Help with MS Flight Simulator X in PC gaming Tech http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20958204 en Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:31:48 EDT Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:31:48 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988724 habya :
said by Irenic See Profile :

Sadly I only have 32bit XP, not Vista.

I understand academic upgrade licenses for Vista are cheap, so I'll drop by the university store next week and see how much it is.

As far as I know it is possible to do a clean install of Vista upgrade and "upgrade" from it to.. Vista! So there's not much point in getting the full version.
Very nice to hear your system is running good. The 4850 is a good card for its price range. And the E8400 is a great overclocker too. So you should be able to get by for a while with just a GPU upgrade later on, before a system rebuild.

And yes you can definitely use the 'upgrade' to do a full install. Just install the trial version, do not enter cd key when asked, and the install it on top of that :). It works like a charm, used it on 2 computers already.

At least around here if you are in any type of computer related field you get most of the OS choices for free. Through MSDN Alliance my school offers us Vista Business, XP Pro, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, etc. It is all free for anyone in a computer related field. So it might be worth checking into if your school has something like that.

I have used academicsuperstore.com also and it is great. They also have a Canadian site so you should be able to use them. Getting verified took no time at all and they have great prices on stuff. Although after looking at the CA site it doesn't look like they offer OS? Well I guess you won't be ordering through them :(. Well they're a good store if you see anything else you like.
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HABYA HABYA HABYA TEAR DOWN THE HEMP STALKS EAT UP THE OLD MAN AND WOMAN AND CARRY OFF THE LITTLE GIRL MAY YOU DIE ALONE]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988724 Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:49:30 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988293 Siryak :
said by Irenic See Profile :

Sadly I only have 32bit XP, not Vista.

I understand academic upgrade licenses for Vista are cheap, so I'll drop by the university store next week and see how much it is.

As far as I know it is possible to do a clean install of Vista upgrade and "upgrade" from it to.. Vista! So there's not much point in getting the full version.
If you can't get it cheap there you can always do it online.(That's what I did) I can't remember who I used, but through a quick search I found these 2 sellers.(Not sure on their reputation)

»www.academicsuperstore.com/produ···ft/Vista
»www.gradware.com/product/view/78···odkiZlkg]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988293 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:45:33 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988200 Irenic : Sadly I only have 32bit XP, not Vista.

I understand academic upgrade licenses for Vista are cheap, so I'll drop by the university store next week and see how much it is.

As far as I know it is possible to do a clean install of Vista upgrade and "upgrade" from it to.. Vista! So there's not much point in getting the full version.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988200 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:21:33 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988190 Siryak :
said by Irenic See Profile :

Edit: And one more thing, whoever at Intel designed those stupid, stupid, stupid "clip on" heatsink/fans for the Core 2 Duo is a complete sadist. I've never been more frustrated trying to install a heatsink. Whatever happened to screws?
Lol I hear you there!!! Glad to hear that your PSU worked out. I don't think it cost much to get a 64-bit disc from MS. I think it is like $12 as long as you already have the 32-bit version.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988190 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:20:04 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988145 Irenic : Well I now have everything put together.

It seems to be rock solid, the only "problem" I had was complete inability to run the E8400 at 3.6Ghz. Oh well. At default speed it's just fine.

As for the PSU issues, well, it's just as I suspected. There is *massive* overkill with people buying nearly kilowatt powersupplies for no reason. The HD4850 box said 450W recommended, it works just fine on my 380W Antec, and I know why.

My guess is the reason most manufacturers have started recommending insanely powerful PSUs is because most PSUs are complete garbage and the manufacturers lie. For fun I googled "500W power supply" and found these 3 products:

Thermaltake TR2 Standard 500W PSU: »www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.a···539#Tab1 -> 12V output current is 15 + 14 = 29A

Ultra X-Connect 500W ATX PSU »www.ultraproducts.com/product_de···ctID=157 -> 12V output current is 34A

OCZ 500W StealthXStream »www.ocztechnology.com/products/p···r_supply -> 12v output current is 18 + 18 = 36A.

My 3 year old 380W Antec TruePower 2.0 has two 16A rails for a total of 32A. Which is pretty close to the Ultra PSU and better than the so called 500W Thermaltake unit. As usual, quality brand and product line matter much more than wattage.

As far as the system itself goes, it seems to play Flight Sim X alright* :) and is overall pretty speedy. On 32bit XP I can only use 3.5GB of RAM so I'll save up a for a 64bit copy of Vista. I have to say I now regret buying that 74GB Raptor years ago, I'd rather have more space than a few ms shaved off seek times.

The HD4850 runs VERY hot though, even at idle, I nearly burned myself when I touched it by mistake while I was trying to fix the power LED connector. And the oversized length reminds me of EISA video cards from a long, long time ago.

Edit: And one more thing, whoever at Intel designed those stupid, stupid, stupid "clip on" heatsink/fans for the Core 2 Duo is a complete sadist. I've never been more frustrated trying to install a heatsink. Whatever happened to screws? ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20988145 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:09:36 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20986944 Siryak :
said by Irenic See Profile :

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I decided to go the upgrade route instead of re-starting from scratch, unfortunately being in Canada the prices were not quite as competitive as what Habya posted, but it ended up ok. I'm not a huge fan of mail in rebates because I've gotten burned many times before.

I ended up making the following purchases:

Gigabyte GA-EP-35DSL
Diamond Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Intel E8400 3Ghz Dual Core
Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2 (2x 2GB)

The latter was a bit of a splurge but eventually I'm going to get a copy of 64bit Vista Premium. For now I will stick with XP.

