On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:26:47 -0800, (UglyDan®©™)
wrote:

Hey Bassy, In one of the other threads you mentioned messing around with
a Flight Sim.
I was wondering what type you're using. I picked up the latest MS FSX
last week, and had to upgrade my computer, put in a new Nvidia geforce
7600-gs graphic card, power supply from 300w to 500w, and added another
1gb ram.
It helped a bit,but I'm still not getting decent FPS unless I stay away
from the major cities.
Just wondering. UD

I happen to know a little bit about flight sims so I guess I'll chime
in.

I've tried the FSX demo for a bit and it's ok. I get a decent usuable
frame rate even with bumping up the details to high. With the default
detail level, there's no jumping at all on my system. I'm sure I
wouldn't be able to use high details in a city though. I use it on a
laptop with an Intel 1.66GHz core 2 duo, 1GB PC5400 667MHz memory,
256MB ATI Radeon X1400 graphics driving a 40" LCD flat panel monitor.
The laptop is only a 15" widescreen, which looks pretty good too. But
that 40" LCD flat panel is incredible.

If you have a dual core processor, let me know and I'll give you a
little procedure I use to get MS FSX to use both cores and give you a
little better frame rate.

Now, if you want a "real" flight simulator with a much better motion
model and more realistic flying, try X-Plane. http://www.x-plane.com/
I get a much better frame rate with X-Plane than with MS FSX on my
system.

You can download and try out the demo version there as well. It's
fully functional for I think 6 minutes, but only comes with a tiny bit
of detailed scenery. The full world scenery takes up 60gig of disk
space. You don't have to load all of that though.

You'll never have as much fun as I have flying X-Plane at work, with a
3 flat panel video system that practically envelopes you, and using
the Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS controller, landing a fighter on a
carrier deck. The Cougar is even better than the CH products
controllers that X-Plane recommends, and the CH is pretty damn good.

Now, if you're REALLY into flight simming and want the best
controllers for x-plane or FSX where price is no object, check out the
yokes, pedals, avionics and even entire flight consoles at
http://www.flypfc.com/

You want to fly an absolutely realistic Space Shuttle landing? You
want to see what it's like to fly a plane on Mars? You want to design
your own plane with realistic flight dynamics? You want to run the
same flight simulator on Windows, a Mac, or even Linux? Try X-Plane.

Steve