Hello fellow flight simmers. I'm planning on purchasing a laptop that can handle fsx with all of my high Fidelity addon aircrafts and airports. I would have settled for a pc, but I can't right now because I travel frequently. The laptop I'm considering getting comes with an i7 10750h, gtx 1650ti, 32gb ram, and 512gb nvme ssd. Will this specs be enough to run fsx with lots of addon at acceptable framerates? Thanks.

Define "lots of addon".

This because the closest experience I had was with an i5-8300H. Its base clock was just 2.3 GHz (against the 2.6 GHz you're looking at) and my GPU was a 1050. While it ran aircraft such as the Aerosoft Airbus or the PMDG 777, I needed some extreme tweaking to make it work at 30 FPS; no addon airports (just AFCADs), few AI traffic and all textures reduced to 1024x1024 with mips. I upgraded to P3Dv4 some months later; almost the same tweaking but slightly better results.

Depending on your display (resolution and refresh rate), Lossless Scaling can be a blessing, though. That didn't exist during my FSX days, unfortunately.

EDIT: I purchased the laptop in my signature, thinking about FSX. It only works OK with old aircraft (i.e., no VC, just a 2D panel) and not much traffic. But the fact it's so light, and that it runs FS9 like a dream made me stay with this laptop.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Luis Hernandez

FSX runs best with the fastest cpu clock speed single core possible. Purchase for that first, every need after that is a far second.

Edit: Just wanted to agree with Luis, Lossless Scaling is a HUGE benefit when used with FSX.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by VeryBumpy

Another thing: when shopping for laptops, don't look at the turbo clock speed, but the base one. Laptop thermal systems are designed considering this base clock, and just assuming transient loads at turbo speeds. Flight sims are the exact opposite of that.

@alosi047 Those specifications should work just fine with your add-ons.  I've seen people run FSX with heavier add-ons on laptops with lower specifications that that.

To get FSX working at its maximum potential, I strongly recommend that you learn how to edit and tweak things in the fsx.cfg file so that you can tune FSX to your laptop's specifications if you haven't learned how already.  FSX works best when it's tuned to your specific hardware.

Thank you all for your inputs. I've been using fsx for over 10 years, before my pc died. I have lots of addon airports and aircrafts. I mostly fly the pmdg 737ngx and the aerosoft a320. My previous pc was less powerful than this laptop but I was able to run my addons with acceptable performance after lots of tweaking. I'm perfectly fine with 25fps, and I just hope this laptop will give me that fps in fsdreamteam and uk2000 airports with the pmdg 737.

@alosi047, by all means that proposed laptop will be fine for FSX but there’s one very important reason why I would urge you to not continue with that sim.

You’re constrained by it being a 32-bit program. It’s limited to 4Gb of VAS. What does that mean? Push the settings too high and the sim crashes due to insufficient memory. Not RAM, the memory in a 32-bit program.

If you moved to P3Dv4 or better still, v5 no such constraints apply. Your UK2000 airports will still work as will FSDreamTeam ones.

The PMDG737 for P3D is no longer available but the iFly one is. It’s virtually as good.

Entirely up to you but you’ll get far more out of P3Dv5 (not 6) with vastly improved world scenery plus it uses multiple cores of your CPU to aid performance whereas FSX runs on just one core.

https://www.prepar3d.com/prepar3d-store/

The Academic licence is fine.

35 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@alosi047, by all means that proposed laptop will be fine for FSX but there’s one very important reason why I would urge you to not continue with that sim.

You’re constrained by it being a 32-bit program. It’s limited to 4Gb of VAS. What does that mean? Push the settings too high and the sim crashes due to insufficient memory. Not RAM, the memory in a 32-bit program.

If you moved to P3Dv4 or better still, v5 no such constraints apply. Your UK2000 airports will still work as will FSDreamTeam ones.

The PMDG737 for P3D is no longer available but the iFly one is. It’s virtually as good.

Entirely up to you but you’ll get far more out of P3Dv5 (not 6) with vastly improved world scenery plus it uses multiple cores of your CPU to aid performance whereas FSX runs on just one core.

https://www.prepar3d.com/prepar3d-store/

The Academic licence is fine.

Thankyou, I'm also considering p3d, but I don't know if the laptop will handle p3d as well, because p3d uses the gpu more than fsx and the gtx1650ti has only 4gb vram. My dad has p3d v4 on his laptop and it runs well, his specs are i7 9750h and an rtx 2070 max q. The laptop I want to buy has a Slighly better cpu but a much worse gpu. That's why I'm skeptical about trying p3d

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@alosi047, by all means that proposed laptop will be fine for FSX but there’s one very important reason why I would urge you to not continue with that sim.

You’re constrained by it being a 32-bit program. It’s limited to 4Gb of VAS. What does that mean? Push the settings too high and the sim crashes due to insufficient memory. Not RAM, the memory in a 32-bit program.

If you moved to P3Dv4 or better still, v5 no such constraints apply. Your UK2000 airports will still work as will FSDreamTeam ones.

The PMDG737 for P3D is no longer available but the iFly one is. It’s virtually as good.

Entirely up to you but you’ll get far more out of P3Dv5 (not 6) with vastly improved world scenery plus it uses multiple cores of your CPU to aid performance whereas FSX runs on just one core.

https://www.prepar3d.com/prepar3d-store/

The Academic licence is fine.

With FSX, as long as you learn to manage VAS, FSX can still be a great experience.

The best ways to keep VAS usage down is to use scenery and replacement textures (global airports, sky, clouds, grass, etc.) that use lower resolution textures.  Do not use 4K textures in FSX when possible, it is the biggest VAS hog there is.  And the same goes for aircraft with 4K textures, stay away from those types of aircraft in FSX.  Also, aircraft that have lots of systems modeled will eat a large amount of VAS too, but sometimes this cannot be avoided if you want to fly a study level aircraft.

