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With regard to FSX........ the term "beast" and that machine do not go together.  If you look at the stuff being discussed on the various forums here and elsewhere....... you'll see that FSX needs a totally tricked out  machine to even get NEAR all the stuff that they hyped in the marketing.  In fact if I remember correctly Microsoft has (belatedly) now publ;ished a "minimum", "recommended" and "preferred" type listing of machine specifications on their website.  It is an eye-opener....... and should have been put on the box IMHO.

That information puts your machine about in the middle.  Which means that you can cexpect middle performance with middle level sliders and such.

Oh well.  Such is life.  ???


best,

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

1. You need more ram. The majority of FSX users throughout the FS community have reported increased performance with 2 [two] GB of Ram compared to those with only 1GB.

2. You need a better video card. 256MB is not enough for most users. 512MB is recommended but you also need the latest version from either video card company.

3. Get use to the increased space requirements. Besides, most FS2004 users these days have about 30GB worth of addons installed on their 250GB hard drives on average.

4. The reason why the sim takes you to desktop mode at the end of a flight is because the main menu is on some sort of windowed mode everytime.

*One of my three computers has the 128MB GeForce 4 MX440 installed. But it's only DX8 based and not DX9.

EDIT: Forgive me. I thought I had 512MB on my video card. Turns out I had only 128MB. My bad.

Hmmmm 2GB!
Still, you shouldn't be expected to buy a new machine just for this game! Or should you?

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No.. you shouldn't be expected to. You should expect it yourself. Brand new, push-the-limits gaming software SHOULD require brand new, push the limits hardware to run at full potential. And even better than the fact that you CAN tune it down a bit until you upgrade, is that it's got an open ended future. What FSX will be able to do on Vista, with DX10 is supposed to be even MORE amazing..

Best of all worlds from a $70 piece of software ?

Not too bad if you ask me.

Agreed...

Microsoft and its marketing methods aren't what you'd call "honorable".  But that's nothing new.

I think there are basically three buyers of FSX..

1) the clueless friend/relative that buys it as a gift..

2) the not so clueless gamer running decent hardware trying FS for the first time (based on the hype)..

3) the person buying the next generation sim, right on cue, knowing what it took to run the last versions.. knowing Microsoft.. and knowing his computer's limitations (knowing hardware upgrades are a 6-month thing).

Persons 1&2 will either become person 3 or have learned a $70 lesson.

I keep thinking how dissapointed person 3 would be in a sim that didn't take us to new techology levels and gaming experiences..

As a person 3 myself.. all in all.. I'm more than pleased with FSX..

As for Microsoft's marketing ?  There could be a whole forum dedicated to that nonsense.

One comment on all this. Presumably these tweaks work by lowering the graphic capabilities of the program so you cannot possibly see all the improved features by using them. In effect you have something in between FS9 & FSX (FS9.5).

Hey, listen here.
I had anticipated the release of FSX so I went out last February or so to buy the at-the-time latest hardware. The Geforce 7800GT was spanking new so I customized a little machine with that, on top of a K8N motherboard, a gig ram, and a very decent processor, as well as huge flatscreen monitor for just under 2000 euro.

However, FSX trailed a bit on its release and less than nine months on, I have to say that although my machine is far better than average, it is by no means in the top class anymore.

I think the best thing one can do is to wait for the release of Vista, DirectX 10 and compatible hardware and then buy a new pc. That's what I'm doing. I think the time will be fit in about may to buy the real FSX performance rig.

Untill then, I will have to do with what I thought would have been the real McKoy for the next generation.

Oh well, at least I get to keep the flatscreen and RAM...



PS does anyone know if its possible to SLI a Geforce 7800GT and the card of the future, probably like the 8800GT?