FSX system requirements (a survey)

Question

Olivier (Aceituna)

Trainee

Joined: Oct 31, 2005 Posts: 2

Asked Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:09 pm

The topic of the much acclaimed Flight Simulator X is now mainstream news, and most of us have had time to obtain a copy or at least get a glimpse at what FSX really looks like.

However, there is one FUNDAMENTAL problem: how come no-one can run FSX properly? By that, I mean without compromise in graphic visuals, whilst retaining playable framerates. To give you an idea, even the high-end computers at the Microsoft E3 show were struggling to show off FSX in all its beauty.

This is why I suggest we (members of FlyAwaySimulation.com) carry out a wide-spread experiement to actually see for ourselves what kind of hardwarwe is needed to run FSX properly. The easiest way to do this is through benchmarking, and this is where ALL OF YOU participate, by giving your system specifications.

The most obvious candidate is 3dMark06 & if most of you can get a copy of this, it would really help in terms of comparison (rather than people giving out their specs and complaining that it won't work, like in previous posts). This will hopefully give us an accurate idea of what score satisfies the greedy FSX engine.

FSX is truly an outstanding piece of software, and I would really appreciate it if we could discover the root of the problem, and hopefully benefit anyone & everyone on this site.

To get 3dMark06, visit http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

Thanks again, guys.

Answer 1 · Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:40 pm

GoodisonBlue

First Officer

Joined: Nov 07, 2006 Posts: 318 Location: Liverpool, England

Answered Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:40 pm

8961 in 3d mark 06 for me

Answer 2 · Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:40 pm

RadarMan

Chief Captain

Joined: Aug 25, 2003 Posts: 17928 Location: U.S.A

Answered Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:40 pm

No, they do not build the software to run on today's computers full out.
It will last 3 years and by then, just like FS9 you'll be able to run it maxed if you have a high end system.

Radar

Answer 3 · Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:56 pm

skypilot2

Trainee

Joined: Nov 03, 2006 Posts: 96

Answered Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:56 pm

3dMark06,

What is it?

Answer 4 · Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:38 pm

RadarMan

Chief Captain

Joined: Aug 25, 2003 Posts: 17928 Location: U.S.A

Answered Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:38 pm

skypilot2 wrote:

3dMark06,

What is it?

It's a test for your system.

Radar

Answer 5 · Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:11 pm

skypilot2

Trainee

Joined: Nov 03, 2006 Posts: 96

Answered Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:11 pm

OK Thanks...

Answer 6 · Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:41 pm

Olivier (Aceituna)

Trainee

Joined: Oct 31, 2005 Posts: 2

Answered Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:41 pm

Thanks GoodisonBlue.
That's a pretty high score. What are your specs?
And can you run FSX maxed out with that?

As most people have noticed, FSX is very much graphics resourceful (i.e. the importance of having a powerful graphics card surpasses that of having a fast CPU). When I look in the Catalyst Control Centre when playing FSX, my graphics card never heats up above 68°C, but it goes well over 110°C when playing CS:S or FarCry (or any other game for that matter).
This is a clear indication that FSX is "bandwidth" consuming: the core doesn't have time to heat up because there is a bottleneck on the other side of the GPU. What's the solution? Increase bandwidth & there are 2 ways of doing that.

1. Higher memory bandwidth (256-bit & above)
2. More pixel pipelines (48 or higher)

Hopefully, with more replies, we can actually find out what score you need to push FSX to the max.

Keep posting...

Answer 7 · Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:09 pm

eddiejclayton

Trainee

Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Hanover, PA

Answered Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:09 pm

I can run it maxed out on a single screen (1280x1024, but when I try to max it on my triplehead setup (3840x1024) it's a slide show. 😞 I wouldn't mind having 2 8800GTX's, I'm sure they would help out. 😀

Answer 8 · Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:15 pm

vlad (tiger7881)

First Officer

Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 493 Location: Toronto, Canada.

Answered Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:15 pm

Yes, there is a video card that can run FSX in full its GeForce 7900 512 Overclocked, but you need to have atlist 3.0 ghz, and about 2GB or 3GB of ram lol pretty hard to get. But mins working about 2 steps before the best performance, and its working lieka plane fast !!! its GeForce 7600 512 overclocked with 1GB ram, and 2.4 ghz.

Answer 9 · Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:53 pm

GoodisonBlue

First Officer

Joined: Nov 07, 2006 Posts: 318 Location: Liverpool, England

Answered Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:53 pm

Aceituna wrote:

Thanks GoodisonBlue.
That's a pretty high score. What are your specs?
And can you run FSX maxed out with that?

As most people have noticed, FSX is very much graphics resourceful (i.e. the importance of having a powerful graphics card surpasses that of having a fast CPU). When I look in the Catalyst Control Centre when playing FSX, my graphics card never heats up above 68°C, but it goes well over 110°C when playing CS:S or FarCry (or any other game for that matter).
This is a clear indication that FSX is "bandwidth" consuming: the core doesn't have time to heat up because there is a bottleneck on the other side of the GPU. What's the solution? Increase bandwidth & there are 2 ways of doing that.

1. Higher memory bandwidth (256-bit & above)
2. More pixel pipelines (48 or higher)

Hopefully, with more replies, we can actually find out what score you need to push FSX to the max.

Keep posting...

Hi mate

Core 2 duo overclocked to 2.83
2 gb Corsair Ram
Ge force Gx 7950 1gb ram
250gb sata 10000rpm

I can run fsx with most settings high or ultra high

Does pretty well, only struggling on really hi density cities

Answer 10 · Mon Jun 04, 2007 1:24 pm

Professor-B.R.I.

Guest

Answered Mon Jun 04, 2007 1:24 pm

Sorry about my earlier post "gh" - silly mistake.

I can run FSX on the full everything with every single thing on high and I get very good Frame Rates and it's very smooth. My PC specs are as follows:

DELL XPS GENERATION
XPS CASE & MOTHERBOARD
INTEL P4 HT SUPER FAST SINGLE CORE 4GHz 4MB L2 CACHE
4GB GEL COOLED RAM 633MHz DDR2
500GB SATA 2 16000 RPM
512MB 7900GFX
24x DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW + CD equivalents
8x Blue Ray Drive
Windows XP Professional

Total Cost = £650 (Ebay UK, I know, good deal I got eh? lolz)

As you can see it's not actually super spec but it is a very good spec Dell! I am a professor in Computer Science and I will say that a single core 4GHz P4 HT processor is much faster than a Dual core 4GHz (2 x 2GHz) as in a dual core only the 2nd processor is used if the first one exceeds 100% work rate. In other words, your 2nd processor just sits there doing nothing until its neighbor needs some extra help. In fact if you have, say, a 5GHz dual core then your PC will only actually technically be running at 2.5GHz until it needs more power and in most cases everything will run (apart from high demanding games) under 2.5GHz so as you can see Dual Cores are not as good as you think. And with Quad Core's, lol, I'm not even going to get started on these but they are just a joke as only 1 out of three processors actually get used and 95% of the time (yes 95%) the third and forth processors never ever get used.

So, to summarize it up, if you're going for a gaming PC then I would certainly go for a Dell XPS (just brilliant) and only spend below £800.

Regards to all,

Prof. B.R.I.
Glasgow University

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