I have a question about what kind of
computer components would be the best
for using flight simulators like G2 etc.
I will be purchasing a new pc soon most
likely from Dell and you can have it
customized the why you want for a little
extra cash,items like a Gforce3 video card
with tv out, 512 ram or even one Gig,also you can get different size hard drives. Can some out there help me out
on what would be a super system to operate some of the many flight simulators on the market today in the
$1200.00 RANGE OR BELOW.
THANKS AIR HAWK
BERWICK,MAINE

Airhawk,
I've been messing w/ computers for a while now,, sell a few systems now and then out of my house,,,,, If you want the best prices, (and have just a little bit of computer savvy), go to
www.pricewatch.com , there you can pick out whatever you want, and I'll pretty much garuntee the price will beat anyones.

As for system requirements, I'd go with the GeForce4 64 Mg Video without the TV,,,, (have 3 buddies who bought different versions of a TV card,, all had serious problems whenever the card was in there 'puter,,,,,
At least 256Mg RAM,, (I run a GeForce2 32 Mg Video with 640 Mg RAM),
A nice sound card is great with a surround system if your into that, I'm not,, (only ahve the on-board sound)
A 40 Gig HD will do ya, although with the prices now, an 80 Gig is a better buy, (just be sure to partion it into at least 2 drives, preferably more, so that you can back up a complete OS in case of a failure)
OS---G2 will now work with any,,, it had problems in the begining w/ XP, and reg 98,,, but I heard all those glitches are fixed, I run 98SE,, and works fine,

Hope I helped,,,,,

john
aka "Murphy"

Thanks for your in put John. It is the type of info I am looking for. Looks like I will
go with an 80 gig hard drive at least and
the Gforce4 card sounds great also but
is there much difference between this card and the Gforce3 card? It sure would be nice if they could design these flight
simulators so you could just hook them
up to your big screen tv or any tv just
like the play station 2 etc. This sure would make things a lot more user friendly but I bet some one is already working on it some where. I bet it would be great on a nice HDTV big screen. Just
hook up to the tv and connect your favorite transmitter,than go flying on a simulator with out all the pc problems.
THANKS A LOT
air hawk


real name-Walt

I just recently purchased a dell. I have a 2.6 P4, 1 gig ddr ram, Ati Radeon 128 video, Soundblaster Live Xgamer 5.1 sound card, a 20 gig hard drive (I have no need for a large drive), a Plextor 48x24x48 CD-RW. I run win xp and never had a problem. Allot of people were having a problem with the compatability of the ati cards with g2. I have never had a prob. Just when you order it. order it with the least expensive equipment that you can get. I bought my soundcard for 45 bucks off a web site, and the 138 meg video card for 125 bucks. Total I spent just under 900 bucks! Plus you gotta love how Dell cases open.....

Greetings,

after you check out pricewatch.com.
Go to http://www.resellerratings.com
and make sure the vendor(s) is/are reliable.

Dell makes good stuff, I have one of their Inspiron 8200 laptops with a 64M ATI 9000 video card and I can run G2 at 1600x1200 with everything tuned on to maximum with no slow downs. However, I would never buy a desktop from them since it is so much cheaper to build one yourself. I know this scares some people but it really is a piece of cake. You should be able to build a very powerful system for about $600 -$700 minus the monitor. I would personally go with a P4 2.4G and the ATI Radeon 9000 pro 128meg card as the core components. Both are priced in the "Sweet Spot" right now.

Good luck

Mike

Just want to thank everyone for all your
great information that you have posted
and I will most likely go with a P4 2.4
dell computer with an 80 gig hard drive,
and 512 mb ram. As far as a video card
you have given me a lot of choices witch
I do not know a whole lot about them but I would really like one that has the
capability of transfering the game image
to a big screen tv. Some of the info on
one of the replys says that they have had problems with tv out cards so maybe
someone who knows a little about this could comment on this for me or maybe another way to transmit the game image
to a big screen tv would be helpfull.
Thanks, air hawk

I have been building computers for over 10 years.... Here is what I would recommend:

Pentium 4 (minimum 2.0 Ghz)
512 MB Ram (DDR memory perferred)
GeForce 4 Video card (440MX minimum, Ti4200, Ti4400 or Ti 4600 recommended)
40 GB hard Drive (7200 RPM)
17" monitor (minimum, 19" recommended)

I am running this basic machine (2.4 Ghz and GeForce4/440MX) and with AeroFly Pro I am getting frame rates over 120 FPS at 1152x864 resolution... The standard minimum frame rate for "smooth" graphics is 30 FPS...

Hope this helps...

Falcon Capt