FSX hardware requirements: An historical perspective

[GHarrall 494]

I agree, but the MHz race was in full swing at that time.Faster CPU's were coming out nearly every day. A look at the CPU direction right now, shows that multiple cores is the big thing. The MHz race is over. We cannot exepect massive gains in CPU MHz over the next 2 years or so as this is clearly NOT the direction that Intel and AMD are heading. We currently have Dual Core and are now quickly heading to Quad Core. If you look at the roadmap for both Intel and AMD, significantly higher MHz CPU's are not on the agenda.As we know, FSX is basically a single threaded app (maybe 10-15% dual core) that requires the maximum MHz possible from a single core.Until this changes, the future for FSX looks pretty bleak. Don't get me wrong, I think FSX has massive potential. I just can't do it justice with my hardware right now. I have purchased my copy and I am enjoying it for more 'rural' low level flying. Maybe the holy grail of DX10 and Vista will blow us all away, but I for one am not holding my breath. Let's hope for a major patch that offloads more work to dual and quad cores........

[greengriffon 51]

Great post. Certainly puts things in perspective for the people who are upset over the steep hardware requirements.The actual realistic requirements, that is...not the fluff printed on the box.

[CanadaOne 36]

Back around '98 when Falcon 4 was released, the forums were burning with posts about poor FPS. The sim's designer, Gillman Louie, posted that to run the sim as it was meant to be played, you would need an 800Mhz CPU, which even the rich kids didn't have. Most of us were in the 300 to 400Mhz range.In other words, same shizzle - different sim. Nothin' new at all...

[Guest _MSW_]

It is not the "same shizzle...different sim". qjharrall nailed it in his post. The mhz race for processors is over and everything is going toward mult core processors. That is except for FSX. We are at a hardware cross roads. The hardware manufacturers took a right turn and FSX took a left turn. If FSX doesn't accomodate multi core processors, then what future hardware were they designing for? Graphics cards can still be vastly improved but the bottle neck will still be processors as far as FSX is concerned.Mike

[GHarrall 494]

400mhz - 800mhz = 2x CPU Mhz speed.Show me ANY mention from Intel or AMD of 5-6 GHz CPU's in the next 2 years or so.They are not on any roadmap.

[jjjallen 37]

This baby http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/06/nvidia-...specs-revealed/ will eat FSX for breakfast!:)jja

[Guest BOPrey]

That's easy. Get an e6600, and one of this.http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1255/cas...0GT.html?tl=g41You than over clock it to 4GHz which is equals to 4 * 1.5 = 6 GHz of P4 power.Or If you still prefer air cool. Get thishttp://www.a1-electronics.net/Heatsinks/20...g-Typ_Apr.shtmlYou won't reach 4GHz though, but close. Most people are able get between 3.5 to 3.8 GHz which translate to 5.25GHz and above.With this much power, you don't even need a DX10 card. A friend of mine got 18fps with a 7800gt 512MB over NYC (zoomed out), no mod, no bloom and water set to mid 2x, max out every thing. I don't know his traffic settings.Oh, BTW, the new DX10 will be a waste of money.http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35409

[Guest Len]

Sorry, you're wrong. The poster above on multi core processors is correct. As well please do a search for AVSIM reviewer Mike's comments on this board regarding FSX and the trenchant differences between all previous versions from a comparative sense. History is not repeating itself here. It's a paradigm change(to borrow an overused term).

[Mountain Man 142]

>History is not repeating itself here.It is in the sense that like every other release of Flight Simulator going back almost 10 years, it requires faster hardware to get the same performance as pervious versions.

[DescendDescend 25]

I've been struggling to remember the systems I went throught on FS9. I remember starting on an Athon 1800/GEforce2/512RAM an struggling to get 8 FPS over London on reasonable settings.Things did improve a bit with the 2.53 the 3.05 Intel chips and 9700 ATI plus 1 Gb.It wasnt until the AMD 3700 and x800xt that it really started to motor but by the FS9 was 'maturing'The processor clock speeds roughly doubled over that time and there were big architecture improvements.Looking at FSX now the visual improvements in default are vast. Performance wise I can get 12 fps over London with only one or two config tweaks and most things maxed (AI 50%, no bloom, no aircraft ground shadows, traffic 45%). New York and Tokyo are a huge stuggle with about 6 fps.The only difference is that I can't see processors improving in the same way over a similar period. FS has to go multicore.

[Guest]

>400mhz - 800mhz = 2x CPU Mhz speed.>>Show me ANY mention from Intel or AMD of 5-6 GHz CPU's in the>next 2 years or so.>>They are not on any roadmap.>This is my first post here, and i joined just to tell this guy how wrong he is.Clock speed can mean almost nothing when it comes to CPU's. Its all about the architecture.Why Do you think a P4 @ 3.0 Loses in more game benchmarks to a 2.0 AMD 64? But still P4 owns AMD in video encoding? This deals with the architecture of the chip and now it is designed, the P4 has long pipelines that are great when used for Audio/Video encoding, but the AMD has short pipelines that relay quicker that are better for gaming and other CPU hungry tasks similar to that.Why Do you think that a E6600 @ 2.4 C2D gets 1/2 the Super Pi times of a A64?Architecture. Not clock speed. And when Vista Is realeased, programs/games will be multi threaded which means that they will take advantage of all cores in the CPU.Imagine a Kentsfeild or K8L using all four cores at the same time in one program? That would cause a massive leap in preformance.Just Wait and see.

