Setup for FSX

[acro666]

Hello everyone

Have not decided completely yet, but will ths set-up run FSX at a good frame-rate please?

a. Coolmaster Stacker 830 case

b. Intel Core2 Quad Extreme QX6850 CPU

c. Gainward 8800 Ultrs-Bliss Graphics card

d. Corsair Twin X XMS3 DDR3 mem, maybe four gbs

Ideas please and comments?

regards

acro666

[moogle]

Hmm drop the qx and get a quad q6600 g0 stepping, ddr3? i suppose if you really want to. id wait for it to be mainstream and cheaper. the performance differences are minor in most cases. ddr2 will suffice. ultra's as in 2 for sli? depends on what size you expect to game at. should take a look at the 8800gt's and maybe you can save a few £££. case seems alright, bit too expensive imho.

[LegacyOne]

I think we can safely say that if this person has the money to get a QX6850 and maybe 4GB of DDR3 RAM that we can leave it be.

And with that said add a Asus P5E3 Deluxe to the list.

[AD-15]

You have to bear in mind that with FSX, the CPU is everything. the graphical engine isn't that advanced, so the graphics card doesn't make much of a difference.

[acro666]

Thank you for the replies. I was hoping to add the :
Abit IN9 32xd-Max mobo?

Both it and the Asus P5E3 Deluxe have good reviews from Hexus?

regards

acro666

[acrobat]

Not sure what there is to say about what you picked. You picked all the best, fastest, most ridiculously expensive stuff available to mankind... If the game doesn't work at a good frame rate with that PC then its not going to work at a good frame rate with ANY pc (unless you start doing crazy things). So surely you already know you've given yourself the best chance? Its not like anyone can tell you to get a faster processor or graphics card, because there aren't any.

Also, your resolution and whether you will overclock or not, will likely make a big difference.

[kungpo]

I think the overall spec (esp processor) is probably overkill in this application. FSX is probably just not optimised enough to run well on *any* hardware. I did not see a significant improvment going from e4300 @ 3.06 to Q6600 @ 3.2. i would wait and see what SP2 brings.

Your spec is very high, and therefore if you have budget will certainly be as "good as it gets", but may not justify the cost / performance argument.

[themaidenmaniac]

I dont think any hardware can properly own fsx yet all guns blazing, thats according to the fsx forums anyway!

[BUFF]

The abit IN9 32X uses DDR2.
If you are really stuck on DDR3 they do have an IX38 QuadGT due out shortly & an IX48-MAX due towards the end of the year that will both use DDR3.

[acro666]

Thank you everyone. Very encouraging, and I think, reading your comments I will remain with DDR2 which I already use, but go up to 4gigs.

I do not imagine for a moment that I will get the 25-30 fps that I would like to have, but hope that it may better the 9-10 fps that I am presently experiencing on 'full-everything!"

regards

acro666

[kungpo]

I would be tempted not to get the GTX ultra right now. I think an 8800GT may be better value, or you hold off until the GTX drops in price or is revised.

[acro666]

Everyone please ignore my last post about getting 9-10 fps with my present set-up, it was bull---t! I tried it last evening on everything max and it staggered along at 4-5 fps, pretty pathetic really. Oh well! maybe when I build my next machine the fps will improve?

regards

acro666

[kungpo]

what FPS do you get on medium settings? Have you tried using NVidias guide?

[acro666]

Thank you kungpo. I am getting 17 fps on medium-low, and 9-12 fps on medium-high?

May I ask: what is the NVidias guide please?

regards

acro666

[kungpo]

Take a look at:

Flight Simulator X by Microsoft

Tell me what you get with recommended setings...

In full screen at native resoluton (1280x1024) I get 5FPS!!! while on the ground! In a window (1024x768) it jumps to 45-60FPS. Figure that one out.

[acrobat]

The game is just badly made.

There is a video of it on youtube, with some guy using a quad core extreme, and a pair of 8800GTX's in SLI mode. He averages about 20fps but it often drops down to about 11 or so.

I used to play the game quite a lot (my specs are in my system link on the left). The frame rates where aweful. I noticed that even when I lowered everything really far, it still struggled in places, and it ruined it for me. With everything on high, it looked like crap too. I thought it was just dodgy graphics, but this is evidently a bug with the 8800 cards (explained to me by AD-15 in another thread here).

Anyway, they made a "service pack" patch for it, which improved the performance a lot. But its still stuttery. Basically, I don't think any PC can run it fully cranked, unless the resolution is lowered significantly. But luckily you can tweak the settings, and thats cruicial. You can evidently lower certain things to medium, and it ends up looking better than on high. Grass for example, someone said on medium it looks like blurry grass from a plane in real life, where as on high, it looks like high res grass in a game - unrealistic and yet ruining your frame rate.

So its all about lowering some settings, and then increasing some settings. The number of settings are huge. Texture resolution and things like that, all make as big a difference as the quality and distance settings.

So basically, I think the PC you are planning on getting is going to be great, and it will run every game you play, perfectly. But FSX will be an exception (as will Crysis maybe). But you can still get good frame rates if you lower some of the settings, and it can still look good if you lower the right ones.