Some suggestions please

[captjim]

:-/ Hello fellow simmers, captjim here again,  well I went out and got FSX ($47.00 at CircuitCity), brought that puppy home and loaded it.  I thought it would take forever to load.  Started out in default mode.  Went into Free Flight, picked out a plane and waited for it to load.  I'am not kidding it took almost 15minutes for it to come up and then it went back to the desktop while it continued loading scenery etc.  After tweeking it wasn't any better.  Here is what I'am running;  ViewSonic celeron (r) CPU 1.70GHz 256MB Ram Radon 9200 LE windows XP home with service pack II.  Is the Radon 9200 too little???  There appear there are more cards out there than I have grandkids.  And of course in all price ranges.  Any suggestions would be helpful.  Thanks  :) captjim

[Daube]

Your CPU is quite limited, juste like your Radeon, but I'd bet that your RAM (which you didn't mention) may be the real bottleneck, because it's surely not your radeon that will cause those 15 minutes ( ) load time...

[commoner]

...mmm...with only 256 mb of Ram as you said......I would say that the Radeon 9200, although  dated now, is the least of your worries..........a gig of Ram would be preferred or I could almost say neccessary for FSX. 2 gig better still. I am also using Radeon 9200 until Santa comes in a few weeks and am experiencing none of that stuff....Get more Ram.........commoner

[Daube]

Well in my answer I was supposing that those 256 Mb RAM was the 9200 video memory.
Of course, if his computer really has only 256 Mb RAM, no way it can handle FSX... nor FS9, though...

[captjim]

 Thanks guys, I guess I'll just have to go out and dig up some more RAM.  Any hints on a better card capt jim

[pepper_airborne]

You should upgrade the CPU too then, a computer is as strong as its weakest component.

[Daube]

Agree with that.
What is your budget ? Because if you need to upgrade just for FSX, it would be better to wait a little bit so that you could afford a full serious config, instead of waisting money by upgrading one part at a time.

[Brett_Henderson]

I'm no hardware expert, but I don't think you can RAM and V-card a 1.7Celeron into running FSX... That's an OLD computer. Don't spend money upgrading it..  seriously..

[commoner]

Well in my answer I was supposing that those 256 Mb RAM was the 9200 video memory.
Of course, if his computer really has only 256 Mb RAM, no way it can handle FSX... nor FS9, though...

...I assumed that the Radeon 9200 would be like the one I have .....128mb. I am getting acceptable....well better than acceptable results with this card but have a 2.16 GHz Athlon 3000+ and a gig of ram. Slightly better than capt jim...........commoner