New and have a few questions

Many moons ago I bought FS Gold with Acceleration pack. My computer could barely run it and I gave up. Now I need a hobby as retirement will be in a few short years. Anyway, the Gold box set was tossed in the trash. I see it's become harder to find so I ordered the Deluxe version of FSX. I'm not worried about the extra planes in the Accelerator pack. I planned on installing the SP1 and 2 manually. Is there any reason to search for the Gold box set? My Deluxe version is not here yet.

This is going on a new Retina iMac. It has a i7 4GHz so that should suffice. I have 16gb of ram but that is not too important and it has a ATI Radeon 4GB. That may be an issue but this particular card has not had a lot of testing. So we shall see. I did get the 512 SSD. So I remember that it was best to load FSX somewhere other than the "C" drive. This won't be possible for me as after the SSD comes USB 3.0 externals. So what was the reason for not loading in it's default location? I have installed Win 7 64 bit by bootcamp onto a modest 120gb partition as the Windows install is mainly for FSX only and I don't think I will be diving into too many extras until I learn how to fly. It'll be a squeeze but it will help keep my wallet in my back pocket at the same time.

Scenery, mesh, landclass oh my! I'm stumped here. I think weather is easy as I will get Rex4. AI I will use WOAI. But I am a bit confused on the rest. I was looking at FTX Global as well as the Vector addition. I think these two will give me decent detail and batter water, roads, etc. My question is do I also need a mesh package? I want to keep the add on's to a minimum and hopefully everything plays nice together. I did not know if FBX/Vector installed better mesh or not. These two would replace GEX and UTX packages?

I have a few tweak guides but I want to stay out of the config file except the highmem change. At least until I see how this system performs anyway. Does this seem like a decent start up plan?

Things like Aircraft Carrier takeoffs (Catshots) are only available with the Acceleration package. Traps are possible using FSX Standard or deluxe with the SPs installed. Some aircraft, to function fully, will require Acceleration.

The reason for installing FSX away from the default install location is to make it easier to edit files in the Sim. There are ways around UAC (Program Files protection) if loaded in the default location.

I use WOAI also. It works just fine. Sorry, since my computer is old and underpowered, I don't use payware Scenery or Meshes. Others can comment on those.

Welcome back!

To answer some of your questions (to the best of my ability):

You want to Install FSX in its own Folder, outside of Program Files (the Default Location). Set the Folder up to 'Run as Administrator'.

Make sure you have the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) software from ATI for your Video Card. You can get it from the ATI website, along with the latest Drivers.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

(Check your Video Card for Driver Compatibility also).

Personally, before you think of getting any Add-ons I would suggest you start with a 'vanilla' Install of FSX, and use one of the Guides to tweak the Hardware.

If the Install is running smoothly and to your satisfaction, then slowly start with the Add-ons, one at a time. Observe what impact (if any) it has on the Sim, and tweak accordingly.

Good Luck!

:pilot: