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Need help Building a Killer Computer

G

giantpinkbunnyhead

Diamond Member
Hey guys,

My airline wants to assemble a computer/monitor setup to run MS Flight Simulator. They plan to place it in our training center. They feel I know enough about computers to cherry pick all the best components to make this a reality, but in MY reality I only know enough to make a small range of gaming computers.

This is where you guys come in. Keeping in mind the sole purpose is to use MS Flight Sim, along with updates/downloads/upgrades and real-time ATC information, what components would you call upon to make a powerful system? A multi-screen setup would also be desired... I saw an article where a product was featured which allowed 3 monitors to be attached to one GPU; this would be useful too but I can't find this item anymore. The system would need to run Flight Sim flawlessly, with full details, full weather, full traffic, etc.. without bogging down.

Right off the bat, I'm thinking dual-core processor (don't know which one...) and a 7800 GTX 512 GPU. I'm not sure how much/what kind of RAM would be best. Also not sure on mobo, PSU, etc. Any suggestions?
 
i would recomend 2 gigs of ram and a 7900 gtx what resoultion you wanna run this game at ?

your going to want to get a nice flat panel monitor also
 
Just for my personal info what is your airline? Because if they are using MS lfight simulator for training I really need to avoid them 🙂
 
Originally posted by: wvtalbot
Just for my personal info what is your airline? Because if they are using MS lfight simulator for training I really need to avoid them 🙂
Click to expand...

LOL, it's a cargo airline, so no need to worry! Flight Sim is actually very valuable for basics training such as holding patterns, instrument approaches, and equipment malfunctions. As for the flight sim, I am told it is Microsoft's Flight SImulator software, whatever their best/latest is. It would be nice to have some big LCD screens side-by-side to help recreate the panoramic effect. 3 screens would be nice, if someone knows the name of that connector that makes it possible. I would suspect the resolution would be 1280x1024 per screen if 19" LCD's are used. I have not kept up with the computer parts market in the past 6 months or so, hence my necessity for advice.
 
Many years ago, I learned IFR navigation with MS Flight Simulator. I have no doubt I could have navigated a real plane just as easily.

Historically, flight simulators are very CPU intensive. They don't need a fast graphics card, but they do need a fast CPU.
 
hmm...if it's cpu intensive and it's for an airline, i doubt they'll overclock. might as well get the 4400x2 - 4800x2. or if you can, wait for the conroe to come out. it seems promising

ram should be 2gb. i'm sure the regular value ram will be fine so get g.skill or corsair value ram

a nice, stable board should be purchased. maybe the asus a8n32 premium or whatever

video card: 7900GT in SLI

i'm sure that would be a good start
 
Are you serious? If so, it ist your money so:

FX-60 (or X2/ Opty dual core)
Any solid motherboard ASUS is pretty damn reliable, and I dont think they will be overclocking, so an ASUS SLI ready mobo.
7900GTX, or X1900XT (most likely not worth the premium to get the XTX), 2 if you want multi moniter at high-res with eye candy.
2 gigs of quality RAM (OCZ, Mushkin, Corsair all spring to mind)
Monitors I dont know enough about.

yeah, that ought to do it. and when you are finished, feel free to send it this way.....
 
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 Multiple Monitor Support

"Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 includes improved support for display on multiple-monitors. Here's what's new and different about this feature:

* Flight Simulator 2004 now supports simultaneous hardware acceleration on multiple displays if you have more than one hardware accelerator, either a single video adapter that supports multiple monitors in hardware-accelerated mode or multiple video adapters. Previous versions of Flight Simulator supported only one hardware-accelerated display.

* Flight Simulator 2004 supports up to four hardware-accelerated displays or windows simultaneously. For example, you could have two 3D accelerated adapters, each of which supports two displays.

* Each video card in a multiple-accelerator configuration must meet the basic 3D requirements for Flight Simulator (8 Mb of video memory, full 3D hardware acceleration, and DirectX 9 compatible drivers).

* For best results, in the Settings Display dialog box in Flight Simulator, the setting for full screen resolution for each video adapter should match the desktop resolution for the corresponding display.

* Note that, as in previous versions of Flight Simulator, some windows (e.g., avionics, the kneeboard window, and the GPS) are not rendered in 3D. Using multiple accelerator cards does not improve performance when these windows are displayed. However, the main instrument panel, virtual cockpit, all exterior views, and the ATC window are rendered in 3D, and when displaying these windows or views on secondary displays, performance will be much better than when using a similar configuration in previous versions of Flight Simulator. The improved multiple-monitor support in Flight Simulator 2004 directly uses the secondary 3D device rather than copying the display of the primary device to the second display.

* Note that running multiple displays always affects performance compared to a single-display configuration, because additional information is being created by the simulation and sent to the video hardware and monitors."
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 Multiple Monitor Support

"Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 includes improved support for display on multiple-monitors. Here's what's new and different about this feature:

* Flight Simulator 2004 now supports simultaneous hardware acceleration on multiple displays if you have more than one hardware accelerator, either a single video adapter that supports multiple monitors in hardware-accelerated mode or multiple video adapters. Previous versions of Flight Simulator supported only one hardware-accelerated display.

* Flight Simulator 2004 supports up to four hardware-accelerated displays or windows simultaneously. For example, you could have two 3D accelerated adapters, each of which supports two displays.

* Each video card in a multiple-accelerator configuration must meet the basic 3D requirements for Flight Simulator (8 Mb of video memory, full 3D hardware acceleration, and DirectX 9 compatible drivers).

* For best results, in the Settings Display dialog box in Flight Simulator, the setting for full screen resolution for each video adapter should match the desktop resolution for the corresponding display.

* Note that, as in previous versions of Flight Simulator, some windows (e.g., avionics, the kneeboard window, and the GPS) are not rendered in 3D. Using multiple accelerator cards does not improve performance when these windows are displayed. However, the main instrument panel, virtual cockpit, all exterior views, and the ATC window are rendered in 3D, and when displaying these windows or views on secondary displays, performance will be much better than when using a similar configuration in previous versions of Flight Simulator. The improved multiple-monitor support in Flight Simulator 2004 directly uses the secondary 3D device rather than copying the display of the primary device to the second display.

* Note that running multiple displays always affects performance compared to a single-display configuration, because additional information is being created by the simulation and sent to the video hardware and monitors."
Click to expand...


Minimum requirements seen pretty low on the video card end. one key thing to think about is whether the version of MS Flight Simulator you'll be running is multithreaded or not. Of course if money isn't an issue then go all out, but I don't think MS flight Sim currently takes advantage of dual cores. SLI 7900GTXs is probably overkill as well although the multi-display support may need some type of dual GPU configuration in order to work.

Just my 0.02
 
If he puts a pair of 7900GT's on his board, what kind of power supply is he looking at? 520W or 600W?

MS Flight Simulator X (due out at Christmas 2006) is expected to be optimized for Windows Vista--might look at that for an OS.

DVD drive probably goes without saying--FSX will ship only on DVD.

Fast hard drive--SCSI if you can swing it, maybe Raptor. I don't have enough experience to know if RAIDing your drives will help you out that much. Maybe one of these guys can tell you. Certainly a different drive for your swap file than your data files will speed up throughput. Install them on different controlers.

Good luck with that killer rig!

Best regards,
Alan
 
Guys, thanks for the help! This is very useful. It's kinda nice to throw together something like this with someone else's money. I don't know how fast the company wants to move on this (it's mainly going to be something "for fun" while pilots are hanging out at the training center). But I did hear them talking about Flight Sim X so I am sure they will be using it when it's available. When will Vista be ready to go?
 
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