Q: What type of computer hardware will I need to run “Flight Simulator X”?
Commentary:  Mo' fasta, Mo' betta.

While Microsoft has not officially released the system requirements for FSX, their comment above is typical of how the Flight Simulator platform is designed to run on a range of systems. But, you cannot have it all ways. Based on past advances in the Flight Simulator line, we can expect FSX to perform to our community's high standards of smooth graphics, awesome audio, breathtaking scenery, exquisite details and exciting adventures – on systems that are at today's moderately high end of the PC system spectrum. This means, don't expect FSX to give you a great flight on your trusty old Pentium III. Take a look under your hood. If your PC is at least a Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, with at least 1GB of SDRAM and a fast EIDE or SATA hard drive, with a 128MB 8X AGP video card – you probably have enough horsepower to "run" FSX. Just as with FS2004, you'll need to dial down some of the performance settings to have a smooth flight with simplified graphics, weather and traffic settings. a 3 GHz system would be my recommendation for a basic place to start.

We can venture a well educated guess that it will require a significant computer system upgrade to run FSX as smoothly as we all want and with all the video, audio, traffic, weather and scenery features cranking full throttle. After all, we want to upgrade our flightsim experience, not just give our money to Microsoft for the same old experience, right?

We don't need a crystal ball to make that prediction. Even when they are finally revealed, we never take Microsoft's minimum system requirements as the gospel truth. In my entire 20+ years of working in the PC world, we have never had any application run to my satisfaction at minimum system requirements. That's practically a Law of Nature.

What was true in the past is that with FS2002, Combat Flight Simulator 3 and FS2004 – we all had to upgrade our computers to get the most out of those flightsimming experiences. Stands to reason that we'll all need more horsepower under the hood to have a sublime FSX experience. So, now would be a good time to gear up and get over it.

To gear up properly for FSX, I'm recommending a fast CPU starting at least with a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 processor and 533 FSB. My best recommendation is a system with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor 670 that runs at 3.8 GHz with an 800 MHz front Side Bus (FSB). You'll also want hyperthread technology (HT), 2MB cache and Intel PCI Express graphics for maximum performance and mind-blowing results. It's a good thing that PC prices are dropping lower every day. Best of all is the fact that if you gear up now, you'll also enjoy a spectacular improvement in your FS2004 experience.