by Plugpennyshadow » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:43 pm
Hate to bust your bubble. No machine short of a super secret government true ALIEN from the stars machine will run FSX with all slides to the right and everything on max.
However, you can get a VERY good looking FSX with the right hardware and the right tweaking to both the OS and FSX. Im not the best person to give you advice on those, but I will give it a go. Dont take anything I say as gospel...LOL.
I suggest you decide on your budget first. Then you can go into the hardware phase ready to make the tradeoffs that are inevitable.
Case:
I suggest you get the case last. So as to fit all you new components into it. Get a case first and you might run into space or clearance issues.
PSU: Thermaltake 850 with Cable Management
(This is what I use. The only cables "built in" are the mobo power cables. The rest of the cables for drives, fan and such are seperated into logical groups. SATA power on one strand type, four-pin moly's on another and smaller connectors for fans, lights and such on still another. Two of each type are included. You simply plug in the type and number of each strand and power up you devices.)
CPU?:
P4 or i7? That's the question. I am running a Pentium Q8400 and getting very nice perf in FSX. Ive followed all the tweaks and advice I can find from Nick Needham. I know an i7 would do better still but the budget just wasnt there for the upgrade.
CPU Cooler?: (Optional)
To get the best out of you cpu and to protect it in the long run you should get an after-market cooler to replace the Intel stock one. I beleive the Thermaltake 120 is the recommended one by most here?
Mobo?:
I am an ASUS guy. Which ever cpu you choose, I would go ASUS to carry it on.
RAM?:
Once you have chosen the CPU and Mobo you need to get RAM that complements that combo. Its about the RAM timing. Someone more knowledgeable needs to address this.
Drives?:
No doubts here. If you want to run FSX very well you need two hard drives. One for the operating system and one for FSX and FSX only.
I have three Western Digital Velociraptor 10,000rpm drives on my machine. One has Windows Ultimate 64bit, the second has FSX only and its addons while the third has several other operating systems loaded onto it for older games and programs I still find useful.
If you have to make a trade-off you could run the OS on a 7200rpm drive, but FSX really should go on a Vrap drive.
Video Card?:
Im running an NVidia 260 on my machine now. The bomb is the NVidia 285 with 1gig or more of onboard RAM. Your budget will guide you.
Maintenance Programs:
These are all important to running FSX at its best for your setup.
Nod32 Anti-Virus (Just the AV, not the entire suite.)
This is the best (in my opinion) and lightest AV software and is recommended by Nick.
O&O Defrag ver.11.
Pretty obvious what this does. Keeps all those files nice and neatly organised for most rapid retreaval and loading.
Spybot Search and Destroy
Malwarebytes
Registry Mechanic
CCleaner:
These four keep you install clean and free of the nasties and trash.
Hope this gets you started. Remember, this FSX thing is a trade-off between budget, the capabilities and limitations of the hardware AND software and keeping to realistic expectations.
My install is literally the result of months of tweaking and experimenting to get my FSX to look good, detailed and smooth. And I am still playing with things.
Follow the tweak guides my Nick, do it slow, do it right and for Pete's Sake ask questions! Dont do anything you dont understand. You can hose you install real quick that way...LOL! Been there done that!
Have a good,
The Bad Penny Has Spoken!
