Simviation Forums

I am thinking about buying a used computer of late vintage on which to run just flight sims. Considering FS2004 is the latest one about which I know, I need to know from someone who flies it exactly what the minimum specs are as listed on the packaging. I will look at the local Used Computer Warehouse for one that doubles or comes close to doubling those specs. I have 1Gb of PC133 SDRAM and an ATI Radeon 7500 64Mb 4X AGP card from an old machine to upgrade those parameters if those items are up to the task. If not, there's always eBay. I am looking primarily for how much CPU, RAM and video muscle I need to get good results. Thanks.

CPU Intel P4 3.0GHz or similar AMD (the Athalon 60 3200+ is about the same I think)

RAM: At least 1G

GFX ATi Radeon 9600Pro or nVidia 6200 are the minimum.

Also make sure you have a power supply that will run all of this (dont believe me ask gunny). Anyway with these componants you should be able to run everything on high settings and get around 20~30 FPS average

Cheers
Cameron

You can say that again ctjoyce.... Gotta have power..... if not not only will graphics car malfunction, your entire computer will scream day and night (Since I run my PC 24/7) That really hurt PSU because it was overloaded to start with.... new one cant get here soon enough, I'll be ordering a gig of ram soon as well, right now in seatle with power issues dead max and cloudy, bout 9-15FRPS generally smooth with stutters but nothing so bad you cant fly! Cheers, Gunny

So it looks like FS2004 needs a whoppin' chip, huh? That complicates matters. I don't see myself having alot of time in the future to dink around with flightsims. Maybe I'll just scotch the idea... Thank you for the information, gents.

And how does that dumb penguin know on what system I am running?

I run an AMD Athlon XP2000+ 1.7GHz/Nvidia GeForce FX 5600XT/768Mb DDR RAM on a 40+80Gb HDD. FS9 runs fine for me, with most settings maxed (leaving out things like the coverage density of clouds). I get reasonable FPS in most places, usually in the high teens, low 20s (locked at 24fps). Of course, it could run much, much better if I had a better system, but in terms of minimum specs, you won't have to splash out too much on hardware.

And how does that dumb penguin know on what system I am running?

And how does that dumb penguin know on what system I am running?

It can read minds!

Well I have the specs in my sig and a lowly R9600Xt card and it gives me good FPS. I get about 30 with few or no clouds and as soon as I add them it goes down.
The AMD Athlon 3000+ is ample for your needs as is 1GB of ram for FS9. FS9 cannot even use a 1GB anyway, so providing you have no background stuff running etc it will be fine.