Personally, my rule of thumb is to mostly use scenery and replacement textures that are 1K or some may be 2K, and I try not to use aircraft that have higher than 2K resolution textures.

A couple other ways are to reduce certain scenery related settings, like autogen density, cloud draw distance, and cloud density.  Also, do not set water to maximum quality, set it to high.  Doing these things will greatly reduce the amount of VAS usage.

Yes, P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 are better of course, and it has its advantages, but I do know that as far as P3Dv5 goes, there is still a memory limit.  If you use more than 8 GB of VRAM with P3Dv5, it will crash every time, no matter how much VRAM your GPU can handle.  This is a known issue with it.  I can't say if P3Dv4 is the same because I never used it though.

Edited February 4Feb 4 by Zylx

17 minutes ago, alosi047 said:

Thankyou, I'm also considering p3d, but I don't know if the laptop will handle p3d as well, because p3d uses the gpu more than fsx and the gtx1650ti has only 4gb vram. My dad has p3d v4 on his laptop and it runs well, his specs are i7 9750h and an rtx 2070 max q. The laptop I want to buy has a Slighly better cpu but a much worse gpu. That's why I'm skeptical about trying p3d

Is this laptop near the limit of what you’re able to pay or could you stretch your budget a little more? I can see what country you live in which makes making recommendations difficult. Can you post a link to your proposed laptop?

If you can afford one with a 2000 series GPU it would make P3Dv5 more realistic. If you can’t then FSX is probably your best option.

8 minutes ago, Zylx said:

With FSX, as long as you learn to manage VAS, FSX can still be a great experience.

What you’re suggesting does take a lot of effort and skill. Not many people either can’t do this or don’t wish to.

9 minutes ago, Zylx said:

Yes, P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 are better of course, and it has its advantages, but I do know that as far as P3Dv5 goes, there is still a memory limit.  If you use more than 8 GB of VRAM with P3Dv5, it will crash every time, no matter how much VRAM your GPU can handle. 

That’s why I’ve now suggested looking at a laptop with a 2000 GPU might be better if his budget allows.

11 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

What you’re suggesting does take a lot of effort and skill. Not many people either can’t do this or don’t wish to.

That’s why I’ve now suggested looking at a laptop with a 2000 GPU might be better if his budget allows.

This is true, you are right, it does take some effort to learn how, but there's so much information out there, it's not that difficult to learn.  An even easier way to learn now days is to just ask an AI chat bot to help you learn.  They can tell you what every single setting in the fsx.cfg can do and recommend on how to tweak it based on your hardware if you ask it.  I swear, I use chat bots more than I use Google now days lol

For managing VAS it's as simple as just using lower resolution textures, it's really not that difficult.  Texture packages often come with different sized textures to choose from.  Some sceneries offer lower resolution textures too like Orbx airports as just one example.

That is a good suggestion, the OP would be better off with a 2000 GPU if they can afford it.

Edited February 4Feb 4 by Zylx

I wish I can get an rtx 2000 series,but my budget won't be enough. I can stretch it to a gtx 1660ti laptop though,but I don't know how well it will handle p3d

41 minutes ago, alosi047 said:

I wish I can get an rtx 2000 series,but my budget won't be enough. I can stretch it to a gtx 1660ti laptop though,but I don't know how well it will handle p3d

This is what a search revealed about a 1660TI with P3Dv5.

“The GTX 1660 Ti (6GB VRAM) is a viable, budget-friendly GPU for Prepar3D v5 (P3Dv5), capable of running the simulator at 1080p resolution with moderate settings. While it meets the minimum DirectX 12 requirements, it may struggle with high-end scenery or complex add-ons, requiring lower settings for a smooth experience. 

 

Performance Considerations for 1660 Ti with P3Dv5:

• VRAM Limitation: The 6GB of VRAM is sufficient for basic P3Dv5 usage, but high-resolution textures and heavy cloud scenarios might exceed this, leading to performance dips.
• Settings Management: To maintain acceptable frame rates, users should set most graphical settings to medium or low, especially when flying into busy, detailed airports.
• Comparison: It performs similarly to a GTX 1070, which is adequate for P3Dv5, though it lacks the 8GB+ VRAM recommended for more advanced setups.
• Compatibility: The card supports the DirectX 12 API required by P3Dv5 for improved performance.

Check full compatibility here including OS.

https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/system-requirements/#prepar3d-v5

 

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

This is what a search revealed about a 1660TI with P3Dv5.

“The GTX 1660 Ti (6GB VRAM) is a viable, budget-friendly GPU for Prepar3D v5 (P3Dv5), capable of running the simulator at 1080p resolution with moderate settings. While it meets the minimum DirectX 12 requirements, it may struggle with high-end scenery or complex add-ons, requiring lower settings for a smooth experience. 

 

Performance Considerations for 1660 Ti with P3Dv5:

• VRAM Limitation: The 6GB of VRAM is sufficient for basic P3Dv5 usage, but high-resolution textures and heavy cloud scenarios might exceed this, leading to performance dips.
• Settings Management: To maintain acceptable frame rates, users should set most graphical settings to medium or low, especially when flying into busy, detailed airports.
• Comparison: It performs similarly to a GTX 1070, which is adequate for P3Dv5, though it lacks the 8GB+ VRAM recommended for more advanced setups.
• Compatibility: The card supports the DirectX 12 API required by P3Dv5 for improved performance.

Check full compatibility here including OS.

https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/system-requirements/#prepar3d-v5

 

Thankyou, I would get the gtx 1660ti laptop and give p3d a try, if I'm not satisfied with the performance, I can always go back to fsx