swalter36

I scanned the forum directory and coudln't find an exact match for this topic, I hope no one is offended I'm posting here, it had the most viewers. I bought MS Flight Sim back in 1988 after winning a football pool and proceded to get my private ticket in 1993. I love PC's but haven't been into flying sims in a looong time. I drive race cars on-line instead. btw, the cockpits and force feedback wheels are pretty amazing and the development is leading edge. I've been perusing boards, forums, blogs etc to find something that would accomodate my needs. Like me, they're pretty basic. I want to brush up during the winter months on my flying skills, communication, shooting IFR approaches and practicing emergencies in a small aircraft. I don't have any desire to fly faster than a sporty single. Ok, maybe I'll check out a twin, gotta leave my options open. My search has brought to basically two choices , FSX and Xplane. I'm leaning towads FSX because, well, it's comfort food. I am a little nonplused that FSX is already 4 years old. In this day and age that's quite a long time. What I've also discoved is many folks having lots of issues installing the program and getting it to run properly. I've seen the install and config help files, but really, I have a hard time figuring out why this is necessary in this day and age. At this point I hear my mothers voice telling me to suck it up, it is what it is. I am also somewhat startled by the fact that a decent computer today is still having performance issues with a 4 year old program. If FS9 is less of a graphic card nightmare, I'd consider it. I have a I5 quad core 2.53 Ghz processor laptop with an integrated video card...yes yes, I've heard that is a problem with FSX. 4G of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. I don't really care about all the eye candy. Can I dumb down the graphics so it will run smoothly? I have an old set of CH pedals, dang, I think they have a serial interface, have to get me a usb converter. I'm not opposed to upgrading but I don't want to put the vertical stabilizer in front of the prop so to speak. I also have a $300 Logitech G27 FFB wheel I'd like to at least try. Anyone have any experience there? If not I'll grab a joytick, if its' good enough for Cirrus, it's good enough for me. Priority 1 is getting a sim that will function on my existing PC, after that I can figure things out. Any and all feedback is welcome and thank you in advance!