PC Advice

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Guys,Im looking for your help and advice in choosing a PC, which will be mostly used for Flight Simming (FlyII) and Developing. I currently use my Apple Mac for Flying and development, but now I have saved up enough dough!, Ive decided on a PC. Ive got one in mind which comes with VISTA home edition, has Duo Intel E6700 processors and a nvidia 756mb Graphic Card.Will this be able to cope with FlyII and is there anything else I should be looking for.Earl has probably answered my next question on whether FlyII will run on Microsoft Vista or Not?.....but any info or advice will be much appreciated.Thanks for all your helpCheers John

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day John, I'm NOT using Vista but am using a slower version of the intel core 2 duo processor. I'm using an E6600 core 2 duo (2.4 MHz) with an nVidia 7600 GT 256 Mb card and am achieving frame rates in Fly! II that are fantastic. However I'm only just using XP-professional, but as you see Earl has confirmed that he is running Fly! II on Vista - no problems.Get the fastest ram you can afford. I'm using DDR 667 ram, but faster ram is available. I'm a firm believer that CPU and ram speed are far far far more critical than the graphic GPU. Good luck with your new computer - I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the operation of Fly! II.Cheers,Roger

[Earl_Buice 0]

Hi John and G'day to my friend Roger,I am continually amazed at how well FLYII does on my Vista machine WITHOUT a video card!! I flew around a little last night with all sliders full right except traffic which is half. Now, in New York, forget it. I have to make adjustments, but seldom do I fly in huge cities anyway. I get between 16 and 88 FPS! Unbelievable!I am beginning to think a lot of problems are introduced by video drivers for nVidia and ATI. I read in FSX forums how nVidia drivers are still not right and causing troubles. Please don't get me wrong, I need a video card and plan to get one as soon as I can afford one. Its just that, I never expected this little Core Duo 925 to be able to fly FSX or FLYII. It works quite well.As to Vista, I have had no issues whatsoever with Vista. It seems very robust. It crashed once due to FSX and a addon I was trying to get to work but it came right back with no problems.I say go ahead with Vista. FLYII installed easily and with no errors at all as did FSX.Best regards to all. God bless.Earl925 3GHz, 1G RAM, On board 946GZ 3000 video Graphics chip, on board Realtech sound, Vista w/1255 driver

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Roger, Earl everyoneMany Thanks for your Info, it was very helpful. It'll be interesting to see how it performs on VISTA.Ive just purchased a NEW copy of FLYII (PC) for

[Earl_Buice 0]

John,I went exactly step by step following Ken Salters great sticky at the beginning of this forum:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...esg_id=55&page=Do not try to fly before first 5 steps are completed. Get to v240. I'm confident you'll have a great experience!Take care. All the best!Earl

[KenWood 5]

Hi John, For Fly!II, VISTA should run it quite well. As Earl says, be sure to patch all the way to version 2.40 first. You can install 2.10 then go to 2.40 without the need for 2.30 if desired. ;-) As Roger says, one of the more critical components for a PC going to VISTA (most any PC, actually) - and from articles I've been reading here on VISTA is RAM. 1GB is *minimum* for VISTA, and most "Reviewers" recommend 2GB. But it sounds like what you have gotten should work nicely.Hope this helps.Ken Wood :-sun1Gateway 700X; Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; NVIDIA Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Ken,Thanks for that............actually I took Roger's advice and upgraded the Ram to 2GB so I'll see how it goes. The only thing I'm abit concerned about is the Graphic Card (nVidia), because I seem to recall having read a few threads where some folks have had Driver and FPS issues.But I'm sure there will be a FIX for it......... somewhere out there in cyberspace.Kind RegardsJohnGood to hear from you!

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day John,Are you getting a DX-10 graphics card? I guess that would make sense if you have programs that can actually use DX-10 features but I don't think DX-10 will do anything to enhance Fly! II - not yet anyway (hint hint to all the Fly! Legacy programmers). If Vista allows you to use a DX-9 card and you have no dire need for a DX-10 card then don't shy away from Nvidia. My 7600 GT can give up to 729 FPS (that's the highest I've seen) in Fly! II depending on the settings/scenery/views. At this stage of developement not many programs support DX-10 so you could save a LOT of money by not getting a DX-10 card right now. Let the whole dx-10 mess sort itself out and then buy a DX-10 card a couple of years in the future if you find you do really need one. You won't regret buying a PC.Just my 2c worth. - :-)Cheers mateRoger

[Fall_guy 1]

G/day mateI upgraded the graphic card to a - (nVidia 768mb GeForce 8800 GTX)I'm afraid I don't know too much about the graphic cards on PC's, so I could'nt really tell you whether its a DX card or not.I just thought that the more MB the card has, the better Fly would run!!!Thanks for the adviceregards John

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day John,Nice video card! designed to take advantage of Vista's DX-10. The top of the range of the nVidia cards. Fly! II should be quite stunning even though it will not make use of the DX-10 features.As a generalisation I agree that the increase in memory on the video card will help with performance.Fly! II will scream on your new system. I would be very interested to hear your views on how Fly! II performs.A really nice system.Cheers,Roger

[Fall_guy 1]

G/day mateSo you think Ive made the right choice!..........Thats a relief!!, As you know the PC side of things are completely new to me, so I tried reading as many card reviews as possible. I could'nt figureout whether a Single graphic card is best or a Dual card system.I thought as the Dual systems are relatively new, after reading a few problem reports on the nVidia drivers I decided to go for a Single Graphic Card as Hopefully theres less chance of things going wrong.Your advice is greatly appreciated,Take care mateJohn

[KenWood 5]

Hi John, Good to hear from you, too... I had another family death and have been gone for most of the last week and a half. Sorry. Good choice on cards -going with the single versus dual. Were you doing commercial grade graphics constantly, then a dual card setup may be one way to go. But as Roger points out, Fly! II won't be able to take much advantage of the DX-10 features. Still and all, the 8800 is a great choice since you'll be set to go for other proggies that will use the DX-10 features. I need to do some serious upgrading myself, but that will have to wait a bit yet. Welcome to the world PC - though myself - I still long for my Amiga! :-lolCheers!Ken Wood :-sun1Gateway 700X; Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; nVidia Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Ken,That takes me back............The Commodore 64I can't quite remember the name of the flight sim, but as basic as it was....I still toyed with it for hours. Boy we've sure come along way when you look at todays flight sims software and hardware.Good to hear from you......and I'm sorry to hear about your loss.Best regardsJohn