Hey all,

I almost hate to post this, this forum is filled with "What's the best RC Flight Sim". That is, however, not what I'm asking and unfortunately, I wasn't able to find an answer in searching so please bare with me!

I have a pretty high end machine capable of *****g out graphics on just about anything. For the techies here are the specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 965BE OC'ed@ 4GHz
4GB RAM DDR3-1600 (Btw I often get commented that I "don't have enough". This is more than enough for any R/C Flight sim and it has never been not enough for anything I've ever done. The more RAM you have, the more the PC has to sift through and allocate. Therefore, have only what you need, the moe you have the more slowed down you'll get. A claim supported by countless benchmarks! This is one of those performance things that have surrounded urban legend to no end because of prebuilt PC manufacturers wanting all of the numbers to be as high as possible, so they cram more RAM in even though it slows the PC down! aka Marketing vs Performance, Marketing wins, it has to sell, it doesn't have to be the best. /endrant)
ATi Radeon HD5870 1GB OC'ed to 900/1200
Windows 7 Home Premium

So, that said, a definite perk would be something that is aethetically pleasing when cranked up. Additionally, I actually prefer rendered fields to the "photoreal fields". I never did like those, 3D on top of 2D looks worse than 3D on top of poor 3D, in my opinion. This is not, however, a dealbreaker by any means. The reason I do mention it though is because a lot of people will say something along the lines of "Such and Such is OK but it's a resource hog" etc. Or not reccomend it because it performs poorly on older prebuilt machines, that won't be the case here so please keep that in mind!

However, the primary concerns are a realistic physics, as I want to use it to hone my skills over the winter. I would also like it if it had models that I can actually buy. I am planning on getting a new model over the winter and as I am still a newbie, it would be nice to practice on it on the Sim before taking it out on the field. Secondly, the ability to use my own transmitter, that's fairly universal I think, but it is an older Futaba (round), and another BIG perk would be the ability to buddy box it. RealFlight is the only one I KNOW of that does this because of the InterLink Elite. But my girlfriend wants to learn to fly and it would be nice to take a trainer up in the sim in a buddy box mode, it would be more enjoyable for both of us than just handing her the sticks and resetting over and over again. However, not a deal breaker, but a definite plus.

I could care less about online play / combat modes / 12.7 million planes to choose from, etc. etc. I want physics, realistic planes (not a whole host of planes I will never own in my lifetime, I want to be able to fly things like the Escapade, Great Planes Cherokee, Pheonix Tucano, etc. Stuff that's in my price range, I would get more use out of that. Now, a 33% Edge would be fun too! But a lot of these sims I see have a bunch of odd planes, huge jets, etc. That's fun, but it's not practical for me.

I appreciate everyones input. I understand this is asked a lot, and I may be wrong in assuming that my situation is unique enough to ask again but if this has been answered before in a similar setting please point me in the direction! I also ask that your answers be as objective as possible. I'd like to know WHY a particular product is reccomended over another.

Thanks in advance!

-John