newbie

Hi . I was an avid microsoft flightsim player in the early 2001 etc . now retired and want to get back in to flight sim. so the big question is what do i need please ? currently just have a laptop but need to purchase a tower system and a monitor . In the past my old computer was good but if i turned off certain aspects of flightsim it would work faster but still got freezing at times and ground appearnces were bad.

 

so any help would be appreciated dont want to spend thousands but something that will do the job niceley !!

many thanks for reading

First, you need to decide which flight sim you are deciding on, then, as each have differing hardware requirements, we can possibly help.

In addition to which sim(s) you are considering, what is your budget? Up to $2,000? $3,000? Are you in the US, UK, Canada? This will help with the hardware recommendations.

You will also need fast, cheap broadband if you want MSFS 2020. They have a simple, reinstall system for every update which updates many gigabytes every patch!

Hi I had microsoft flightsim the last version i had was 2007 !! budget of around £1000. based in uk

The interim MS flightsims were good, not that I looked at them until recently when I tried a demo version of FSX but the latest, MSFS2020 is so far ahead of the competition that it's got to be the prime candidate. Downsides? It's still brand new so not yet perfect (but weren't they all?) and you need a decent setup to benefit, otherwise it'll be a real disappointment. Oh yes, a decent broadband speed is pretty essential too - above 25mbps otherwise you'll be sitting twiddling your thumbs every now and again.

 

It depends on your budget but in reality you'll need a decent gaming machine with a fast processor and good graphics card - with a minimum of 4GB VRAM - and at least 16GB of ordinary RAM, more is better. At least 1TB of SSD storage drive too - the newer NVMe drives are the way to go. MS do offer advice on what will work, but their "basic" suggestion is not really good enough and anything less simply will not run. In all honesty a laptop just wouldn't cope unless you spent a lot of cash on a very high-end machine - and you'd still need a good monitor.

 

Here in the UK I bought a decent machine, Acer Nitro 50-110, which was adequate out of the box for around £650. A decent monitor is a must but unless you've got oodles of spare cash something like a £200 gaming monitor is good - I bought a 27" curved for under £100 as that's the only one that would fit in the space available but larger is nicer.

 

Since starting to use the game I've upgraded the machine with 64GB of RAM (basically because I could) and a 1TB NVMe SSD card that's made a whole lot of difference to loading etc. The wife said that that's Christmas taken care of!

 

I'm currently finding my feet (I held a PPL until around 20 years ago) with the small GA stuff but I intend to gradually expand my "expertise" to bizjets then maybe airliners although I originally bought the sim to explore the world, which I'm currently doing by recreating several long road trips.

 

Hope my experiences help in your decisions, but remember this was to satisfy me, dedicated "simmers" want, and expect, a lot more.

Edited November 30, 2020 by terrylawdinn

I would suggest that you scroll though and read the different rigs that people are using for a sense of perspective. It seems that almost everyone is different so what you need is an open ended question. I see that many are posting specs in their signature lines. Generally faster is better and more faster is more better. There are those who claim that hardware has not yet developed to make full use of the sim at its highest setting in all respects. It will run on lower settings on relatively modest set ups. Depends on your laptop. There are gamer laptops that should run it in some fashion. Let your budget be you're guide. It's like most hobbies. I sailed and there is always bigger, faster, prettier to covet.

 

i7-10700K, NVIDIA 3070, 16K RAM, liquid cooled.