SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

[Richy2237]

I would like to upgrade my computer to help out my framerates a bit.

I presently have 640MB pc2700 ram
40 gig HD ...1/2 full

Would it be better to upgrade the ram to 1 gig or install a new 160mb wd 7200 hd for fs2004 only.

Or is my system to weak and I should just wait to upgrade the whole system.

Balance of system
celeron 2.4 400fsb
128 mb PCI saphire radeon 9200se (PCI) no agp on mobo

Thanks..

[Max]

An insrese in ram would give you much faster loading of high resolution textures, like Opensky's or iFDG. But a better G card would probbably give you a little more fram rates. I can tell you that with a Radeon 9250 (128 MB ram) and a gig of physical memory you can get up to 60 frames with the default traffic. If you have some addons, like a ton of them you will, like me have about 25-30 constantly.

[Exxman]

Actually, the increase in ram won't affect FS too much. For any of you who are running 1GB of ram or more, try taking out a stick and check it out. Hardly any diff at all. FS is CPU dependent more than anything else. The graphics aren't prioritized to go into main ram either, but to gfx card ram.

I would suggest a bigger HDD as 40GB nowadays gets filled up fast. My addons alone take up about 10GB. And I'm sure there will be more to come...

Exx

[Rana.V2]

Hi Richy2237,

I personally think some RAM would be nice... reason being: I have quite an optimized system with very little services running (only the very essential ones) and 512MB RAM.. after running windows for a while, I normally have 260MB available (mind it: I have Windows core set to memory).. normally I go for a free memory of 60% when playing FS, but thats around 316MB. I believe that can help boosting up a bit, and am hoping to get 512 more within the next couple of weeks.

Once 1GB is reached, then I would agree with ExxMan - at that point, extra RAM may not make much difference.

Faster Harddrive would speedup loading FS (I recently upgraded to a ATA-6 with 8MB Cache drive, and FS loads up a lot quicker).. but looking at the rest of your configuration, I would rather suggest perhaps a new motherboard with AGP support. But if you are only looking for either RAM or HD, I would suggest RAM provided you have enough disk space left.

[Exxman]

Yeah, its a tough question.

Either ram or HDD. Some help we are huh? LOL

Honestly...save up your $$ and get the best value for the buck....go for a new mobo/cpu if you can. For the amount of ram, or a HDD you might be able to get a 'packaged' deal for a little bit more including all of the above. Worth checking it out at least if you haven't done so already.

Hope we haven't confused you... :)

Exxman

[Corrie]

Both RAM and HD won't really affect your performance at all...

You already have enough RAM, and the only thing that will really make a big improvement is if you take it right out and put in faster RAM. But considering you're running a celeron I really doubt your mobo can handle pc3200 ram or anything substantially faster.

The HD will be convenient, and if you want the space go for it, but it won't affect performance at all.

That celeron really needs to go though. Those things are just plain terrible. They get the job done in windows but for games, especially games with lots of calculations like FS, they really don't cut it.

[Flowdrip]

If you want to see a REAL difference, get a mobo that has the new PCI Express slots. If you are on a budget, get rid of that Celeron CPU. They are just awful for gaming or sims. I had a Celeron in my first computer, and having only a PCI slot for my graphics card, FS2000 stuttered along. I then got a computer with an Athlon XP 2200+ and a AGP card with 128 Mb, and there is no comparison between the 2 computers. Celeron averaged 10-12 fps with FS2000 and the Athlon on FS9 (which is a lot harder on your cpu) I average 25-30 with most sliders maxxed out.