Sharrow

To add to the already excellent response I would strongly suggest that you wait until Intel's Nehalem cpu with X58 motherboards come out in Q4 2008 before making the switch from FS9 to FSX. Pricing should be pretty reasonable right off the bat. DDR3 will be significantly more affordable by then too. As you can see from my sig I am running no slouch of a rig but with any complex add on (PMDG 744X, Dornier Do-27, ATR 72-500 etc) I have to limit my settings pretty severely to achieve smooth framerates (25+) on takeoff and landing. Add some scenery add-ons (UTX, GEX etc) to this and things only get worse. If you want some weather this will have further negative impact. I always have all AI traffic (cars included) set at 0% when flying the 747. Screen resolution is another important factor - the higher the resolution the lower your frame rates. SLI/Crossfire has no real world benefit (unless you run a 30 inch monitor perhaps but this is arguable).The reality is that current generation high-end hardware is NOT up to running FSX with complex add-on's using even medium autogen settings, AI, and weather. Next gen architecture should be anywhere from 15 to 30% quicker at similar price points (which is great!) but it will still not be possible to SMOOTHLY land the queen at Mega Airport Heathrow with high settings, weather and AI without some compromise.Just want to add for comparison purposes that I get an even 14,000 in 3DMark06 (on XP obviously with no overclock at all on any components) which is way above average. Crysis runs very smoothly at 1680x1050 on all high settings on my rig. This should give you an idea of how extremely system intensive FSX with complex add-ons is!Hope that helps someKonrad

Hi VinI tried to find something related on the forums but obviously not hard enough. Great to hear you're on it!Konrad

HiAm having some issues with the 744X freighter VC where the edges of the "no smoking" panels to either side of the captain and FO seat flash from light to dark. Difficult to capture the effect in a screenshot so have just outlined the areas in question. 744X pax version is fine.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190647.jpgThe second issue concerns the dome lighting, again only in the 744X freighter. When switched on all the panels above the windscreen go all haywire and look corrupted. Screenshot with affected area attached.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190648.jpgFinally, the strobe light can be seen flashing through the roof of the virtual cabin, again in the freighter. Not sure if this also occurs in the pax version (as it is behind a mostly closed door).http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190649.jpgI do not have any of these issues with the pax version of the 744X. Furthermore I am almost sure that these issues only started after the latest update.Anyone else experiencing these problems?ThanksKonrad

Perhaps the imminent update will include some new gauge textures amongst the general VC texture cleanups listed as being included?Failing that does anyone know if these standby guages could be replaced by 3rd party ones? ThanksKonrad

Hi thereMy apologies if this has come up before.Given the otherwise superb quality of the 744X VC it seems a bit odd to me that the quality of the various standby gauges is so "low". Is there something that can be done to fix this issue? I am running 1680x1050 widescreen - maybe that is stretching them or something? Not too keen on using the fsx widescreen switch, not even sure it would help? Any ideas?Screenshot of "suspect" gauges attached.ThanksKonradhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188757.jpg

Hi.Do a search for "pmdg747south_african" on http://library.avsim.net/There is an SAA 744X PMDG version available - has been for a while and works great!. The 744x liveries on the pmdg website are by no means the only ones available - AV sim library has quiet a few... check out some of the detailed Lufthansa ones for example.PS: As far as I know FSX texture files must be in .dds file format.Hope that helps!