Adam T Lutley

My system specs are posted but here are some general thoughts. To get the performance you're looking for you'll probably need to look into a new system either built by yourself or custom built by a company such as cyberpower. Most off the shelf PC's are very limited in terms of what you can do. You probably wont be able to overclock the processor. You should be able to add more RAM to help the OOM errors and maybe a better graphics card but that's about it. Fsx is very CPU bound and it needs raw CPU clock speed and lots of it! Not sure how far you want to go but here are some ideas if considering a new computer CPU: The fastest you can afford and then overclock it as high as you can . Intel is regarded to be superior to AMD for Fsx. Consider an I5 such as the 3570K or an I7 like the 2600/2700K or an Ivy bridge like the 3770K. Make sure you get the "K" version of whatever processor you choose. CPU clock speed is the BIGGEST single determining factor in Fsx performance. Mobo: A Z77 board will accomadate any newer I5 or I7 processor and its also pci 3.0 ready so it will also take advantage of the latest NVIDIA 600 series graphics cards. I prefer ASUS but I hear Asrock is decent also. Try to get a mid range or higher Z77 board as the base ones won't have some added features you may want such as Wi Fi capability, memory timing features, etc GPU NVIDIA is generally regarded to be the preferred Graphics card for Fsx. A 660ti or better should be fine. The 670 FTW is very close to the 680 in terms of performance at a $100 less. Fsx wont take advantage of SLI or "dual" single graphics cards like the 690 series NVIDIA so stay away from those. RAM: anything more than 8Gb is overkill as Fsx in general wont make use of more than 4. Timings and speeds do matter for overclocking purposes so try to find something that is 1600 Mhz or faster with the lowest CAS latency you can find. The Corsair Vengeance or Dominator series are good cards. Hard drives: SSD's are becoming cheaper by the day so I would go that route. I have 2 Samsung 840 series SSD's. One for the operating system and one dedicated for Fsx. Fsx should be installed on its own hard drive in its own folder created by you, not the default x86 path suggested by the installer. Cooling: Anything but the stock CPU cooler such as the Cooler Master 212 EVO. For "average" overclocks, decent aftermarket air coolers are on par with budget closed loop water coolers like the Corsair H60, H80 etc. PSU : for a single Graphics card setup, anything over 850 W is overkill. However, not all PSU's are created equal. A cheaper one might crash your system with sudden voltage drops and spikes. Corsair and Cooler Master are decent brands. Just make sure you get one with a 80 plus gold rating. Try to get a modular one as you'll only connect the cables you need and won't have unused cables cluttering the inside of the case.

My full system specs are posted in my profile. I have an I7 3770K OC'd to 4.5 GHz and a EVGA 670 FTW 2Gb GPU with 2 SSD's and my sim bogs down at major airports using complex payware aircraft such as PMDG, 3rd party airport scenery, Traffic 360 Etc. My traffic settings have the highest effect on performance. Airport road traffic especially. Interestingly, It doesn't seem to make any difference what setting I have it on whether low or high. turning it completely off gained me at least 5 FPS. My AI traffic I have set to 37 %. It seems to be a good compromize between performance while still having some decent "eye candy" my sim now stays above 20 FPS in all situations and almost always well north of 30 FPS. FSX is simply too outdated to take advantage of the latest advances in hardware.

Glad to hear there now is a viable alternative for the A320 to Wilco's offerings. As soon as PMDG comes out with the 777 I'll ditch them for good.

The price I quoted in my earlier post was for the entire set-up, case and all. I probably saved at least $500 building it myself. Cyberpower PC will custom build almost anything and their "configurator" tool is very user-friendly. I had an AMD quad core Phenom OC'd to 3.8 GHz and a NVIDIA 480GT and the performance gain was huge. I'd say that going from 3.2 GHz to something around 4.5 should be similarly as impressive. Good luck!!

I highly recommend the EVGA 670 FTW. Comes very close to the 680 for $100 less. Just used one in a recent Fsx dedicated build. However, Fsx relies more on CPU clock speed than anything. I'm thinking you should be able to purchase a "K" processor such as the I5 3570K and a mid-range GPU like the 660ti for close to the price of a high end graphics card.

Just finished a dedicated Fsx build using the exact same components. I7 3770K, Asus Z77 pro with The Cooler master hyper 212 EVO. I think people underestimate how important it is to properly prepare and apply thermal paste to thecpu/heat sink. Anyway, achieved 4.5 GHZ stable (running prime 95 with max temps at around 78C) doing nothing more than setting the turbo ratio to manual and setting it to X45 and letting the bios configure the voltages, DRAM timings, etc. Extremely pleased with the results. As usual, I have hyper threading disabled and also disabled the turbo mode function to allow it to run locked at 4.5 GHZ. No crashes, BSOD's, or freezes yet. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I agree with your statement in principal. However, Fsx and the code it runs on is stuck in 2006 and always will be. Microsoft no longer supports it. It simply will not take advantage of the newer technology as no one is developing hardware with Fsx in mind. Fsx is almost unique in terms of its requirements. With that said, I have been following P3D with great interest as it appears that Lockheed Martin has "picked up the torch" so to speak and are trying to revise/update the old Fsx code. P3D has the potential to finally take advantage of later technologies.

The NVIDIA 670 FTW shares the same basic architecture with the 680GTX and has only slightly less performance specs at around $100 cheaper. I think its a good value. Some people will say that the graphics card isn't very important for fsx. It becomes very important if running very high resolution payware such as PMDG or REX clouds and for multiple monitor setups.

Just my two cents and nothing more but in the world of computers, there is always something "later and greater" right around the corner. I remember all the hype around the i7 3960k until real world fsx testing showed almost no performance boost between it and the 3770k at a 1/3 of the price. The fact of the matter is that fsx is a dated platform that is only viable now because of 3rd party support. It doesn't take advantage of multiple cores so a six or an 8 core cpu has almost no benefits over a 4 core one such as the i7 2500/2600/2700 or the Ivy bridge cpu's like the 3570 or 3770. It wont make use of any more than 4 gigs of ram so 8 gb is plenty. Just built my 4th Fsx dedicated rig and have it running smoothly using bojote's and Word Not Allowed's tweaks (good read by the way). spent around $1750 .The only time I see less than 30 FPS is when I'm running a complex payware aircraft such as PMDG into somewhere like KJFK or EGLL(heathrow) on final approach with a payware airport scenery, etc and a traffic program like traffic 360. It will dip into the low 20's ( still smooth). always get the "K" version of whatever processor you choose as overclocking is almost a requirement for the performance you want. My specs are as follows: I7 3770K CPU OC'd to 4.5 GHZ NVIDIA EVGA 670 FTW 2gb GPU ASUS Z77 pro mobo 2 Samsung 256 GB 840 pro SSD's 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1866 MHZ RAM Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU heatsink Cooler Master HAF LAN test box case Final thoughts. Beware of anyone who claims to be able to run fsx with all sliders maxed out. Almost anyone can get good FPS using default aircraft at 30,000 ft with no addons. Also Fsx should be installed on its own hard drive in its own folder created by yourself, not the default x86 path suggested in the installer. Didn't mean to get too off topic but hope this helps.