Simviation Forums

my specs

windows xp home service pack 3
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 3.06GHz
cpu speed: 3.1 GHz
2.0 GB of system ram
RADEON 9250 AGP video card
direct x 9.0c
30.5 GB out of a 75gb hdd
BENQ DVD DC DQ60 dvd drive

i played the demo and that seems to run decent

In my opinion yes, but with a few 'buts'.

First, if you want to add scenery, more aircraft etc. your hard drive is too small. I have a new installation of Gold+Acceleration + scenery= a few add on aircraft and I am up to 25GB and nowhere near finished modifying it yet.

Second, I would suggest more RAM, 2GB is OK but more is better.

Thirdly I doubt you would be able to run FSX with any of the options set at more than a bit above minimum.

Just install it and see what happens. I was quite surprised after people told me my laptop couldn't run FSX. It does, with most settings around full and at 15-30 FPS. I didn't even know my specs. Give it a try. Also, I think this would be better off in the hardware forum! 

You definitely need a bigger HD if you plan on adding scenery and aircraft.

in the demo i was getting between 17-20 fps on medium high if i remember right

I used to have very similar pc (bought summer 2005) until last christmas, I took out the 9250 graphics card which was 256mb memory and replaced it with latest and poss the last agp card that you can get with 1gb of memory, it was much better then, I don't think you'll be using the card for long, go for the best that your MB can take.

I also changed from 1gb to 2gb at the same time so I saw a big change.

regards

Steve

I would strongly recommend you to avoid FSX with such an old computer.

I would strongly recommend you to avoid FSX with such an old computer.

I wouldnt say that. I run FSX on quite an old machine myself. P4 3.0, 1gig ram, pci 512mb graphics card, and 500gig hd. Now I will tell you this... I run with most of my settings very high, and get up to about 10fps depending on the location, and even the aircraft. If I lowered the settings a bit, I could get some good framerates. Not like the quad core type framerates... but considering my comp specs, its pretty good. The key for me was Nick's tuning.

I would strongly recommend you to avoid FSX with such an old computer.

I wouldnt say that. I run FSX on quite an old machine myself. P4 3.0, 1gig ram, pci 512mb graphics card, and 500gig hd. Now I will tell you this... I run with most of my settings very high, and get up to about 10fps depending on the location, and even the aircraft. If I lowered the settings a bit, I could get some good framerates. Not like the quad core type framerates... but considering my comp specs, its pretty good. The key for me was Nick's tuning.

Of course, you can run it.
But the lack of CPU power will prevent you from enjoying addons. You won't be able to get crisp ground textures (blurries), you won't be able to enjoy a precise mesh, you won't be able to push the autogen or the water settings, and you will not be able to enjoy a complex plane or scenery.
I know this because when I first tried FSX, my computer was an old PIV 3,2GHz with a 6800GT video card. I could get an interesting graphic quality, but only when flying very slow planes. I had to kill the water effects, limit the weather, limit the autogen and limit the ground textures to 5 meters, I had no AI traffic and flying anything faster than the default glider was excluded...

With such restrictions, I would really advise somebody to buy a cheap FS9 (on the net or in a local store, if you can still find it) instead of waisting his money in FSX, don't you think ?