New Computer

[cyberpilot]

First of all belated congratulations to John Venema and team for a magnificent product.

FTX has undoubtedly taken FSX to unparalleled heights and in my opinion it will go down as one of the defining add-ons of all time.

It has revolutionised the sim for me which is why I have made the decision to upgrade my ageing computer.

Now, I guess this question has been posed numerous times before on this forum but could John or someone please advise me what sort of set up I need to buy in order to get the full FTX experience.

I want, if possible to fly with most, if not all, the sliders pushed hard to the right.

I would also appreciate advice on the best monitor and sound system to get.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Frank

P.S. One small plea ... could NZ be the next country to get the FTX treatment ... it would make the place a vfr paradise.

[cyberpilot]

Any thoughts .... anyone .... please .....

[Gurdy]

cyberpilot .. this thread might give you somewhere to start...

remember it is all about budget, more dosh = better system specs.

Remember also with FSX the more grunty CPU the better experience you will have. But you will also need an 8800GT card or equivilent min 2 Gig of RAM and fast HD's as well if you want to achieve the best experience. As ofr if you run Vista or XP, that is preference. I run Vista and have no problems with FSX.

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=3835.0

Hope this helps....

[cyberpilot]

Thanks Craig, much appreciated.

Frank

[Tim Harris]

GPU ~ Geforce 8800GT  or 9800GTX

CPU ~ Quad core Intel ~ the bigger the Mhz the better

RAM ~ 4Gb

HDD ~ 250-500gb sata

OS ~ xp or vista

PSU ~ 500-600watts, you need a good one with good voltage on the 12v rails, will cost you about 90 -150 bucks, read here for some reviews http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=PSU_Recommendations

cant go wrong with the above, should be under $1000 if your in Australia

[cyberpilot]

Good on you Tim, that sounds more like it.

Frank

[Craig Hanley]

I'd like to weigh in on this discussion if I may....

Been doing a bit of research myself on building a new pc later in the year, and would like some advice please. Most of the feedback I've read tends to lead me towards a Q6600, but some things below leave me a little unsure, given that FSX is dependant on cpu.

To quote some lines from july pc user mag " cache, core and clock" ( this info is not solely for a pc to run fsx only)

they say  Cache - "that the larger the cache on the cpu the merrier " - understand that ok;

core - "we think 4 core cpu's are  a waste of time at the moment - better to stick to a high clock speed dual core cpu, than fiddling around with quad core cpu's"

and clock - "intels 3ghz E8400 cpu delivers far more overall application speed than it's 2.4ghz Q6600 quad core cpu"..and to finish off - " once you get to 2 or more cores, clock speed is far more important because of the law of diminishing returns and the lack of multicore enabled aplications"

Ok got that out..here are my questions;

Am I better going for a Q6600 for FSX?...or staying with a E8400 or E8500 dual core cpu? ( Budget doesnt stretch much more than the $200-$300 price range for cpu).

Does the fsb speed make much difference?( for a Q6600 it is 1066mhz, and the E8400 and E8500 it is 1333mhz, although the Q6600 has a 8mb cache and the E8000 series has only 6mb.)

Is it better to go with a dual core with a higher clock speed, faster FSB and a lower size cache,  or a slower clock speed quad core with a slower fsb and a larger cache? (hope that makes sense)

Looking to a Gigabyte Mobo that takes DDR3 ram (2GB), a 8800GT GPU, 2x250gb sata hdd, 500wt or higher psu and case. All other bits and pieces are tranferable from old pc.

Interested in some feedback .

Regards

Craig

[Tim Harris]

well i use a E8400 duo core myself but if i knew in hindsight that FSX can now use all 4 cores of a Quadcore I would have got a Q6600 or a Q9300

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Hi Craig,

Alltough that article you refer to is maybe very nice, I beg to differ on the 2 core boost they state, running  my new system here not overclocked or whatever, just stock bog standard settings for CPU etc etc, my lil 4 Core runs as silk, we did test it out at the puter shop as they where also under the impression the 2 core would outperform the 4 core, after some fiddling they compared the 2 and alltough maybe slightly lower on the fps -2~5, the thing ran a lot smoother.

have applied the core usage "tweak" in the fsX.cfg :

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

//1  = 1 core          0001 // cores read from back to front ~ last is first

//3  = 2 cores        0011

//7  = 3 cores        0111

//14= 3 cores        1110 //leaves first core free for other applications like TS etc.

//15= 4 cores        1111

and this works a treat, also use the set process priority tweak only I've set that to high instead of the indicated "realtime" option with startup for fsX

just in case here's what I've got now

mobo~ ASUS Striker II NSE

CPU~ Intel Core2 Quad Q9300 s775

CPU Cooler~ Scythe Mugen CPU Cooler

RAM~4Gig Team eXtreem DARK RAM DDR3 1600MHz PC3 12800 C7-7-7-21-2T

HD's~ 4x Seagate Barracuda 500G SATAII 7.200rpm 2 x RAID 0 arrays

VCA~ EVGA-GeForce 9800GTX SSC 512MB

PSU~ BeQuiet 700W ATX V2.2 PSU Straight Power, 24/20pins, active pfc, 2xpci-e, 8xsata, 4x12V Rails

SC~ Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series

DVDR~ 1x Samsung DVD RW+/-DL SH230P black

OS~ Windows XPproSP3 UKversion

case~ Antec Performance One P182

but off course at the end of the day the "depth" of ones wallet decides how far one can strech the thing and in case one can afford it I'd advice to get the QC9450 as that one has a 12mB cache, still contemplating changing mine to that as well

[Matthew Webb]

I got a Q6600 a few weeks ago.  I've overclocked it to 3.1 with no dramas or voltage fiddling (already had a Zalmann heatsink) but was impressed with it at stock speed of 2.4.   FSX keeps all the cores nice and busy at certain times, so you're certainly not wasting getting a Quad.

Just my opinion - and I'm no expert.

[Craig Hanley]

I see your specs there Wolter, and to say the least you make me drool! I can only wish that i could afford the same specs as yo, but as you state, the wallet has the final say.

As I said the article was not designed for FSX as a main application, but more as a guide for building a new pc, probably a more general purpose pc. Having said that, what you say is correct.

Unfortunatly, I cannot afford the Q9450, at this point, but given that i have a few more months ahead before I build, prices may come down for me. The 9450 is approx $180 more than the Q6600, or the E8400. The 9300 is approx  $100 more expensive.

I've read that job scheduler tweak and it seems to be a winner for 4 cores. My concerns were mainly regarding the slower clock speed of some quad cpu's, although many forums I'v read say that they can be overclocked fairly safely without too much trouble.(just read your post Matt before I posted this)

Still got a few months to go before I have the funds to build, so I will watch the forums and get some more advice from many different people before spending my hard earnt cash.

Interested in anymore feedback that anyone has though...feel free to post your experiences with different specs.

Regards

Craig

[Gurdy]

As a rule of thumb for FSX, clock speed will give you better frame rates, more cores smoother textures. You have to decide what you are looking for. If you are building your PC exclusively for FSX then go the Q6600 option which will as Wolter pointed out will give you acceptable fps and "silky smooth" textures . But if you have other uses where you demand raw processing power then either you will need a faster quad ($$$$), or OC if you are confident to do it,  or a stick to a fast dual core, which is substantially cheaper.

My 2 cents worth,