On 7/29/2008 7:43 AM, BrittonV@gmail.com went clickity clack on the
keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:

The video card isn't as important in FSX as it is in other games.  (Yes,
I know!)  But more pixels means more work, so the faster the card the
better.  With a dual-core 2.6 GHz processor and an nVidia 7950GT card I
get acceptable performance displayed on a 22" wide screen at 1680x1050.
 Frame rates vary between 20 in dense areas to 50 at high altitude.
But as is mentioned in another thread, frame rates in FSX aren't quite
the same as FS9.  20 fps is pretty smooth in FSX and that's with the
sliders set to high (not ultra high) and 100% air traffic and lots of
ground traffic.

I've tried all kinds of video cards but always seemed to go back to ATI.
 Until now, that is.  I'm very happy with my nVidia card and my next
card will likely be another.  However, I've heard that ATI's
implementation of DX10 is a tad better than nVidia's and Tom's Hardware
is suggesting the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series is better.  The 4850 seems
to be a good deal here both in price and performance.

Since you're getting a new machine, why don't you go for the 64-bit
version of Vista Home Ultimate?  It's a reasonable price (a tad over
US$100) and will support all the RAM you're getting plus more if you
decide to upgrade.  Since this is a new machine, I find it highly likely
that you won't have any problems getting 64-bit drivers for your
hardware.  If you do have problems, then you need to reconsider that
hardware choice when you take into account that more and more systems
are coming out requiring 64-bit support for the memory.

I run FSX at this resolution, as it is the native resolution of my Samsung
24" 244T flatpanel monitor. It seems to run fine for me, response time is
every bit as good as a CRT, and the contrast ratio is excellent. I no
nothing about running it on an HD television though. Good luck...

Randy L.

Should have no trouble with that processor and a fairly decent video card.
I also however, could not say on the hdmi .

I would also agree with what couple of others stated, with a system like
that and 4gb of ram, might as well go ahead and go with 64 bit Vista,
especially since you'll already be assembling a new computer.
I run 64 bit Vista Ultimate on my machine, and FSX runs very well on it, I
rarely boot into XP any more, and never run FSX on XP any longer.

I have a system nearly identical to what you propose (see specs below).  But
if you want a super high overclock, you won't be able to do that with a
stepped CPU such as the Q9450, you'll need to cough up some bigger bucks for
the QX series.  The way I o/c'd my Q9450 was to o/c the mobo FSB up to
1600MHz (the Q9450 is a native 2.66GHz 1333MHz chip) which sets the CPU at
3.2GHz which is just fine.  That requires a mobo designed for heavy
overclocking and some very good cooling.

I'm running a 24" widescreen at 1920x1200 driven by the nVidia 9800GTX
single card.  As FSX has evolved, and improved a bit with the upgrades, the
GPU load has increased to take some load off the CPU, so you will want a
heavy duty card, but not necessarily a Crossfire or SLI dual card setup --  
too much heat, too much money for FSX and they will become quickly obsolete
as all cards soon do.

At last I can run FSX with the sliders set where I want them, not where the
computer has to have them to run smoothly.  I have SP1/SP2 installed (not
Acceleration - I bought it and took if off).  FSX is smooth as glass.  I run
at full screen.  Windowed mode works fine but if you zoom the window to full
screen in windowed mode, it takes a big framerate hit.  I'm also driving a
second 17" CRT at 1024x768 for maps, etc. with the same card.  Great setup,
no regrets.

3.2GHz Quad Core, 12MB L2 cache, 1600MHz FSB
Asus Formula Rampage mobo
4GB DDR2, 800MHz Crucial DHX RAM
9800 GTX 512MB, o/c 715MHz core
Vista 64-bit Home Premium

With regard to a TV connection, I have no experience, but a similar question
on aus.computers brought this response from Sob:

"To get any sort of quality if its a large wide-screen you
really need to connect it up to a HDMI port on the TV.
If you ain't got one, you can use the ol' VGA plug but you
will get a really shitty picture because the PC screen resolution
will not match the screen resolution, that means the picture will be
stretched to fit. Using the HDMI plug overcomes that problem. PC won't
have a HDMI (only the latest greatest cards have) but will have a DVI
connection.
You can get a DVI to HDMI conversion cable $40-50".