Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Deluxe Edition) (PC Games, 2006)

This Simulator is excellent, each release keeps getting better and better!!! Unfortunately the minimum requirements are kind of deceiving although however they are correct, they are the minimum requirements to run the game, but not enjoy it... It only makes sense that to run a great robust game like this, your obviously going to need the hardware requirements behind it. This game was released in late 2006 and was designed for the Windows Vista system, although it works on Windows XP also. So guys if your installing this game on a Celeron PC, with 500mb of ram and an onboard graphics card (a graphics card built into the motherboard that ships with the computer) sorry but your not going to get the best experience with this game, infact FS 2004 would probably better suit you. Remember games that are just being released and have been released since mid to late '06 are going to be designed to be used on today's systems, they are no longer developing games based on a pentium 3 systems requirements or even pentium 4 anymore for that matter. Folks do you remember how long ago Intel released these chips? There is a reason the product line is shipping out dual core processors today.

I have a new AMD Athlon Live dual core processor with each core running at 2.6GHZ, 2GB of DDR2 Ram, 2000GHZ bus speed, 256MB GeForce 8600GT graphics card (bought separately) and a 365GB sata hard drive, with Windows Vista Home Premium

I can run the game with everything set at ultra high settings running at 31fps, I didn't go get some huge $4000 gaming beast but just got a regular "Today" computer. I personally prefer and would recommend AMD over Intel chips because AMD offers higher bus speeds (the speed at which data is transferred over the board), where as intel will offer a high powered GHZ processor but much slower speeds. AMD has been known to be the gamers chip.

Also purchasing a new stick of ram isn't just going to do it for you, there are two types of ram video ram (built into the graphics card) and regular system ram, which snaps into the mother board the difference between the two is that the processor runs two work loads, it runs the work load of the game, and also has to run the work load of running and maintaining the system, obviously the ram on the graphics card is specifically going to be just for that "Graphics" it decreases the load of the processor and stores processed data so that the processor doesn't have to reprocess data after data. Thats the reason for the choppiness of the game. System ram stores all data that is processed by the processor and Windows vista takes up usually 500mb of your system ram automatically. Although Windows Vista is preferred for gaming over XP, it reduces the gaming workload on the processor and Ram, it also holds its main focus on active system process', so it kind of temporarily shuts down background programs and applications that are not currently being used.

Another great way to increase performance on Flight Simulator X is to download the the current service pack 1, it has an increased performance fix, some graphic changes, and some changes of misplaced scenery, it can be downloaded here.

www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/FlightSimulatorXServicePack1.aspx

Please don't give bad ratings on the game because its not compatible with your system, it really is an excellent simulation and a great teaching tool for those who may want to or are actively working on a pilots license.