Help with FS2004

[bigpetespc]

Hello all, this is my first post so please forgive me if the questions are a bit lame.
Ive just ordered FS2004, and ive spent a few days on your website looking through all of the downloadable addons for this fantastic sim.
Please can anyone help me with these questions

1. Ok, so I download the new aircraft, or airports etc, but how do I install them? Ive downloaded 1 and its made up of various files etc, so where do you have to put them? Do they have to go into specific folders or do they just have to be in the FS2004 folder? Sorry....I have not had to do this before.

2. I have a read through the threads looking to see if my pc is capable of doing well with this 'power hungry' flight sim. at the moment my machine is like this:-  

AMD 2800+ 333 fsb CPU, with 512Mb pc3200 DDR, on a MSI K7N2 delta ILSR Nforce 2 motherboard with a MSI FX5600 128Mb graphics card. I have 2 x 120 Gb ata 133 hard disks.

It runs IL2 forgotten battles ok, but from what I can gather its not upto spec for running this sim well, so what would be recomended as a good upgrade??

I was thinking along the lines of a AMD 64 3400+ on a MSI Nforce 3 K8N neo motherboard with 1Gb of Geil pc3500ddr and a ATI X800 pro 256Mb graphics card.

Thats about as far as I can go money wise...and thats after selling my grandma's wigs......(lol) Does anyone have an alternative setup (cheaper?) that will do the job.

3. Ive not flown a 'true' flight sim before, so are there any good books (Ebooks or otherwise) on line or to buy that wil give me a good background to getting started.
Many thanks
Pete

[ozzy72]

Hi Pete, welcome to SimV.
Right lets do this one at a time.
1) For adding aircraft read http://www.simviation.com/acinstall.htm and scenery http://www.simviation.com/lair/fs2004sc.htm
2) Your PC should be more than capable of handling FS9
3) Try going through the tutorials built into FS first, they answer many of the questions. Anything you're not sure about feel free to ask here.

Ozzy

[bigpetespc]

Hi Ozzy....
All I can say is 'WOW'
that was the FASTEST reply I have ever seen in a forum.

Perhaps I was getting a bit confused reading some of the technical items in here. Ive wanted to get the sim for a while but I didn't think that my pc was upto the job...at least that's what a friend told me.
(he has a fantastic PC and the cash to spend on it...Some ppl have it all...lol).

I cant wait to get the sim back so I can start doing some real flying rather than just combat.

Im going to spend some time reading the links you posted. (I think I will print them out and sit dow with a coffee).

Do you think it is still worth upgrading my pc? I have 'permission' from my wife, as I have not spent any money on it for over a year....but I dont want to go wasting cash if it could be better spent.

Once more many thanks

Pete

[Craig.]

To be honest with you. Your best bet would be to run FS2004 on your current pc, see what results you get and then decide from there. This sim seems to be very picky for what it will work well with and what it wont.

[bigpetespc]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the reply.

I must admit I am busting to get my hands on the software.  The more I read about it and the more I look at the fantastic aircraft to be downloaded the more I cant wait.....shame the UK postal service is not as good as the US......

I agree that it is a good idea to try it on my system before I pull it all apart and start again. Is anyone running a similar PC system to mine and what does it run like?

I do think that I will add another 512 Mb of ram to the PC to make sure its got enough to support the sim.

Pete