I've never used flight sims before (apart from the one on google earth), and am not into gaming, but when FS2020 came out last year it really caught my eye and the idea of getting into a flight sim appeals to me. Having done a bit of research I've realised I'd need to spend well over £1000 on a new PC to run FS2020 and even then might only manage low to medium settings.

Before making a significant spend on something that might (for me) end up being a short lived novelty, I wonder if I could try out one of the older sims on my current PC? My current PC is around 6 years old and was bought for AutoCAD, not gaming. Therefore I think I might need to swap the Quadro 410 graphics card for something gaming oriented. But if I could get a cheap low end gaming card running an older sim it would be much easier to justify the cost, and if I get the bug I could upgrade to a newer sim and PC in the future. My current system below:

i5 4400
8GB ram
108gb SSD
930gb HDD
Quadro 410 GPU
Windows 10

My question is can anyone recommend a modest GPU to slot into this system and which sims would it be able to run? Am I looking at FS2004 (if you can still buy it), could I run FSX? Any others?

Thank you!

If you can find FS2004, I'm sure it would run fairly well, but it is hard to find and activation of a new install can be problematic.

FSX Steam Edition is about as inexpensive as you can get with a flight simulator.  Your CPU meets minimum specs and I would keep the scenery settings low, otherwise the CPU will not be able to keep up. 

As for a graphics card, FSX is CPU bound, the video is not fully utilized, so you do not need the latest and greatest video card.  I would recommend an Nvidia card, they typically work better with FSX than AMD cards.  Your CPU is not going to need a 3xxx or even a 2xxx series Nvidia card.  With that CPU, I'd say a GTX-960 Ti would be a really good match and they are still available.  Look for one that has 2 GB of memory, 1 GB of video memory can be consumed pretty quickly.  Limit your screen resolution to 1080p unless you buy a higher end card.  With Nvidia's consumer grade card model number system, do not select a card with the next to last digit of the model number anything less than "6".  So a GTX-960 will do well, but a 950 is not likely going to be able to keep up.  Unfortunately, even old video card are commanding premium prices right now.  If you don't want to spend the $ for a 960 Ti, then a 760 Ti would be reasonable alternative, but a 2 GB card is better than a 1 GB card, especially with add-on aircraft that have 2048 or 4096 size textures.  My 560 Ti has only 1 GB, I wish it had 2 GB of memory.

Edited January 17, 20215 yr by stans

4 hours ago, Senator said:

I've realised I'd need to spend well over £1000 on a new PC to run FS2020 and even then might only manage low to medium settings.

Not true. What you are probably seeing, is people posting about needing much more hardware power to run the sim at 4K resolutions and higher, or possibly also in vr. If you are happy to run it in standard resolution of perhaps 1920x1080p on something like a 27 inch monitor, it looks perfectly fine - really good actually - and even a fairly modest computer can manage that on high settings with no problems whatsoever. 

Here is the spec of my computer which I run MSFS on. As you can see, it is not a flashy PC at all. I bet I couldn't sell it for more than 300 quid if I stuck it on Ebay:

ASUS prime Z270P motherboard, Intel Core i5 7400 Kaby Lake processor, Radeon RX480 GPU (8Gb DDR memory), 44Gb DDR4 memory.

Just off a quick search on Ebay, I found that you can buy a Radeon RX480 for about 160 quid, you can buy a Kaby Lake i5 for about 50 quid, you can buy a Z270P motherboard for about 75 quid and you can get the RAM for about 250 quid. Then all you'd need was a case (fifty quid for a cheap one) and a PSU (mine is a Corsair one so it is decent, say about 80 quid). That adds up to about £600 quid, and for that kind of money you can find pre-built computers which will match that spec easily.

You already have a monitor and a keyboard, and you could probably use your existing case as well, so you're looking at about 500 quid to knock something up yourself, or maybe £650 quid to buy something better than my PC, and I have pretty much all the settings I want for MSFS on the highest levels, because I don't run the sim at 4K. And if you think that won't look good, here's a few screenshots of it running MSFS with no problems whatsoever:

That's the really remarkable thing about MSFS; unlike most other flight sims, it runs really well on a pretty modest computer so long as you don't go for super high resolutions.

Edited January 17, 20215 yr by Chock

Thanks for the replies and advice. I couldn't find the GTX 960 Ti on ebay but there are a few 2GB GTX 960, is that up to the job? If so it could be a quick way to get me up and running.

Interesting to see your spec Chock, I had a look at a couple of your videos and would be very happy to have FS2020 running like you have it. I'll do a bit of research on your components. Also I didn't realise FS2020 has gliders, I've done a bit of real life glider flying so would be very interested in that.

 

1 hour ago, Senator said:

Thanks for the replies and advice. I couldn't find the GTX 960 Ti on ebay but there are a few 2GB GTX 960, is that up to the job? If so it could be a quick way to get me up and running.

Interesting to see your spec Chock, I had a look at a couple of your videos and would be very happy to have FS2020 running like you have it. I'll do a bit of research on your components. Also I didn't realise FS2020 has gliders, I've done a bit of real life glider flying so would be very interested in that.

 

The glider is an additional add-on, but it is a freebie and at present you need another payware (£6) add-on in MSFS to get thermals, aerotows and winch launches, but six quid plus a freebie is not a big deal of course.

A 2 GB 960 should be fine.  Chock makes a good point about MSFS, it does have a reputation for running well on more modest systems.  MSFS does cost more to purchase than FSX Steam Edition and it is a whopping download with constant updates.  It is still a work in progress and I hope Asobo can make MSFS into what they want it to be.  If they can, I think it will be the go-to flight sim for the majority of us.

Thought I'd update this thread. I kept an eye on used GPU's but with the prices being a bit silly at the moment, no doubt affected by the current shortage, it didn't seem like the best option. In the end I succumbed to the enticing look of FS2020 and bought a refurbished PC equipped with a GTX1660ti off a well rated ebay seller. I've had FS2020 up and running for just over a week now, still getting to grips with it but loving it so far.