kowgli

Is your machine OC'd? Did you try to run any load testing tools like Prime95 of Intel Burn Test? Did you test in other demanding games?

I would for now park the MB and CPU upgrade and just buy a new graphics card in your case. I would recommend the new GTX770 (maybe Palit Jetstream). It has very good value for money. Performs similar to the old GTX680 with less power consumption.

If you have your 2500 OC'd to 4.7GHz it's doubtful you'll have any significant performance improvement by upgrading. The 3xxx and 4xxxx generations are maybe 10-15% faster when comparing clock vs clock to 2xxx. They are more energy efficient, but that's basically it.They are also not so good at overclocking, so 4.5GHz is a reasonable limit. Basically you won't gain anything. If you need to upgrade I would consider the graphics card. The GTX570 is now 2 generations old and the GTX770 is roughly 50% faster. But off course if you use the computer only for FSX the graphic card doesn't matter so much - it matters but GTX570 is more than enough. Summing up I wouldn't upgrade yet in your situation. You have a very powerful setup and there is not much you can gain by upgrading. If you have an urge to spend money (like I have sometimes ) then I would spend it on some nice hardware controller - like a professional yoke or something.

Well you didn't provide any information regarding your settings - voltages, frequencies, multipliers, RAM settings etc. So it's hard to give any specific advice. I suppose If you managed to get it to 4.6 you know the general idea of overclocking. Basic advice if it's crashing is to bump the voltage a little (like 0.05V) and prime test for at least 30 minutes. If it fails bump it a little more, until it passes the test. Remember it's not just the CPU voltage that matters. RAM voltage and VTT (memory controller) are also important. In the end run a prime test for a couple of hours to be 100% sure everything is OK.

Did you test your stablity using software like Prime95 - http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/, direct link http://download.mersenne.ca/gimps/p95v279.win64.zip Try running the blend test for at least 30 minutes and see if there are no errors. If there are - you have your answer. As Jim mentioned it's even highly doubtful the 4.6GHz is stable. I'll start by lowering the multiplier to 42x and play around with the CPU and VTT voltages until it's "prime stable" for at least 30 minutes. System boot is no indication of stability. Only putting it under high pressure (like Prime95 does) is. It's fairly common for an OC'd system to run perfectly under normal working conditions (office application, browsing, etc.) but crashing when under heavy load like playing games. Only tedious, using small steps, overclocking and load testing will give stability. It's also important to realistically lower your expectations and not compromise stability over performance improvement. Hope I helped, Łukasz

Hi, Cannot confirm this 100%, but I think it's not possible. The reason is that in FS the aileron and rudder trims are not an axis. So you cannot control them in an analogue way. It's only +/- by a certain increment. Some time ago, when I was developing a touch screen controller for FSX (for my own use) I did extensive research on the subject and coulnd't find a reliable solution. It might be supported by some 3rd party aircraft - but not generically. You'll need to contact the developer and ask. It might be then possible to configure it using FSUIPC.

Sky Vector is great but only for the US - where it's covered by sectionals. For the rest of the world the level of detail on the map is way to low for proper VFR flight planning. There are no min. sector altitutes, cities are not labeled, only the major roads are shown, obstacles (with height) and landmarks are missing... etc. You can see here what the level of detail is on real aviation charts. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but in Europe the process of planning a cross country VFR flight takes at least an hour. You first draw the route on the map, fill in the legs with magnetic track and distance in your VFR flight plan. Next you check the weather forecast and calculate the wind correction angle and calculate the magnetic heading, ground speed and leg times. All is writen down in a flight plan and on the map next to the legs. You perform your weight, balance and fuel calculations and put them into the flight plan. Finally you check NOTAMS, METAR's and TAF's and active TRA's and TSA's. It's a lot of work, but the preparation phase is half the fun of real world flying.

In my opinion you should invest, buy a normal paper aeronautical map (sectionals, Jeppesen, ...) and do proper navigational flights. If you fly GA VFR then navigation with a stoper and map is 90% of the fun. Following a line displayed on the screen seems a little boring. I'm not sure how it is in the US, but I assume that similar as in Europe all airfield information, procedures and maps are freely available.

@TheRealThing89 Disable crash detection in FSX. This is a common issue, either because of errors in the airplane model or the scenery.

AMD Phenom II x4 965 is a CPU

You mentioned you just bought them. Can't you just request a warranty repair? As a consumer you shouldn't really care about the hardware. Until it has a warranty it has to work.

Apparently pitot tube icing is not simulated

First of all try playing around with the settings. There are a lot of topics here describing that. Yours are probably to high and not optimized. If that doesn't help you should overclock your CPU as much as possible - to at least around 4GHz. What FSX cares most about is the CPU clock. A good non stock cooler (like Noctua) might help with that. You have a rather high end motherboard so there should be no problems with that. You could also try upgrading your graphics card to something better. The 550Ti is rather low-end. Maybe a 660Ti or 670 with 2GB of V-RAM. Although I would try with the CPU first. As I already said it's what matters most.

You don't have to necessarily be below 250kt when below 10.000ft (or more probably FL100) - although it's a quite common standard, mostly because of noise restrictions, reaction time and possible traffic I suppose. This is always defined in the local air law and may differ from country to country. Check the AIP in the country you fly in. Additional restrictions might apply in the airfield you are landing at and should be described in the STAR. A basic rule of thumb is that you try to land as fast as possible (to free up the airspace) but maintaining speeds that are in operational limits. You have to keep in mind safety, passenger comfort and nowadays fuel economy. Often there are min and max speeds defined for different profiles of landing. The decision is up to the captain and operational procedures of his airline. They might differ from airline to airline. Sometimes the tower might ask you to go a little slower or faster, but you don't have to comply if it's not in safe operational limits of the airplane you are flying. Generally what I want to say is that there are no strict rules about this, it's all about common sense and legal requirements. That's why people fly airplanes not robots.

I would simply unify it into UTC (you should use UTC in aviation) You want to land at 13:00 local (UTC-6) = 13+6 UTC = 19:00 UTC Flight takes 8 hours so you need to take off at 19:00 - 8 = 11:00UTC local KORD (UTC-6) = 11:00 - 6 = 05:00 local