by congo » Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:20 pm
Hi and welcome mcmxl,
You'll probably be able to use FS2004, but this sim is notorious for bringing computers to their knees.
To get a satisfactory simulation running, you practically need the best hardware available. Everything in between what you have and the latest PC's is a compromise, most users of the sim need to adjust their settings to optimise the sim's performance, at the expense of some quality.
The good news is that PC hardware has not only recently become much more powerful, but the price of powerful hardware is reasonable.
Substantial savings can be made by carefully selecting the hardware and buying it from bulk discount stores, then assembling it yourself or get someone qualified to assemble it for you. Assembly sounds daunting at first, but with a little research, it can be done by most novices.
Beware buying pre-built proprietry systems, very few offer quality and powerful hardware, there is almost always something inadequate in such profit generating, mass produced PC's. Pre-built's that are up to the task of FS2004, are going to have price tags that will make your eyebrows twitch.
As far as internet connection goes, Dialup is quite satisfactory for FS9 under certain conditions:
1. you connect at 48kbs or better, 52kbs is desired. Just because you buy a 56kbs modem doesn't mean you get 56kbs, your line quality, modem, ISP, routing etc all factor in.
2. Your ISP is uncongested and provides a quality service. Most dialup accounts suck. Usually, a small local company can provide better service than a major and crowded one. Don't sign any contracts where a term is involved, you need to be able to test the connection and leave the account if it's not suitable.
3. Your system needs to be free of programs that actively use the internet automatically, any other applications which access the net while you fly will impact badly on the sim's online performance. This means you will need to run virtually nothing but a firewall other than FS2004 while you fly online, you'll need to disable all automatic updating, have intensive anti-spyware software installed, and basically learn to go through all your installed software's options, and turn off anything that may access the internet automatically. Most software will use the internet without your knowledge, this will use the small amount of bandwidth a dialup connection provides and make online flying nearly impossible. Saying this, bear in mind that the above should be accomplished even if you use a broadband connection. The way that software uses the internet that YOU pay for is immoral, companies use your connection to gain marketing and other data for their own use. Stop them!
Using voice communications while flying online on dialup needs some consideration. Many comms programs will use way to much bandwidth at their installed default settings. Co-ordinating with other players about using a suitable voice comms program and setting bandwidth to accomodate dialup user's is almost a must. For instance, a common one that I use is Teamspeak, and it must be carefully adjusted with the correct setting to work properly on dialup.
I have flown and hosted multiplayer games for years while using various comms as well on dialup. It's a little tricky, but quite possible.
You will hear people whining about your PING. Ping is the time delay or latency between computers networked together. Dialup typically will show a 200- 600 microsecond ping for PC's in a gaming network, depending on distance, ISP and routing. Low pings, or delays, are essential with fast action combat games where positional updates at fractions of seconds are required, this is not the case with FS9, where a high ping really has little effect on the game.
Try FS2004 on your current PC, then imagine how "real" it could get with better hardware.
Hope this helps,
Congo
Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24&
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