FS9, Vista & Hardware Relations

[DonAlfonsoRoKil]

Many people have told me, that FS9 will work properly on Vista (of course not always but this shouldn't be a problem).
I don't have Vista yet but soon will, when also buying a new computer.
When looking in broshures for gaming PCs, just for comparison ( I will buy the parts and build it up myself ),
I saw that they often have maybe a bit weak cpus and best graphic power on world.
I myself believ that for FS the CPU and RAM is much more important - The 6600GT graca I have is not much too weak for highest settings! But CPU....
So I thought of this configuration: What do you think of it? Is it fitting to the needs?

Either an AMD Phenom CPU when it's out or an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or higher, maybe also E6750,
2048 MB RAM (Aeneon, Quimoda or some other well-known manufacturer),
For Harddrives - I'll keep my old ones (which aren't old!)
Nvidia GeForce 8600GT - I think the successor will not be out early enough, and this one should be enough-
A very hard question - the motherboard - Should I wait for PCI Express-2 ?

Thanks for your suggestions......
Rev

[Wii]

You should hall out and get 3072M DDR2 ram and wait for the new AMD Processor

[DonAlfonsoRoKil]

So much RAM for FS9?  :o Ok, I'll watch the AMD news  8-)

[Ivan]

[quote]So much RAM for FS9?

[justpassingthrough]

NickN has said 2 for XP and FS9, 3 for Vista does the same job as 2 in XP cause of how Vista itself sucks up double the memory over XP.

Best bet is to go with an x64 OS so you can use as much memory as you want and never have to deal with OS limits.

I may not even bother with Vista since they announced the DX10 features of FSX will not be anything like the images and pre-release hype they put out there. DX10 from what I have been reading will not provide much of a different look to FSX but will have some performance advantages. I think it wont be till FS11 that really cool DX10 features get put into the product. FSX is a stepping stone in that.

With the hardware I am running now, even though it is DX10 and quad core, I dont see any advantage to changing to Vista yet. If I have to up the amount of memory from 2gig to 4gig and deal with a entirely new operating system, it seems to be more of a pain than an advantage but I will wait and see what it looks like when released.

Dont expect to see SP2-DX10 in FSX before November. I just read SP2 is targeted for just before Winter release but well after the add-on pack they are working on now.

as for what to buy, the new stuff ain't due out till October or November. The only thing you can buy today to be sure you can run the next generation of Intel is a P35 motherboard. See the thread at the top of this forum about that hardware list.

[DonAlfonsoRoKil]

Ok, interesting.....
But I don't care of the future existing FSX DX-10 features, I will never buy FSX, prefer waiting for FS11.

[Triple_7]

Maxed out FS9 in Vista with holding 30FPS locked is perfectly doable for around $1000.  

CPU...Go for the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850...this thing flies  Never been a big fan of AMD :-/

RAM...I'de go with DDR2.  I've heard mixed reviews from DDR3.  Though pricey...I popped a couple of these babies into my new rig and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227181

Video...Running a PCI-E 512MB GeForce 8500.  Very nice for the price.  Its extremely rare to see FPS drop at all from 30.  Only Time I've noticed a drop was due to scenery that had isues...something twice the detail didn't effect them but an older low quality add-on for DXB dropped them to 15 :-/  

Not sure when PCI-E-2 comes out.  Depends on how fast you want things.  A maxed out, smooth running FS9 is perfectly possible now.  But if your looking into eventually getting into FSX then you might be waiting a couple years.  

Vista version...depends on your preference.  Home Basic 64-bit does the job for me, but I don't care about the fancy 3-D desktop etc.  If you want to have all the fancy, resource sucking, looks then go with the better versions.

[DonAlfonsoRoKil]

[quote]Maxed out FS9 in Vista with holding 30FPS locked is perfectly doable for around $1000.

[HugoCampos]

Why I want PCIe2 ? Not because of speed - because of speed in 2 years!

Because of speed in 2 years?!?! By then you'll need to buy another motherboard anyway! I don't understand why people want to buy a computer to last them 4 years.... you rather pay less each time and get an OK computer every year or every 6 months than a top-of-the-line computer every 3 or 4 years.
Just go for a P35 motherboard, DDRII and a medium end graphics card. There's no point waiting for the new stuff to come out because they will be really expensive and won't be "used" for a while. In a year, whenever you will use the money you saved now to buy another medium end computer, the parts will be much cheaper.

[NickN]

Dont expect to see SP2-DX10 in FSX before November. I just read SP2 is targeted for just before Winter release but well after the add-on pack they are working on now.

actually, SP2 will be included with Acceleration

Microsoft will release the stand alone SP2 after Acceleration hits the streets. They incorporated it into the expansion pack and in order to be sure they did not miss any features in the download version they have will have to test the ins and outs of having the addon installed and not installed for several weeks after Acceleration is completed in order to be sure no one will have issues or be mising elements of SP2 either way.

Anyone who buys Acceleration will get SP2 in it.






As for buying PCIe2, if that is what you want you may as well wait for a few more months and at that point it would be silly to go anything less than DDR3.


If you are talking about speed and the ability to upgrade next year, you wont be skimping on price I can tell you that right now.

[DonAlfonsoRoKil]

na ok, maybe I'll stay on PCI-e 1.....
You're right, in two years I will obiously have other hardware components than I would buy now.
Thanks for all tips!  :D