Simviation Forums

Having seen others running non dx9 systems, I'm tempted to go buy the X.

My system: (don't laugh)

AMD1700 runs at 1100
ATI radeon9800pro video card
1 gig ocz memory,
40 gig hard drive that could be
replaced in the blink of an eye.
500w PSU

Anything else important?

well in my own experience ,It ran in my Old pentium 3 -800mhz 320ram-dimms pc133 and an nvidia geforce 4 mx 64mb ,I took many shots here,

Think what can do with an amd 1.7 and 1gb memory, is not the best to play and enjoy FSX all the time ,but it does...

But if you can afford a new pc Much better...Like I did

Well I can't exactly respond as a pro on the topic, but I found (and have used) this site.

With that kind of PC, you won't have much fun with FSX, not even with FS9.

Heretic, I've had a great deal of fun with FS9. I get good visuals and good frame rates. Just not "sliders maxed" and 60 FPS. More like middle settings and 20-25 fps limited.

I'm thinking it'll work, just not well. I'm off to try out the link, thanks Giteen!

Anytime...

Heretic, I've had a great deal of fun with FS9. I get good visuals and good frame rates. Just not "sliders maxed" and 60 FPS. More like middle settings and 20-25 fps limited.

Okay, if you're having fun with FS9, it'd be best to stick to it.

Honestly, as long as you can't even run FS9 with all settings maxed plus AI traffic plus a decent amount of anti-aliasing/anisotropic filtering at a playable frame rate, I would not even think about getting FSX.

The, in my opinion, minimum system for running FSX would be a P4 3,0Ghz, 1Gb Ram and an ATI 9700Pro or GeForce 5800.
Of course, I've seen people with older computers run FSX and being happy with it, but I simply doubt that FSX looks any better than FS9 at the minimum settings.

I ran the test, and I pass the minimum requirements if I change out my hard drive. Oh, and buy at least XP.... I do NOT pass the suggested minimums.

Heretic, I have a motherboard that will hold a P43.0, and I think I can reuse my memory chips and video card. I may pursue building that, but I'd prefer to have a better video card as well. When you say minimum system, is your suggestion of a P4 3.0 enough to get mid-levels on the sliders? I would think that somewhere mid-level settings would look as good as mid-level on FS9, but I'm only guessing.

I cranked up my max resolution last night and took a few test flights. I don't lose much in frame rates, but it sure looked great.

When you say minimum system, is your suggestion of a P4 3.0 enough to get mid-levels on the sliders? I would think that somewhere mid-level settings would look as good as mid-level on FS9, but I'm only guessing.

I don't know, but I've seen quite a lot of other simmers with that kind of setup running FSX on mid setting with a good frame rate.

If I can take a wild guess, I'd say that FSX on medium looks like FS9 on high.


Plus: A mainboard for a an Athlon can't take a P4. You'd need to get a new mainboard if you want to exchange your processor for a P4. Or you could get an Athlon XP 3200+, if your current mainboard can handle it.

Oh, sorry I wasn't more clear. I have piles of gear lying about, including a mother board that will accept a 473 socket P4 up to 3.0 something or other maybe 3.2, and supports hyperthreading. And I can reuse the mem chips, and stuff.
I'll have to buy a CPU chip for that motherboard, as the fastest chip I have lying about is an AMD Barton core 2500, but no motherboard to support the FSB speed of the chip. I don't know if the Barton chip will work in my current mobo. The FSB is different, and I assume it wouldn't work as well as a slower chip with properly matched FSB speed. Dunno.

I'm hoping to make a jump to FSX with the ability to run at least mid-level sliders, hopefully more, without spending an arm and a leg. If I'm unhappy with the performance of FSX, at least FS9 will rock and roll bigtime.

I'm still sorting out which system to work towards, but considering how far I have to upgrade.

I guess the P4 solution would be the best for you, but I'm not sure about the memory.


What motherboard and memory are you using for your Athlon?

My Atholon mobo is a biostar M7VIGpro micro atx, socket 462, 266 FSB, blah, blah. The memory chip is an OCZ 1 gig pc3200.

The fastest chip that I can run in my current board is an Athlon 2600, which runs around 2.0ghz, if I remember corrrectly. I had a friend give me a 2400, transferred via my neighbor, who lost it. Doh! I've been reading up trying to find out if I can stick that 2500 Barton core in my current mobo, but I have not found any info saying it will run correctly or not. It uses a 333 FSB.

mmm, with the right memory the 2500 Barton can be easily overclocked to a 3000 too.  I have one here in my shuttle PC.  Using Corsair memory with heat spreaders.  Its a small enclosed space in a shuttle and the cooling system is different to normal PCs.....

If your board will take it then that memory would be ok, sure it was on the list last time I looked.  Just make sure the cooling is adequate, fans are cheap......

Reider

I run FSX with the same vidcard that you have and it runs smooth with 4X AA however i do have a Intel P4 3.2 that runs at 3.5 mghz.
Also have 1500mb of ram.
The only thing i cant switch on is Autogen, when i switch it on the framerate becomes very jumpy ranging from 7 to the set limit of 25 constantly.
I have my hopes up that the new patch thats coming in April (i think) will make it possible for me to run low autogen at a stable framerate.  

My Atholon mobo is a biostar M7VIGpro micro atx, socket 462, 266 FSB, blah, blah.

You mean Socket A, since 462 is actually for Intel stuff.

The fastest chip that I can run in my current board is an Athlon 2600, which runs around 2.0ghz, if I remember corrrectly. I had a friend give me a 2400, transferred via my neighbor, who lost it. Doh! I've been reading up trying to find out if I can stick that 2500 Barton core in my current mobo, but I have not found any info saying it will run correctly or not. It uses a 333 FSB.

If your board can't do FSB 333, you can't stick an FSB 333 CPU on it. The CPU *will* run, but not at full speed.

Believe me, I've experienced it myself. I used to have an Epox EP-8KHA+ with a 1,2 Ghz Duron on it (good old days...) and I wanted to put an Athlon 2700+ on it. Despite a BIOS update and the manufacturer claiming that it'll run on the board, it only ran as a 2100+, since it could only get FSB266 instead of its natural FSB 333.
So the consequence was me buying a new mainboard (Asus A7N8X-X) and new Ram.

Bottom line: Go for your 3Ghz P4 option, its the much better one.