System requirement estimates

[F35LightningII]

Here you can have a say on what system specs you think will be needed for good performance on MS Flight.

I think:

Quad core @ 3.0Ghz
4GB RAM
20GB Hard Disk Space
1GB DirectX 11

I've had my say. So what do you think? :-?

[Travis]

I think you're overestimating (except for the graphics card), but I could be wrong:

Dual Core @ 2.5 GHz
3 GB RAM
10 GB HD Space

[F35LightningII]

I am talking about the specs that will give you best performance, not the minimums. I have a dual core @ 2.4Ghz and my fps can go bellow 10 sometimes. I don't think 2.5Ghz will be very good.

[Strawberry Yogurt]

Let's all remember here, MS said the game will be nicer to our hardware... I'm thinking we are probably going to get something that delivers more than we think - we might just be surprised.

[DaveSims]

Let's all remember here, MS said the game will be nicer to our hardware... I'm thinking we are probably going to get something that delivers more than we think - we might just be surprised.

I am hoping another reoccurence of the FS2000 to FS2002 upgrade.  I could run 2002 10x better than my system could handle FS2000.

[Steve M]

If you can run it on your I phone I don't want it. I prefer at least a bit of a challenge. Saying that, I think the only way to make 'everyone' happy, no matter the hardware would be some form of cloud computing. A central bank of servers that send your graphics to you. But then there would be bandwidth and speed problems.

[Travis]

I am talking about the specs that will give you best performance, not the minimums. I have a dual core @ 2.4Ghz and my fps can go bellow 10 sometimes. I don't think 2.5Ghz will be very good.

Running FSX, I'm not surprised.  However, as Yogurt said, MS has already stated that Flight will be easier on the hardware than FSX is.  I hope that a dual core with a decent rate (2.3 or above) will suffice, while a cutting edge graphics card will have to be available.

[Daube]

With Flight, MS is supposed to improve the multi-core distribution of the various tasks of the game, which means that the number of cores will become even more critical than it already is in FSX.

Also, it's obvious on the screenshots that the terrain in Flight will be even more complex than it is in FSX, so the various cores will be more taxed, power-wise.

I'm not expecting Flight to run smoothly on a CPU like a dual core. Dual cores are already not enough for FSX, they won't be enough for Flight either.

[Rocket_Bird]

Does rendering terrain really require that much CPU power?  I always thought that this was just one of those optimization problems with FSX.  Seems everything requires that up-a-notch CPU if you want to move sliders up.  This didn't seem so much of a problem with FS9, or X-Plane for that matter, so I'm curious whether or not this can be optimized a bit for better performance. 

Also, I cannot name a single game out there that requires so much state of the art hardware to run smoothly (multicore or otherwise).  If Flight performs anything like FSX, this might be a cause for concern.  Thus I certainly hope they deliver a little something more palatable to today's hardware.

[Daube]

[quote]Does rendering terrain really require that much CPU power?

[Fr. Bill]

Yes, FS (any version) is bogged down by the rendering process, given that everything seen on screen is dynamic...

The only way around this would be to have everything except the user a/c , AI a/c. and weather be "pre-rendered," which would increase the frame rates by a very significant factor, but...

...the scenery would no longer be easily modifiable, and the end result would end up taking more than 100x as much hard drive space!

[alrot]

Let's all remember here, MS said the game will be nicer to our hardware... I'm thinking we are probably going to get something that delivers more than we think - we might just be surprised.

Do you really believe what M$ said? does any one

[Rocket_Bird]

First, there are not so many games that simulate things that are as complex as in FS9 or FSX. Most "normal" games are just focused on graphics, the CPUs don't have much to do. Also, "normal" games are not as dynamic as our sims, thus there is much more room for optimizations and power saving.

Thanks for the response.

[JBaymore]

Let's all remember here, MS said the game will be nicer to our hardware... I'm thinking we are probably going to get something that delivers more than we think - we might just be surprised.

And I've got a nice slightly used bridge near NYC for sale too.   ;D

The past history of MS's simulator offerings points to the likely fact that the hardware requirements will be well higher than most anyone currently owns to get "maximum" features (all the great sounding stuff in the marketing) running at anything other than a slide show.

I hope I'm wrong...... but I doubt it.

best,

..............john

[Travis]

John, you do have a point, but try to remember that we got those previous promises from the ACES team using outmoded coding techniques left over from 2000.  With a new team and a brand new software, I hope that MS has finally pulled it's head of the proverbial donkey . . .