Grob Tutor (G115E) Simulator Build - RAF Air Cadets

Hi everyone, i was pointed in the direction of this site by another simmer (is that a word?) to get some opinions and guidance...

I'm an instructor at 84 Squadron RAF Air Cadets where we're looking to build a Grob Tutor (G115E) simulator.

We're building an entire Grob cockpit using a real Piper PA-28 Cherokee cockpit as our foundation and it would be great to get some input on a few things please.

Firstly, here is a list of the hardware i think i need (we're going with FSX)...

• Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Steam Edition)
  
• Grob Tutor AEF add-in
  

Computer (one of the following 3 CPU options - FSX needs CPU power apparently)

• i5 overclocked @ 4.5GHz, Asus Z270 Mobo, 16GB DDR4
  
• i5 overclocked @ 4.6GHz, Asus Z170-P mobo, 8GB DDR4
  
• i7 overclocked @ 4.6GHz, Asus Maximus VIII Hero mobo, 8GB DDR4
  
• P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black
  
• EVGA SuperNova T2 850W 80 Plus Titanium Modular Power Supply
  
• Graphics Card - GeForce GTX 980 "Triple Fan" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
  
• Second Graphics card for dashboard screens??
  
• 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)
  
• Soundcard - currently thinking of using on-board sound
  
• Creative Inspire A550 5.1 Speaker System - (51MF4120AA004)
  
• windows 10
  

Other Equipment

• 3 x AOC Q2577PWQ 25" 2560x1440 IPS Professional Widescreen LED Monitor - Silver/Black
  
• Triple monitor stand
  
• Matrox Graphics eXpansion Module TripleHead2Go Digital Edition
  
• Monitors for dashboard (utilising the 2 from the existing flight sim)
  
• Powered USB Hub
  
• Wireless Keyboard - Wireless Compact Backlit HTPC TV Tablet Keyboard with Touch pad
  
• Joystick
  
• Rudder Pedals (CH Pro Pedals 300 USB Simulator)
  
• Rudder Pedals (Logitech G Pro Flight Rudder Pedals - PC (PZ35))
  
• Saitek Logitech G Pro Flight Radio Panel - PC
  
• Switches, circuit breakers & fuses (new and salvaged from the Cherokee)
  
• Saitek Logitech G Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant
  
• BBI-32 Button Box Interface - With Connectors
  
• USB Switch controller
  
• FSUIPC & WIDEFS7
  
• Headset (2 for slight sim and one for ATC) (HyperX CloudX Pro Gaming Headset PC)
  

or maybe instead of all that computer stuff, just a bundle like this... https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-tech-labs-skylake-kabylake-pro-gaming-pc-configurator-fs-019-tl.html#t=c1d7e,f6k,

then, we were thinking of doing a curved screen and projectors rather than monitors (like this

we wanted to use 2 screens for the dashboard for the gauges (the switches will be mechanical via the BBI-32) - would we need a additional gfx card for this?

apologies for the long post!

Many thanks,

Dan

To answer your question about dual monitors. No, you don't need more than one GPU to power two monitors. The video card will have two video connectors. Typically at least one HDMI and two DVI connectors. I noticed that the newer cards have at least 4 HDMI connectors and one DVI connectors. So you could use four monitors, actually 5 with the DVI.

Yes, FS is supper CPU hungry and to make matters worse it's mostly single threaded. So it can't benefit from multiple cores. So you'd want the fastest single threaded CPU available and within your budget. Though an i7 6700k will do nicely. I have an i5 6600k and it maintains my frame limit I imposed of 25. Don't really need 30. I believe Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D takes advantage of multiple cores. And since this is a student learning thing you are doing you could qualify for the student license or maybe even the professional version. They just released version 4.