I Finally Sucumbed.

[Tomliner]

Hi Nigel,perhaps when you have FSX running you could post an update along with the spec of your pc.I sometimes wonder how long mine will carry on working and can't see the point in overspending when a replacement is needed.Maybe post your thoughts on FSX as well?ATB EricT

[Airspeed]

Hi Nigel,perhaps when you have FSX running you could post an update along with the spec of your pc.I sometimes wonder how long mine will carry on working and can't see the point in overspending when a replacement is needed.Maybe post your thoughts on FSX as well?ATB EricT

I know you didn't ask my b.. opinion, Eric, but the only thing that stopped me running FSX on my old machine was the lack of HD space. Others may prove me wrong, but FSX does not seem to need more processing power than FS9.

And Nigel, don't sit there doing nothing until a month down the track - load it and go for it!

Buttoning up my flak jacket now.

[Garry Russell]

FS.X does use a heck of a lot more processing power.

But if you had a well expanded FS9 with hi resource demanding add ons, but that is not a comparison

Only out of the box in both cases are the only comparable and FS.X killed my old machine that FS.9 ran well on.

[DaveB]

Eric..

You don't need a pc capable of running the stock exchange to run FSX reasonably well mate, nor a plush OS for that matter. I'm running it at acceptable levels (acceptable for me which is saying something!) on an intel dualcore E8400 with 3gb system ram, a GTX560Ti (1gb) off a SataII HD running WindowsXP SP3. OK.. it'll run better on a modern system but it certainly doesn't run poor on this one. I don't have the sliders 'hard right' but whats the point
Nigel's i3 is at the lower end of the current batch of processors but I'm sure it'll run FSX ok. If you want to start giving it some more zip, an i5 would be better and if you have money to burn, an i7 but neither are prerequisites

Whatever you're thinking of getting, make it as future proof as possible to get the best mileage out of it. Getting a system with a mobo that can take umpteen different variations of cpu is, I've found, almost a waste of time as by the time you come to upgrade the cpu, you can't get em for love nor money.. they've been superceeded

ATB
DaveB

[TSR2]

Garry is absolutely right, with FSX (for the most part) its not number of cores, but clock speed that's key. It also has a much bigger footprint on the disk than FS9, remember its 2 x DVD rather than 4 CD's of install (not counting the Acceleration add on part which is included in "Gold") My FSX folder is a little under 50GB and that doesn't include the VFR scenery or the UK2000 scenery which is in a separate folder. By adding the UK VFR stuff alone you're adding almost 70GB to that so I'd allow at least 120GB if you're going for the UK GenX VFR stuff, and about 80GB if you're not.

[DaveB]

You must be good at housekeeping Ben.. I've just checked my FSX drive and it's on 47.2gb.. not bad for a sim I've only just really started using That doesn't include GenX either!

My E8400 dualcore is 3gig Eric and has a shedload of onboard cache. My older system was an XP3200 single core which in old money worked out at around 2.2gig and it ran FSX like a 2-legged donkey.. not very good at all To be honest, FSX wasn't particularly spritely on the E8400 system until my trusty GTX8800 died the death of a thousand cuts and that was a quick card too. The GTX560Ti transformed it in one go

ATB
DaveB

[Tomliner]

Thanks for the info Dave.My pc is still functioning but it's spec is lower than yours.I doubt it would run FSX satisfactorily as it stands and I don't think it's worth trying to upgrade it.I'll let it soldier on for now,it runs FS9 ok so I'll decide what to do when the time comes.You can rest assured that this forum is where I'll for advice at that time. Best Wishes EricT

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Nigel,perhaps when you have FSX running you could post an update along with the spec of your pc

Hi Eric I could but doubt whether it would be of any benefit to you as I will only be running it bare bones until sometime next year when I will purchase some add-ons so any update would only be based on FSX default version and that would only be after I have completed all the necessary tweaks to improve performance etc.

My FSX folder is a little under 50GB and that doesn't include the VFR scenery or the UK2000 scenery which is in a separate folder. By adding the UK VFR stuff alone you're adding almost 70GB to that so I'd allow at least 120GB if you're going for the UK GenX VFR stuff, and about 80GB if you're not.

OMG!!! Now how do I tell the wife that I may need a larger hard drive? Think I will just keep it to the bare bones for the time being and put extras on a bit at a time!!

Nigel.

[emfrat]

Hello Nigel -
One thing to keep in mind is defragging - I don't know whether it is just that Win7 makes a complete dog's breakfast of storing new files, or that FSX is very sensitive to fragmented files, but I have found that even a small scenery add-on can be scattered all over the HDD (used space 232GB, out of 916), and if I don't defrag after installing something new, FSX will hang a couple of minutes into a flight.
I use the Auslogics free defragger, which sorts things out in a bit over a minute.

ATB
MikeW

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Mike

Many thanks for the advice - Ian had told me that before and after installation to defrag but will certainly have a look at that defragger you have suggested

Kind regards
Nigel