[GHarrall 494]

Clearly, I know about architecture or I would have purchased a 3.4ghz Pentium D instead of my E6400.Did YOU know that Core 2 Duo is THE latest architecture? Did YOU know that this architecture is NOT going to change in the next 2-3 years? Did YOU know that Quad Core is the next step? Did YOU know that FSX currently takes very LITTLE advantage of two cores, nevermind four?Clearly you know nothing, or you wouldn't have made the ridiculous statement about games and apps being multi core enabled when Vista is released. There is nothing in Vista which cant be done already in XP as far as multi threading goes. Many games and apps are already multi core / threaded in XP and have been for some time.FSX is NOT coded to take advantage of multi core CPU's. Vista is NOT going to change that. Only a patch from Microsoft ACES for FSX will.My point, if you had bothered to read, is that Intel and AMD are heading down the multiple core path. FSX (like all previous FS's) is heavily dependant on one, fast core. We will see no major improvements in clock speed of single cores in the next 2-3 years and there is no newer architecture on the horizon than what we have now with Core 2 Duo / Quad Core. Where is FSX going to get this 'magic' perofrmance increase from without a major patch for dual/quad core?If you are putting your faith in Vista being the answer, you are going to be dissapointed.Glenn

[GHarrall 494]

Howard,With your PC, I would be right ###### with FSX performance. I am with mine.......

[Guest Adrian Wainer]

>I agree, but the MHz race was in full swing at that time.>>Faster CPU's were coming out nearly every day. >>A look at the CPU direction right now, shows that multiple>cores is the big thing. The MHz race is over. We cannot>exepect massive gains in CPU MHz over the next 2 years or so>as this is clearly NOT the direction that Intel and AMD are>heading. We currently have Dual Core and are now quickly>heading to Quad Core. If you look at the roadmap for both>Intel and AMD, significantly higher MHz CPU's are not on the>agenda.>>As we know, FSX is basically a single threaded app (maybe>10-15% dual core) that requires the maximum MHz possible from>a single core.>>Until this changes, the future for FSX looks pretty bleak.>Don't get me wrong, I think FSX has massive potential. I just>can't do it justice with my hardware right now. I have>purchased my copy and I am enjoying it for more 'rural' low>level flying. >>Maybe the holy grail of DX10 and Vista will blow us all away,>but I for one am not holding my breath. Let's hope for a major>patch that offloads more work to dual and quad cores........Agreed I have FS X running on my new computer AMD Athlon 64 4800 dualcore 939 Socket 1 Gigabyte RAM DDR1 6600GT Graphics CardWindows XP 64 Professional on a SATA Raptor drive 37 GigabyteFS X on a standard SATA drive 300 Gigabyte Thermaltake fan for CPUwww.thermaltake.com/pr...114-01.aspwww.thermaltake.com/pr..._index.asparound 16 FPS but can be as low as 5 FPS at Seattle Airport, I tried overclocking the processor and brought it up to 2800 megahertz from the stock 2400 of the 4800 939 but it did not make much difference to frame rates, though it seemed to load somewhat quicker, so I reset the chip back to the standard non overclocked values. I have also run FS X on my 3200 Athlon 64 with 1.5 Gigabytes RAM and a 6800GS 512 megabyte DDR3 memory graphics card. FS X seems very resource demanding and whilst one can argue about the figures ie framerates, the general coonsensus seems to be that it is a very demanding programme, the one qualification I would make is that I am not overly familar with Windows XP 64 Professional and there is a possability that I can obtain a better driver for the grpahics card, which may up the frame rates.Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

[DescendDescend 25]

Yes the performance is not brilliant but I have tweaked a bit more and just managed to get New York up to 9 FPS with all of the scenery settings maxed. Mind you I had to lower traffic to 20% to do it.This is with no texture tweaks, pretty much as described above.Funny thing is that changing the scenery settings makes relatively little difference. I can get own to 6 FPS with virtually everything on all tabs maxed (as posted above) but if I lower scenery settings very substantially I can only get up to say 14 FPS. Autogen seems to make 3-4 fps difference from min to max.Having said that, away from these cities the performance is fairly fluid. Typically around 20-40 FPS with the scenery and texure settings maxed and traffic around 40%. Note the resolution though.If you like high fromes visit the Arctic. It gets up to 120 fps:D I noticed that Princess Juliana is now up around 18-20 FPS on these settings which is better than demo2.Might try upping it to 3,6 Ghz.Dreading adding the quality aircraft.