Hi all,I have plenty of PC experience in general (I was a network consultant in a past life) but I have NO pc experience when it comes to flight sims.So... What do all the PC flyers out there think is the best version of Windows / PC Config for running FlyII, MSFS, and X-Plane?I may be looking into setting up a PC or two for gaming and flightsimming in the near future.Cheers---John R. SippyChicago, IL, USAPowerMacG4 -Dual 5001024MB RAMnVidiaGF2 - 32MB

Hallo John,I do not think there is one specific ,ideal configuration.It totally depends on the amount of money, available for the PC.The PC I use at this moment is three years old and I am thinking of building a new one.Any high performance game-PC-configuration will do.nVidia chipset based videocards give very good results with FLY.RegardsLeen

Thanks for the reply, Leen.What about Windows? Is there any particular version that is better suited for simming and gaming?I have heard vague rumors of some people not being able to run their games (or hardware drivers) under some versions of Windows.Cheers---John R. SippyChicago, IL, USAPowerMacG4 -Dual 5001024MB RAMnVidiaGF2 - 32MB

Happy New-Year John.I have a Pc with Windows 98 and FLYII wich runs reasonable good.But Windows98 is outdated now ( not supported anymore )My other PC is equipped with XP-Pro and it works absolutely greatwith FLYII and MSFS2004.I heard there are experiments going with these sims running underLinux ( Windows emulated) , my son started FLYII this way but itsjust in a very early state of development.So for now, I suggest , go for XP .RegardsLeen

A Happy and Peaceful New Year to you, John!I run FLY! and FLY!II without any problems under Windows XP Home (German version) and Windows 98 SE (same computer, 2 hard-disks, boot-manager). All Nvidia grafic-cards I have had over the years worked fine with FLY!/FLYII (Radeon might have better performance but has (?) some problems with FLYII, I use Nvidia because there are drivers available for LINUX). I got a visible improvement in frame-rate (less stuttering) when changing from a 64 MB to a 128 MB card and selecting the best available driver for the card (thats a never ending process of testing different things). Its a special case of FLY!II that you have to optimize your render.ini file manually to get best results - have a look at the forum.In my case (I have one FLY installation on a hard-disk formated FAT32 and one on a hard-disk formated NTFS) FAT32 seems to be a little faster. Always have your hd defragmented. Give Windows a fixed cache. Under WinXP 512 MB ram or more should be installed with a pretty fast CPU (in Germany many people who build their own system prefer AMD because its significant cheaper here). Stop all background threads or processes/programs which are not essential. AND to push your imagination (your eyes transfer it to the brain) buy a 19'' monitor (or bigger). My last 17'' was around 600$, my new (best tested by several magazines, I can confirm it) 19'' Samtron 96P only 180$.Hope that can help you a little. The rest is your decision and a question of your budget.RegardsGeorg (EDDW)

Here's wishing everyone a happy and peacefull new year!Thanks for the replies and advice---John R. SippyChicago, IL, USAPowerMacG4 -Dual 5001024MB RAMnVidiaGF2 - 32MB