Tarquinius
Tarquinius
Guest
Asked

Hi,

I've read so many posts on this board and am not sure which way to turn as some people with relatively modest systems seem to have FS X working fine and others with great systems say it hardly runs well at all. I guess it all depends upon your own expectations of where you can set the sliders and differing opinions on what is an acceptable frame rate...

A relation of mine is about to upgrade his PC (which currently runs FS 2000 on a 633 MHz Pentium with 128 MB RAM !). He wants to buy FS X, but I'm not sure whether it would run acceptably on his new PC, so wonder if he's better off with FS 2004 ? (Bear in mind he won't have high expectations as any improvement on his current set up will be good !)

Specs for a £500 (UK Pound) PC he's thinking of buying:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
Windows Vista ???? (see below)
2 GB DDR2 533 Mhz RAM
256 MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro PCI Express Graphics Card

250 GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard drive with 8MB databurst cache

So will this run FS X well enough to be able to play or is FS 2004 a better bet? (I'm not expecting high framerates or to have sliders maxed - just to be able to play it reasonably enjoyably)

Also, does FS X now run on Vista? I know when it first came out there were some problems? Most new PCs seem to come with Vista.

And finally, on the above system we could trade down to 1 GB RAM but get a faster Athloan dual core X2 5000+ processor instead. Which is more important for FS - RAM or processor?

Thanks to all

Answers 6 Answers

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Tailhook
Tailhook
Chief CaptainChief Captain
Joined: Oct 12, 2005 Posts: 7013 Location: El Dorado
Answered

Tarquinius wrote:

And finally, on the above system we could trade down to 1 GB RAM but get a faster Athloan dual core X2 5000+ processor instead. Which is more important for FS - RAM or processor?

Thanks to all

The question 'which is more important - RAM or processor' can easily turn into a double edged sword.

MY advice: Do NOT downgrade to 1 GB of RAM. If you have enough vacant slots on your mobo to add RAM modules at a later stage, try one Gig.
Within a few days you'll be buying more RAM - I promise.
The importance of sufficient RAM is mostly ignored. Ask any salesperson in a computershop about specs, they'll mention CPU, size of HDD, the size of the monitor and the fact that you'll be able to play DVDs on this machine. Nobody ever mentions the amount of RAM -- guess why??



Last edited by Tailhook on Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total
JLangevin
JLangevin
First OfficerFirst Officer
Joined: Sep 24, 2004 Posts: 435
Answered

The system itself will be a good system for just about anything... the kind of performance he gets is dependant on how his system is configured... if he has a ton of stuff running in the background, it will slow it down...

I strongly suggest that he ditch the idea of the X1300Pro. I had the X1300Pro 512mb PCI-E card before my 7600GTKO Nvidia, and it was holding me back significantly on the simulator... he can get an Nvidia 7600GTKO for the same price, if not cheaper! MAKE SURE HE GETS THE GTKO version... this is a factory overclocked version of the GT, but instead of a DVI, VGA and S video on the back, it has 2 DVI, and the S video. I also reccomend the ZALMAN VGA cooler... I use that on mine and under a load, never goes above 50*c... thats what this card would idle at BEFORE the new fan. It now idles at 42*c and 50* at load, before, 50*c Idle, and 65-70*load.

Tailhook
Tailhook
Chief CaptainChief Captain
Joined: Oct 12, 2005 Posts: 7013 Location: El Dorado
Answered

So one Gig of RAM is sufficient in your opinion?
I'm willing to learn.

JLangevin
JLangevin
First OfficerFirst Officer
Joined: Sep 24, 2004 Posts: 435
Answered

I do not feel 1 gig is sufficient... your post regarding the ram was right on the head! There is no such thing as too much ram... If anything, I would upgrade the ram to faster memory. 667mhz at least... 533 is the slowest of the DDR2 family.

If his system is configurable, I would suggest changing the VGA card...

Tarquinius
Tarquinius
Guest
Answered

Thanks to everyone for your posts; very helpful. It sounds as if X should be possible on this machine, even if the sliders need to be set low

The reason for the choice of graphics card ( ATI Radeon X1300 Pro) is that is what Dell machines at this price come with and we can get (small) discount from Dell.

However we could go for a different make. Can anyone recommend a good make of PC (available in the UK for around £500) that would come with a good graphics card / processor / memory?

Thanksh

JLangevin
JLangevin
First OfficerFirst Officer
Joined: Sep 24, 2004 Posts: 435
Answered

Sorry mate... Im not from the UK, so I couldnt help you there... Check www.newegg.com they have great deals. There is no reason that you cant remove the X1300 and replace it with the NVidia card... I can 118.76% gaurentee you that, that card will be the bottleneck on the system.

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