FSX Hardware Requirements...

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 08 Oct 2006, 11:14

Here is some valuable concrete information from a lady who really knows what she is talking about..I have done all my computer building with her very expert guidance and know how meticulous she is about her testing methods. She also owns and runs and maintains and modifies about nine computers in her family and always keeps one of the at the absolute leading edge of current technology. Her information may well help those of you that are contemplating running FSX with any degree of reasonable performance. It may also help you to decide when to buy FSX :think:

All below this line is quoting Katy:-

OK, after running the RTM today with following hardware and settings
below I could set the fps at 28 and not go below them for 1920*1600*32
resolution and a smooth flight now that the disk has been
defragmented(!):

- Core2Duo @ 2.4Ghz, 2Gb of RAM and X1900XT, XP SP2

- no AA needed for this resolution (and it would cut the
performance...)
- filtering: trilinear (anisotropic gives same performance but
shimmers, NVIDIA filtering is so much better than ATI IMHO)
- global texture very high
- advanced animation on
- aircraft ultra-high
- radius large
- mesh 80 and 19m
- texture 1m
- water effect low 2.x
- land detail texture on
- scenery extremely dense
- autogen sparse
- special effects detail: high
- cloud draw distance 60m
- detailed clouds, low density
- airline traffic 50
- GA traffic 25
- airport vehicle max
- road 10, ferries and boats 5

I have also set that fiber setting at 0.50 and lost performance but
not so happy with the blurries so I will boost it at 75% and see, the
mesh and mountains in the distance and textures surrounding the
aircraft are crisp but in between it's a yucky blur :-( Anisotropic
filtering sure would help if it was not shimmering so much with that
ATI card, I'll have to check how to tweak with the ATI control panel
if possible and report.

I am sorry to say that if you do not have an AMD FX or an Intel
Core2Duo your hardware is obsolete today, if you want to upgrade now
take at least one of these two for your CPU, preferably the latter
which is faster.

I ran the beta on a P4 3.4 and an AGP 7800 and was able to squeeze 16
to 20fps for 1600*1200*32 resolution, it is going to be a matter of
settings. Autogen is a complete killer no matter what, not sure if it
is due to textures (don't think so) or the sheer number of objects.

We are in again for compromising until the hardware catches up and we
find optimizations...

Oh by the way, I tried to run FS9 after forgetting I already had FSX
running, both cannot be launched at the same time... ;-)

===
All the best!
Katy Pluta, MS_MVP

Charlie Bravo · Post by **Charlie Bravo** » 08 Oct 2006, 11:39

The majority of people use 17" and 19" TFT's with a resolution of 1280x1024, so testing at the above res seems a little pointless in my opinion.

MS need to rewrite the FS graphics engine from scratch. When you compare detail in FS to detail in the latest games, FS looks quite poor.

As for autogen, most of it consists of simple rectangular shapes with a texture.... how can this bring a PC to it's knees?

I've spent a fair bit of money on payware to make FS9 look good. Performance isn't great but it looks better than FSX so I'll stick with what I have and that includes my hardware which is more than capable of running most of the latest titles..... apart from FSX

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 08 Oct 2006, 11:57

Charlie Bravo wrote:The majority of people use 17" and 19" TFT's with a resolution of 1280x1024, so testing at the above res seems a little pointless in my opinion.

I run the FSX RTM version at 1600x1200x32 on a big CRT so I regard her high res test as very relevant...She also makes the point that with such a high resolution, if you have that ability, you no longer need Antialiasing with its performance hit

Post by **TSR2** » 08 Oct 2006, 12:55

Peter,

Out of curiosity, what size is your CRT? I'm going to buy a new one soon, was thinking of a 22", but not sure.

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 08 Oct 2006, 17:28

Ben Watson wrote:Peter,

Out of curiosity, what size is your CRT? I'm going to buy a new one soon, was thinking of a 22", but not sure.

Ben,

It is a Mitsubishi Diamond Prp 2070 SB...I don't know the quoted size for that but measuring it diagonally it is 20 inches it could be listed as a 22 inch but can't remember.

tonymadge · Post by **tonymadge** » 09 Oct 2006, 05:30

Peter many thanks for posting this , it is nice to read from a "real person" this is what we needed not an MS Boffin... I guessed my AMD 3800 64 CPU is out of date and sadly it will have to stay out of date as I dont fancy rebuilding my system to run FSX just yet, like CB I have invested a lot into FS9 which I think is working just fine for me, maybe when FSX is set up with the right patches etc that will make it work on mere mortal systems like mine I may reconsider though. But a post like this one is appreciated as I now have an idea what I will need if I go down that path.
btw what is RTM FSX??? is it a freebie version?

Myles · Post by **Myles** » 09 Oct 2006, 10:16

Tony, RTM is 'Release To Manufacturing' - in other words the version that will be on the disks you buy in the shops.

Nothing like being hopeful, though!

Myles

tonymadge · Post by **tonymadge** » 09 Oct 2006, 11:19

Thanks for clearing that up Myles, I guess its for the chosen few

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 09 Oct 2006, 11:43

Tony,

As a beta tester I was able to download the RTM version (Release to Manufacturer) before receiving the actual disks. So I've been flying it on and off for about a week

BTW...some wag has dubbed RTM as "Rush to Market"

P.S. I regard it as the wrong time to build a new computer at the moment...One needs to wait until some DX10 cards actually exist and have been evaluated...I anticipate upgrading my machine in about a year. This will make McLeland Field really zing along and I may then even consider putting it in FSX. Till then I will not add to FSX (except for "Little Bandit") and will continue to enjoy my real Flight Simulation in FS9.1+ :dance:

tonymadge · Post by **tonymadge** » 09 Oct 2006, 11:54

Thanks Peter, I value your opinion on these things as you seem to have the grasp of this FS stuff

DX10, I run GT6600 cards x2 (SLI) will these work in DX10 and I wonder if FSX supports SLI...Ummm may make it run better for me anyway?? :think: