Simviation Forums

Okay Ive been here long enough to figure out what a good and bad computer is for flight sim. Ive been flying for almost 3 year on my crappy laptop and now that im getting closer to going to college and actually start flying my dad thought he'd get a new computer.

We bought a new HP with a real good processor. The graphics card sucked so we bough a brand new GeForce GTX460. Then had to get a new power supply (800watts) even though we dont need all that. 

Now the problem im having is, that I would expect FSX to run great but yet it doesnt. FS9 is running smooth as a bird but even in FSX low settings its sluggish and high settings which is what I expect my computer to be able to run on is sluggish. I downloaded some other new games I got free with my graphics card such as Mafia II and Just Cause 2 and those have AMAZING HD graphics and run like my XBOX!! But FSX cant even run smooth on medium settings?

And my computer passed all the recommended settings for FSX and said it should be fast, and the graphics card said this was great for FSX. Do I need to give it a day or two because my computers new and dont have anything else running or what not?

Check out my specs.



I dont understand how FSX can not run good on this computer. And I dont need a lecture on how I need a $2000 computer, ive seen FSX run great on $600 computers and ive already put $650 into mine with a good graphics card. I dont know how I can play any game on the market great but not FSX. 

To take advantage of your new 64bit system and larger video card, you are going to need more than 4gb of ram. I would say at least 2gb more. FSX alone will try to use 4gb on your system, then you need to run the OS, and anything else that you have running.

I've allways thought (my opinion only though,,) that 64bit machines should ship with a minimum of 6gb ram, 8gb would be more useful.

That said, somebody here might be able to give you some pointers.

That's what someone else pointed out. That the only thing really left for me to upgrade is the RAM.

You need to overclock the thing a lot, and spend the time required to optimize it.  I don't think RAM is your primary bottleneck.

You probably don't want to hear this, but I doubt it is possible to overclock a consumer level HP...the BIOS are locked.  Hopefully I'm wrong.

My dad said that graphics card can be overclocked and its really simple. He told me to look into it, but I havent heard about how you cant in HP...... :-/

You won't need to overclock, not immediately.
You computer is ok, not the best nowadays but still a good one.
What you really need is to setup FSX correctly, and that starts, as everybody knows, with the tweaks of the FSX.cfg file.
So you'll have to head for Bojote (Jesus Altuve) website with the automatic FSX.Cfg tweaker. Then you'll have to set the game options correctly.

The newest Nvidia drivers are known to cause problems in FSX.
Go to "Computer Games and Software"
Look for the item "Nhancer help" and there is your solution.
Install Nvidia Inspector and the problem should be solved.
It did for me. Good Luck.

[quote]Okay Ive been here long enough to figure out what a good and bad computer is for flight sim. Ive been flying for almost 3 year on my crappy laptop and now that im getting closer to going to college and actually start flying my dad thought he'd get a new computer.

We bought a new HP with a real good processor. The graphics card sucked so we bough a brand new GeForce GTX460. Then had to get a new power supply (800watts) even though we dont need all that.

I highly doubt that getting more RAM will have any result. I barely noticed the difference between 4gb and 2gb.

You should be able to overclock your videocard, however you will not be able to overclock the CPU. Overclocking should make the sim run better, but it won't give you any miracles.

All I can say is, make sure bloom is off, water is set to low 2.0x, disable ground shadows, disable aircraft cast shadows on itself, put autogen on dense or normal , scenery on dense / normal, then try fiddling with the framelock (try 25, then unlimited). Also read the stickies.

I highly doubt that getting more RAM will have any result. I barely noticed the difference between 4gb and 2gb.

You should be able to overclock your videocard, however you will not be able to overclock the CPU. Overclocking should make the sim run better, but it won't give you any miracles.

All I can say is, make sure bloom is off, water is set to low 2.0x, disable ground shadows, disable aircraft cast shadows on itself, put autogen on dense or normal , scenery on dense / normal, then try fiddling with the framelock (try 25, then unlimited). Also read the stickies.

Agreed! Read the stickies!

My system runs perfect, after ALL of the required tweaking per NickN and others. I can't complain, I think I found that sweetspot

I found that the above-mentioned Bojote (Jesus Altuve) cfg thing worked wonders. Around Vancouver Int'l, I used to get around 17-20 fps, tho normally 30 everywhere else. I applied the tweak, and my settings are quite high, (like 60% air traffic), and around Van I usually get over 30 fps now. Worth a shot in my opinion.

Wow its amazing what that guys fsx.cfg file change can change on your system. My results turned out great, im getting great graphics while running GREAT! Finally got a smooth system. 

My only complaint and im not sure if there is a patch for this (haven't had FSX for at least 2 years) but when I fly and I start to look at the air traffic planes flying and such, I get a FSX is not responding then the whole simulator shuts down..

My PC is over 3 years old now.  It runs FSX like a dream.
XP Pro 32 bit
Intel Core 2 DUO Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz
3 Gig RAM
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3

So you don't need a mega-PC just set it up properly