Coming back to FS2004 Tech Help

Hi guys,

I need some tech help here, I used to run FS2004 a few years back, due to time reasons stopped, but now I am rebuilding a new computer just for my FS2004, and buying parts I will like to get some advice on motherboard, video card etc to build a nice system powerful enough to run smoothly the sim. Thanks for the tips

colofly72

Hi colofly72,

Any mid-range system from the last 5 or 6 years will run FS2004 at max everything, no problem. Even though FS2004 only uses one core of your CPU, the rest of your system will use all the others, so look for a secondhand motherboard which will take a 4 or 6 core cpu and 8gb ram, 800mhz minimum, and a 1GB PCI Express x16 graphics card, and Win7 x64bit - avoid Win8 and Win10!

For whatever reasons, FS9 (same as saying FS2004, but shorter. I'm lazy :) ) seems to run best on IBM CPU's and NVidea GPU's. I was running it for years, and very well too, on a Dell 1750 laptop, 2 core CPU, 4GB RAM, NVidea GPU (no I don't recall just which card it was), so as you can see, the system doesn't have to be a top end super-system.

Like Tiger said, a decent, midrange system, with a 4 or more core CPU and a decent (not super-duper) GPU will handle FS9 very nicely.

Hope that answers your question. I didn't get into specifics, as there are SO many possibilities available these days...

Pat☺

For whatever reasons, FS9 (same as saying FS2004, but shorter. I'm lazy :) ) seems to run best on IBM CPU's and NVidea GPU's.

IBM CPUs ...... Now THERE's something I haven't heard in a great while. Ahhh, sweet memories.

Well, y'know, IBM vs AMD CPU.

I am an old DOS guy. HATE Windows with a passion. To me, there's two CPU's out: IBM and AMD.

To me, CPU's fall into one of those two categories. Hell, I still call them directories, not folders. What can I say? Old habits die hard :)

Pat☺

The Intel/Nvidia combination has always worked for me.

As ever, CPU speed (3GHz+) and the best graphics card you can afford will deliver the best result. Tweak the Nvidia with Inspector, and install SweetFX to suit your visual tastes.

I use an Intel 4794K CPU and an NVidia GTX970 (GTX960 would be good too). Normally FS9 uses the CPU for most of the graphics rendering. With Win7-64 published benchmarks show better performance. The report author checked his resources and it was found Win7 trapped a lot of the complex algorithms and (if available) used the GPU board more efficient GPU for rendering steering it way from the less efficient motherboard CPU.

Now I needed the higher profile for digital photography so it may be overkill. However for testing I also have Steam FSX installed and sitting a busy airport with lots of AI, vehicles, and birds, the FSX frame rates did very well.

FS is very dependent on CPU clock speed so a 4 GH z CPU with auto overclocking would allow you to advance to more resource dependent applications (like FSX, P3D) if you desire and run FS9 at its best.

Remember that there will be other hungry apps running as well some of which to serve your flight (weather?) and if you want to stay on-line during your flight your anti-virus and firewall should be running as well.

.... Hell, I still call them directories, not folders. ...

Lol, I can well relate. Even though DVDs are now on the decline, I still speak of "taping" something. And am prone to say "condensor" instead of "capacitor".

"File Manager" was fine, "explorer" gets confused with IE.

Having a stack of boot floppies on the desk, each one optimized for a particular game.

32meg RAM was impressive, as was a 33k modem (unless you were affluent enough for a home DSL line); and going online entailed listening to the modem chattering for thirty seconds.

With Win7-64 published benchmarks show better performance. The report author checked his resources and it was found Win7 trapped a lot of the complex algorithms and (if available) used the GPU board more efficient GPU for rendering steering it way from the less efficient motherboard CPU.

Is there anything to back up this assertion? I've read it here several times.

Cheers!

Luke

Flight Simulator is a CPU orientated game. So you want a fast CPU, but since FS9 is a single threaded game you want a good CPU for single threaded Apps. I would get the i5 6600 with 3000+ RAM and overclock that to 4.8 GHz. Overclockers.com can help you there. Although, overclocking is not necessary. But believe me. If you have a whole bunch of addons like I do you may need it. New York is a killer for me and if I add Mega Scenery I would not be able to fly to NY at all.

Use pcpartpicker and Extreme PSU calculator to get an idea on needed PSU wattage. http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

Don't buy a cheap PSU! Go with Antec, Coolermaster or Thermaltake. The PSU is a very critical component of a PC and if it goes out so will your whole PC including hard drive/s.

Gigabyte or Asus makes a good motherboard. Read reviews at Newegg.com and Amazon.com

Get the best IPC CPU you can afford. FS2004 is a CPU pig. It could frankly care less you have a brand new SSD, 10,000 RPM HDD, GTX 1080 SLI Rig, 128 GB of DDR4 or a motherboard with 1000 digital power phases.

If your building an FS2004 ONLY rig you can get away with everything but the CPU. Same thing with FSX (more cores will help here though)

Right now I`d pick up anything Skylake in the mainstream market, Broadwell-E in HEDT market to remain current for the longest.

If you can snag a haswell no biggy as the max you`ll take a hit on is 10-15% CPU performance on the higher end.

If you go mainstream, use the iGPU as it will push fs9 to a solid 25FPS with everything maxed out into major airports with even the worst coded aircrafts.

If you intend to play modern titles at good quality, then up to an i5 and mid tier 970 or 980 would be reccc.