in the next year or two.

 

Since you are just now coming back, I would highly suggest you take a look at xplane 10 and 11. I was in your shoes about a year ago regarding coming back to the flight simulator world. I was solely FSX in the past. Last year I purchased XP10 and could not be happier. The sim is growing like a weed, and there are tons of high quality addons being released every week. Even PMDG has branched into the market, and there are other companies that are releasing planes that are just as high quality as PMDG products (and I don't say that lightly). There are also a lot of planes on there that now support shared cockpit using the smart copilot software. That creates a whole new level of realism that I feel has really brought in a breath of fresh air into the flight sim world.