Microsoft Flight Sim X... very demanding! :)
AMD 64 Dual Core 4200
Asus A8V Deluxe Motherboard
500 W Ultra Power Supply
2 Gig of PC 2700 Memory Ram
GeForce 6800 GT 256 Meg
2 7200 Sata Hard Drives
Sound Blaster X-Fi
52 X Asus CD/RW
16 X MSI DVD
UPDATE! 06/04/09 - Being that Microsoft has since closed the Flight Simulation Departement that was responsible for making this simulation... it is more than likely that we will not see any future releases of this product. Sad it is to see such a great title come to an end... just when it was starting to really become very nice. I must admit that this version is very beautiful and runs well on most modern day computers since it's release... so most of the people whom are just finding out about it can enjoy it to the fullest. Those of us who have been playing it since it came out now can appriciate all that it has to offer as well. I see that there is still alot of great sites out there that are producing both add on scenery as well as aircraft for this sim. Hopefully one day Microsoft will return to this awesome title and continue to produce it again... simply because there is nothing more relaxing than flying!
I, like most, was very anxious for this version to come out. Why wouldn't one be with all of the hype they did on it. Then when I did get it, like most, was very dissapointed in the biggest issue in the game, FRAME RATES! Lets first look at the game over all and then get into detail. The demo ran just fine on my system but then when you think about it... that was just one small region. That is one of the reasons I feel so many people were mislead with the final product. Let's face it... the world is a big place and there is alot of ground to cover. I live in the Pacific Northwest so I will use that as my example. With the above system I can, if I choose, turn on the graphics all the way up. If I do however... I can expect to get anywhere from 5 to 12 FPS in dense populated areas. This becomes highly noticable and disruptive to the gameplay. If I turn the graphic settings on lower, like low to midrange, I can recieve about 10 to 16 FPS in very dense areas. It would seem that the 3 major things that reduce your FPS are the Density of your World, the water level, and then traffic on the roads or water. I also know from past experience with MSFS products that air traffic and weather really do effect your FPS as well. In outlaying areas, like mountain ranges, I can recieve up to 20 to 26 FPS on full graphics, So there is to be a sacrifice on the users part to how they wish to run the game. I can understand this say if you were running a system that was over 2 to 3 years old, but not on a system that is less than 6 months old or younger. My technician friend has a very high end system, with a Dual Core Processor higher than ming and the new GeForce 7900 PCI-X card. He too cannot even run this version at the highest end without suffering in dense population areas. His frame rate is slightly higher than mine but only by a couple FPS. That is just sad really being he gets the latest and greatest usually before others do and he is even having problems running it.
The graphics are great in the game I must admit, when you turn them all of the way up. The eye candy just pops out at you. The freeways and roads are just bustling with cars everywhere. The water traffic is very nice too. I usually go and see the main sites first to see how they made improvements on them from the last version. Niagra Falls was quite the dissapointment in this version being that it lookes like a fake BMP with water bursting out of the seams in spots. Stonehenge looks more realistic though and the plains around it are like they are in real life. I have yet to see Mount Rushmore and some of the others but from some of the lesser ones most people would not go to see... they did make subtle improvements. The buildings, when you turn up the graphics, are one of the more noticable improvements in the game as they are not just repeated over and over again in most areas. That gives a more realistic approach to the game. The water is by far where they spent their time improving in the simulator. I must admit it does look nice, even though it still has several flaws to it. When you turn up the graphics on the water on high you get nice reflections of the houses on the banks as well as the trees and everything else on the coastline. The problem is that all water does not flow in one direction and it does that in the simulator. It has the appearance of always moving in the same direction even though the wave appearance is flowing in the opposite or cross direction. I personally was dissapointed in the visual experience here. I did however land a float plane in Crater Lake and was very impressed with both the water effects comming off of the pontoons and the reflectivity of the plane with effects in the lake. The movement of the plane by the water was also nicely done.
As far as the sound goes... it was done very nicely. I usually fly the Ultralight for viewing perposes and the sound of the wind as it whistles by you was a very nice effect. The engines on most of the planes have a very nice sound as well that is slowly becomming more realistic as the sim progresses. I think the best effect I heard in the sim was as I approached Niagra Falls. I could hear the falls as I approached them crashing into the rocks below. Very nicely done. The special effects of the tires and wing flex were a nice addition to the sim as well. Seeing the tires smoke apon touching down and hearing the squeal of the tires was very nice. Even though to have this effect you have to turn up the grahics but if you are willing to sacrifice FPS for some special effects... it can be worth it. The choice of more planes was also a nice addition to the sim. I purchased the Proffesional Edition and it has a lot of planes and variations of colors which is nice to see for a change. Not just stuck with the same old one or two colors for your plane... but 4 or 5 to choose from makes each flight a new experience.
One of the things I loved about MSFS was that they usually had preloaded missions that would take you by the new facelifts of the more important areas,( Mount Rushmore, Niagra Falls, ect).) Those are no longer and now you have to search for them or know where to find them if you want to see them. I found that very dissapointing as I love to see the vast improvements in the game. They instead chose to put Missions for challenges in which seem like fun... but they could have included both I feel.
In conclusion, being that this game is all about presentation, one would ask why Microsoft would produce such a game like this knowing that the modern day computers would not be able to run it very well if not at all. Supposively this version is to take advantage of the Duel Core processors, but I believe that will only be after Vista comes out from what I have heard. Also... I have heard rumor that it is supposed to utilize Direct X 10, that of which none of the modern day cards are going to be albe to support from what I also have heard. No matter what the case is... the bottom line is that unless you have a very high end computer.... you are going to probably have a less than what you expected experience from this version of the sim. This might be one of those games that most users will be able to play on full graphics in the future... but not at the present time for the average user. My recommendation is wait to purchase it after all the hype and for technology to advance. Then you will be able to enjoy it as it was meant to be played.