Guest Northwest Pilot Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I currently have a Duo Core E8500 CPU with 4 gigs of ram and running Win XP 32 bit. It looks like it's time to do a clean install of the OS and since I have to go through all of that hassle, I thought maybe it's time to upgrade to Win 7. My question is with a 2 core processor, will upgrading to Win 7 be worth it? Also, I'm thinking of getting Win 7 64 bit and adding more memory. Oh, and one more thing, is there any advantage between Home, Premium, or Ultimate when it comes to FSX? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owi Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 G'day mate, IMHO ... Windows 7 = Yes and 64-bit = YES! With 64-bit, your system will then see all 4GB (or more) of your RAM and reap some performance benefits from it. There is still much debate around whether more than 4GB RAM will be of further benefit to FSX. 4GB seems to be the plateau. My readings tell me that the performance difference when going from 1 or 2GB up to 4GB is much bigger than going from 4GB up to 6 or 8GB. So, I don't think you'll see much benefit from upping your quantity of RAM; and I've heard/read some instances where performance has actually deteriorated with more than 4GB. As for the different flavours of Win7 - so far as I know, with FSX, there is no advantage to be gained from using Professional or Ultimate. My advice is to use Home Premium, 64-bit. Do not get the Basic version (if it still exists). You can also download and run a "Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor" from Microsoft. That will help you decide which version is most suitable for your PC. Still, don't stop your research here. Do some more on other forums and you will surely be able to make a well-educated decision soon enough. Oh, and be prepared for a little bit of a learning curve here - Windows 7 can be a little confusing for anybody who hasn't used it, or Vista before, but it soon becomes very intuitive. Good luck and smooth skies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Northwest Pilot Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Thank you Owi for your input! Clears things up for me a little more. I appreciate it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Given your hardware I wouldn't consider Win 7 64 Bit to be any of any advantage. Not sure if the E8500 CPU is 64 Bit. but that would depend on the MoBo too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Northwest Pilot Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Given your hardware I wouldn't consider Win 7 64 Bit to be any of any advantage. Not sure if the E8500 CPU is 64 Bit. but that would depend on the MoBo too. My mobo is a Gigabyte EP-45UD3R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Very similar MoBo to my system , Still not sure that 64 Bit would give you much of an increase, considering I have not noticed any significant performance in my system (as it is multi boot) . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausiguy Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I recently did this upgrade and it is definitely worth it. Under XP FSX has a limitation of only being able to allocate 1.5GB to the fsx.exe. With PNW turned up it's easy to hit this and so I ended up many times with FSX crashing due to out of memory. Under Win7 64bit I have seen FSX at 1.7GB regularly and even up to 2.2GB and it's running great. It will run all day long without a problem. I only have 4GB with a i5 processor. I would not recommend any more ram for you. If you have cash upgrade to a quad core but only after you have upgraded to Win 7 and then only if you feel the need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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