I am going to attempt to salvage my 380W Antec TruePower 2.0 PSU. It may not be enough, in which case I'll buy something beefier, but I hear that the 4850 is an okay video card as far as power efficiency goes and the E8400 consumes about as much as my current A64. I'm also keeping the monitors, mouse/keyboard and WD Raptor 74GB.

(My PC used to be a decent gaming machine but most of those parts were sold off nearly two years ago, the Raptor I kept for nostalgia.)

My current case is an Antec 3000B mid-tower... it suffered a rather failed modding attempt with a dremel a while back :) but it's still holding together.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll write back when I get everything in (should be tomorrow).

Now it's off to the Buy/Sell forum to unload the leftover hardware.

Edit: If the new box doesn't play SC3 and D2 properly when they're out I'm going to die. :p
Uhh...I would check with some of the people here before you fire that thing up with a less than recommended spec PSU...(I'm not sure, but I think it could damage the rig)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20986944 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:15:05 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20970817 Irenic : Thanks for the replies everyone!

I decided to go the upgrade route instead of re-starting from scratch, unfortunately being in Canada the prices were not quite as competitive as what Habya posted, but it ended up ok. I'm not a huge fan of mail in rebates because I've gotten burned many times before.

I ended up making the following purchases:

Gigabyte GA-EP-35DSL
Diamond Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Intel E8400 3Ghz Dual Core
Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2 (2x 2GB)

The latter was a bit of a splurge but eventually I'm going to get a copy of 64bit Vista Premium. For now I will stick with XP.

I am going to attempt to salvage my 380W Antec TruePower 2.0 PSU. It may not be enough, in which case I'll buy something beefier, but I hear that the 4850 is an okay video card as far as power efficiency goes and the E8400 consumes about as much as my current A64. I'm also keeping the monitors, mouse/keyboard and WD Raptor 74GB.

(My PC used to be a decent gaming machine but most of those parts were sold off nearly two years ago, the Raptor I kept for nostalgia.)

My current case is an Antec 3000B mid-tower... it suffered a rather failed modding attempt with a dremel a while back :) but it's still holding together.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll write back when I get everything in (should be tomorrow).

Now it's off to the Buy/Sell forum to unload the leftover hardware.

Edit: If the new box doesn't play SC3 and D2 properly when they're out I'm going to die. :p]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20970817 Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:28:47 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20964576 habya : If your case can hold the stuff no need to throw out HDD etc. Heck for $600 you can do pretty well since you won't need HDD or anything.

You can get

- GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L P35 Motherboard $85
- 2x1GB OCZ Plat DDR2 800 $50 ($20 after MIR)
- Corsair 750Watt PSU $120 ($100 after MIR)
- Gigabyte 4850 $170 ($150 after MIR)
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 $170

Total = $596
Grand Total after rebates = $526

That would give you plenty of room to play with. Just be sure your case has room for everything. If not you can add just a decent case for like $70 (cooler master stacker, antec, etc) and still be under $600 after rebates.

Then get a cheap HDD etc for your old system. Then you can have 2 desktops to play with :).

So let's assume you wanted a whole system from scratch just add a couple hundred to the price above.

$596
+ ~$70 case
+ $30 DVD/RW
+ $100 HDD
Total = $796
Grand total after rebates = $726

And you can probably get some rebates on cases too, so there is some more back. Or get a cheaper HDD, look for sales on 500GB ones for $60-65.

I know your'e waiting for Diablo 3 etc, but why not upgrade now? The E8400, or quad core if you prefer (all around same price), will have no problem with those games. If you get the 4850/4870 I doubt it will have much trouble either. Of course if it does, you can always sell it off and buy the 4870x2 if you want spend that much money lol :).
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HABYA HABYA HABYA TEAR DOWN THE HEMP STALKS EAT UP THE OLD MAN AND WOMAN AND CARRY OFF THE LITTLE GIRL MAY YOU DIE ALONE]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20964576 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:33:30 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20964326 Siryak : For the video card I would recommend that you jump on ATI's 4850. Excellent card for the money. Unfortunately just like you suspected it will require a 500+ PSU. As for the rest well I have some ideas, but I will let someone who has done a little more research educate you on those.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20964326 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:10:13 EDT Re: Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20963077 spamd : Well your video card just barely meets the specs. I would at the very least spend 100-150 on a newer video card, look for a used one on ebay or here at DSLR.
»For Sale/Wanted

If you are going to build a new system in the near future I would wait and put the money in the new system instead.
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When everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20963077 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:08:55 EDT Help with MS Flight Simulator X http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20958204 Irenic : I've been given a copy of MS Flight Sim X Deluxe as a gift, and I can barely play it at the lowest possible settings on my laptop (Yonah 1.83Ghz/2GB RAM/X1600 Mobile).

I also have a desktop but it's actually much slower (Athlon64 1.8Ghz / 1GB RAM / X300).

Are there any cost effective upgrades I could do to my desktop to get this game running decently?

I realise I'll need a new motherboard/cpu/ram/videocard but I was hoping to re-use the rest. Right now I have an Antec TruePower 380W PSU and I wanted to keep it, but from what I see new videocards require 500W+ at least. The desktop has two (pretty old) 17" LCDs and I'd like to keep them for now so I'd be looking at 1280x1024.

If possible I'd like to keep costs fairly low (let's say $600?).

To be honest I didn't want to upgrade anything now since I was waiting for StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 to come out first, but I really would like to play the flight sim properly.

Any advice or is this just not possible with my budget?

Edit: Alternatively let's say I throw everything out and build a completely new system for around $1300-$1500. (which really pains me because outside of this game my desktop is perfectly good for what I do.) Any suggestions for a half-decent configuration? Ideally it'd be something that will also run Blizzard's games properly when they come out.

Thanks.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20958204 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:44:44 EDT