Hi all

I've been a member of AVSIM for a long time, I don't remember exactly when I joined but it was in like 2002 I believe, anyway FS9 is the last real SIM I dug my claws into & once FS X came out I gave up on simming completely as my system just couldn't handle it & I was barely getting 30 fps on FS9 as it was...

I've since then upgraded my system (2016) & was looking at rekindling my love for the hobby & am trying to decide between Prepair 3d or Xplane 11, what I need is advice on my rig, I'll be honest with you I fired up FSX on it & all maxed out I was barely getting more than 10 fps, I couldn't believe my eyes...

Here's what I have:
Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core overclocked to 4.5GHz
CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM cooler
Asus Z170M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151
Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666
Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB 2.5" SSD
Radeon VAPOR-X R9 290 4GB PCI-E LITE 
Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX
27 inch 1080p monitor

This was I believe a high end system, at least back when I built it almost 2 years ago so imagine how shocked I was to see low FPS in FSX.

Any advice on what I should upgrade & if either sims mentioned above can run well on max settings (or close to max?)

Many thanks for your help guuys, cheers.

How low is low exactly ? Given that FSX performance depends on single core clock speed, I should say your system should be doing quite well. My processor is an i7-4720 with a base clock of 2.6 Ghz, and that runs smoothly with FPS locked to 30 in the Aerosoft A32X. I dont however use many addons except the REX Worldwide Airports HD. 

There are a few tweaks that need to be applied to get FSX running a bit better, such as the Highmemfix and AffinityMask. Take a look at the AVSIM FSX config guide, it explains most of the tweaks quite well. 

If you want you could try out both X-Plane 11, which has a free demo, and Prepar3d v4, which has a 60day full refund policy. I think you should be able to run both the sims with reasonable settings quite well. 

I'm not familiar with that AMD card - it may be why FSX was having issues.  Still though try the XP11 demo.  P3D has a 60 day return policy too.  Both would make better use of your video card than FSX 

Thanks both this is the card:

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-VAPOR-X-PCI-Express-Graphics-11227-04-40G/dp/B00JJJW4Z2

At the time it was almost equivalent to a GTX 970.

I'm going to try the demo of XP11 & see what happens, I really want to give Flight Simming a try again..

Your rig doesn't look too bad to me.

A [email protected] should be really ok for P3D. Like the others said: I also can imagine that the GPU is the limiting thing here. Otherwise you should be good to go.

Could you run a 3D mark Firestrike? It's for free and will show the power of your current system (even though it doen't show how P3D will perform).

 

 

Edit: You can buy the P3D developer license and try P3D for one month for 10$. And the XP11 demo is for free... So you can try them both :-)

Just did the firestrike test, I got 10,353. I should note my 3d mark firestrike version is about 1 year old so I am now downloading the latest update & will rerun.

10k it's not bad in 3dmark, but bear in mind that flight simulators are very specific "programs", you could have a awesome 3dmark score and a shi** performance in flight simulation, just shoot X-plane 11 demo just to have an idea how your system behaves ;) but be prepared to lose love to some money, and if you want to go max settings on any of those, you are going to need a top class cpu and gpu, depending of course on another very important factor, resolution of your monitor!

Thanks dmarques I want to play in 1080p :)