Lets look at it...


My PC* is about one year old now. I bought it last summer as a "put together yourself" PC, so I could get exactly the parts I wanted. I chose an Intel Pentium 4 550 (3.4 GHz)  processor, which wasn't bad at that time, but not state of the art either, I don't know how old it was at the time. For my video card I chose the GeForce 256 Mb 6800GT, which was about a year old, but one of the best, since the 7800 series and the ATI equivilant hadn't come out. For my RAM I chose 4x512 Mb (2048Mb ~ 2 gigs) of PC3200 (DDR 400), 2 gigs was quite a lot a year ago. The rest was just average stuff, 200 Gb maxtor harddisk, 400 Watt powersupply... (so on)...


That makes my PC look like this:


Intel P4 550 (3.4 GHz) - "Okay" by todays starndards, but far from good!

GeForce 6800GT, 256 Mb GDDR3 - Mid range today I'd say, bear in mind this is two years old!

2048 Mb PC3200 (DDR 400) RAM - Still good today, I don't know wether or not PC3200 is still the fastet, but 2 gigs isn't bad.

On-board AC97 soundcard. ()


And how do I run this un-optimized demo:

1280 x 1024 - 85 Hz
4X AA
8X AF

All settings maxed out
All AI settings at 50%


Result, an average of 15 FPS, on a two year old video card and an average processor.


My conclusion is that, that isn't bad on un-optimized software, with amazing graphics.


If you like, post your FSX experience in terms of graphics, settings (including AA and AF, should you use that) and your essential hardware.

It was choking on my 9600XT. I was getting less than 15FPS. I need to test it some more though.

I think the FSX demo is almost better on frames than my FS9.

On an 18 month old system (P4 3Ghz, 1GB, X850XT-PE) I was getting anywhere between 9 and 22fps on the default settings (except for increase water detail). Not bad for what isn't the finished product.

Most encouraging for me is the apparent increase in quality of the default aircraft...