bslenter

Would be helpful to include your resolution and monitor count when reporting on performance. I think this has a pretty big effect on what performance you can get out of your system, especially for lesser cards.

To clarify, I'm down to 15 fps with all sliders at least to mid way, resolution at 1440x1050 (my monitor's native res), water at Ultra, AA at 2x, Autogen to Dense, texture resolution at medium, etc. I was above 20 fps when I first launched at default settings. I'll readily admit that, if I had a few hours flying on your system, I'd have a hard time living with 15-20 fps. But in my case, I've been flying MS Flight Sim for a lot of years, and never had a system that kept up with the demands of the software. Each time MS released a new version, you had to have a $3000 box to run it at max. I never did. So 20 fps in Flight Sim is pretty normal for me. Honestly, this fps range feels smoother on P3D than it ever did in FSX. It's obvious I'm experiencing modernized code. And Lockheed is not done optimizing. But yeah, if I get sucked into a lot of simming again, I'm probably going to get a new box and do it right. I'd sure like to experience 50 fps with sliders at max.

Well I bit the bullet and purchased P3D on my existing system. After an hour or so of experimentation, I'm actually very pleased with the performance of the sim on my existing hardware. Even with many of the sliders more than half way to the right and fairly dense autogen, I'm seeing 15 fps. Now that may sound pretty choppy, but for a flight sim it's actually not bad (after all, this is not a twitch action game). If I pull the sliders back a bit, I can get 20 fps even over San Francisco. Maybe my expectations were managed by previously running FSX with PDMG 737 on this same box, but I'm reasonably happy. I still want a hardware upgrade, but it isn't urgent. Now, the frame rate in P3D 2.1 is still not as consistent as I like (periodic drops in fps particularly upon touchdown) but I think that's a software optimization issue and reading the changelog for the upcoming 2.2 update sounds like they are addressing many of these issues, and also making fixes that will allow me to move sliders farther right without a penalty. Now the question is, do I really go nuts and add the ORBX NorCal package? How much will that drop my FPS?

Interesting. Sounds like my experience would be as good or better than what I'm seeing now in FSX with DX10. Though today I've been debating whether to bite the bullet and just get a new $800-1000 gaming PC. I'm kind of due for an upgrade. If I did that, I could enjoy P3D with sliders to the far right plus addons, and that would be amazing.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I think i will try this. Haven't had time yet, and of course with the Avsim meltdown I didn't see many of these responses until today. Ultimately if I start down this path then I bet I will end up buying new hardware before the year is out. Some nice add-ons like Orbx NorCal are becoming compatible with P3D, but what's the point of going with the add-ons if I have to turn the scenery way down. One of my dilemas for my next hardware upgrade is desktop vs. laptop. I prefer portability if possible, but would need one heck of a gaming laptop to run P3D well.

I appreciate the open-mindedness. Looking closer at your system, it's pretty clear I'm still a big step below that, but at least I'm above the minimum requirements stated on Lockheed's website, so I know it will run and hopefully with sliders at least a third of the way to the right. I may give it a try this weekend, and if I do, I will certainly report back. If I do make the switch, I'm looking to start off with a nice single-engine private aircraft, preferably with decent climb performance and cruise speed, and a high degree of realism. Does anything that comes with the software fit the bill, or is there an add-on aircraft that anyone would recommend?

This is really what I am wondering. Could you tell me your system specs? To everyone else, I totally hear what you're saying. P3D is best experienced with a much newer system. I really should upgrade. But what I'm thinking right now is, the engine in FSX is really old tech. It doesn't even take full advantage of multi-core processors. It runs at a fast enough frame rate on my system that, particularly with clouds off, my aircraft (even PMDG) are responsive enough. But it lacks smoothness. The joy of flying is diminished. I purchased MS Flight when it came out, and it runs quite well on my system. It's the same underlying engine as FSX, but modernized, and I'm thinking that P3D is something like the engine of MS Flight attached to a proper and serious sim (tell me if I'm wrong here).

Mostly this is a hardware performance question. Hopefully others out there with similar system specs can give me feedback. I'm a long-time FSX user and aviation enthusiast. I'm currently running FSX with PDMG 737 NGX but no other add-ons on my system, which is: Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHZ Nvidia GT640, 2GB Video RAM 3 GB RAM Windows 7 32-bit Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 Joystick While I really enjoy FSX, I don't invest a ton of time. I'm a busy guy with a family. So that said, I don't want to drop lots of money on new hardware, a lot of add-ons, etc. So my question is: How would P3D 2.1 perform on my system at medium settings? FSX runs reasonably well but it's far from silky-smooth (especially with the PDMG 737 running on it). I'll upgrade to the academic license of P3D if people think I'd have a markedly better experience with this rig. One day I'll upgrade, but not now. Also, I know PDMG has not released anything for P3D, but it's in the works and it would be nice if I could run it when it releases. I suspect RAM will be my bottleneck though. I already get a periodic lock-up, but mostly it's okay.