Is this computer any good?

[chris1060]

I don't know much about computers, but I maybe getting a Dell Inspiron 350 for a really cheap price ($800) and was wondering if the specs are good and how well will it run FSX. Thanks for the input.

Main Specs:

Intel

[HugoCampos]

This should be in the hardware section but no problem. I think the computer is ok except for the CPU and the graphics card. You will be able to run FSX but you won't be able to do so very well. If you could get a computer with an 8800GTS card and/or a better CPU, would would run FSX much better.

[Nick N]

[quote]I don't know much about computers, but I maybe getting a Dell Inspiron 350 for a really cheap price ($800) and was wondering if the specs are good and how well will it run FSX. Thanks for the input.

Main Specs:

Intel

[Flying Mouse]

Well you asked if this system is good enough, not what is the best system for FSX, maybe some posters missed your question

[GreaseMonkey]

i have to agree with flying mouse, your system is overall good and you should be ok with fsx!

if you read around other forums you can learn whats best for fsx to run fairly good. there was one guy who had pictures of fsx from his new system. his specs....

AMD Athlon 4200x2
2 gig ddr 667mhz
256mb nvidia geforce8600gt
320gb hdd

and well the pictures looked great he had the setting sliders mostly towards the right, with a few exceptions  ;)

[HugoCampos]

i have to agree with flying mouse, your system is overall good and you should be ok with fsx!

if you read around other forums you can learn whats best for fsx to run fairly good. there was one guy who had pictures of fsx from his new system. his specs....

AMD Athlon 4200x2
2 gig ddr 667mhz
256mb nvidia geforce8600gt
320gb hdd

and well the pictures looked great he had the setting sliders mostly towards the right, with a few exceptions  ;)

This is a case to say... don't believe in everything that you see. Screenshots are a really bad way to appreciate the quality of a system for a playing specific title like FSX. Those shots the guy took, well, he may have taken them while getting 1 fps. And even he was getting 20fps, he might have lots of stutters that you won't be able to see in the shots. I really don't think he can set most sliders to the right with an 8600 and that athlon.
If you want to appreciate the quality of the system while playing FSX, you need at least a video. The best would really be to play it and see it yourself!

[Nick N]

Ok let me put my post into perspective


He asked how good it would run FSX, meaning, at least to me,.. will I get good performance on that software?

Well, that depends on his definition of performance. If he is use to seeing FS9 run on his computers he may be basing his question on that.

it

[Wii]

Your computer will work juuuust fine. Mine doesn't have alot of that fancy stuff (flat panel, vista, 8600 card). I hafto run FSX on the LOWEST settings because my graphics card was a...Radeon (Powered by ATI) 7000 or 6000 and I can run FSX smoothly. (I have to live without the trees and buildings and airport terminals.)

[Nick N]

I wish to upgrade my comment about the memory suggestion.

Vista really needs 3gigs to do the same job with FSX that Windows XP does with 2gigs in FS9. Unfortunately, placing 3 sticks of DDR2/3 memory in a system may not perform as well as having 2 matched pair (4gig) because the motherboard may retard the sub-timing.

In order to use 4gig in any 32bit OS, it requires special edits be made to the system. If someone is not computer savvy and may not wish to deal with that, it is best to NOT use 4gig of memory. The solution is to reduce the memory to 3gigs or switch to a 64bit OS. Microsoft makes both x32 and x64 versions of VISTA and XP. The x64 version has virtually no limit on memory map addressing (16 terabytes of memory possible) and therefore future video card and memory upgrades will NOT cause out of memory issues when trying to run 4gigs or more.

People do not understand computers. The 1GB video cards are coming and with them, anyone running a 32bit OS and trying to run 4GB+ of memory MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT because the x32 limit to the memory map above 4GB and high video memory is very close to 1GB.

768mb video cards are actually pushing the LIMIT that the OS can handle with 4GB of memory installed AND the right edits. 1GB of video memory is going to push that to the absolute max, meaning even with the cache edits to accept 4gigs of memory, you may very well still see out of memory errors.

64bit OS is going to be needed by the end of next year with max hardware and memory installed, no doubt about it.

Nutshell: If you don