NZFF

Hoki asked: "Any suggestions for computer specs for this new sim would be appreciated.Budget 3.5k to 4.5k."

deeknow commented: Have made this post a sticky-one and may merge future threads into this as it's likely to be a popular topic in coming months.

Check out the official MS post showing specs for different CPU/GPU combos.

There have been a few posts touching on this recently at NZFF, e.g.

• Would a new PC 'spark joy'?
• Newbie question... is my laptop sufficient to run a FS
• CPU upgrade
• Motherboard and CPU Upgrade?

hoki1185 wrote:.Budget 3.5k to 4.5k.

In which currency, please??

Regards,

Aharon

Aharon wrote:

hoki1185 wrote:.Budget 3.5k to 4.5k.

In which currency, please??

Regards,

Aharon

NZ$

I can't help much here, the last time I was close to start-of-the-art was when I bought my first Pentium:)
Here's the MFS FAQ including the specs:

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/ ... -order-FAQ

You should be able to aim for their 'ideal' spec from the middle of your budget range, with Intel/Nvidia, but I don't know much about the Ryzen/Radeon options. I guess a good comparison site would let you run some figures, I use this one:

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/N ... 2576vs4048

You can compare CPUs and GPUs here, and you should get a good idea of how things compare.

I need to get something new, but once again I'm aiming for less that high-end, my budget is closer to $3000. However my requirements are a bit different, as I'll need plenty of HDD space, for example. At the moment I have almost run out of space on my various HDDs totaling 5TB, so I need to really think hard about this. (I may end up keeping my current system on the network, as a backup, and to continue using the current drives.) So I'm looking at an i7/RTX2070S system. This will push my budget a bit, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Of course, a lot of folk will tell you to wait a few months, as there are some new GPUs coming up. This doesn't really help me, as the initial GPU version releases are normally high-end, and therefore expensive. And if I wanted to wait for older models to get cheaper, I'd still be waiting a while.

Hey Hoki. You must have seen the official spec sheet from MS by now right with the three levels of recommended spec?
see: https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/ ... -Simulator

You will get a decent rig for $4k NZ near the top end of that sheet performance wise. It won't make enough of a difference if you go for AMD/Ryzen or Intel CPU wise, at least not enough to lose any sleep over a buying decision. I also don't think it's worth the extra $$$ for an RTX 2080 personally so get a 2070 and save the $$$ for more SSD storage (and a faster home internet plan ) or add-ons later in the year.

Not being on the beta program I cant say any of this for sure, just a gut feel

Dbcunnz,

Thanks for your answer on currency

Regards,

Aharon

Thanks for your input gentlemen.I am looking at 2 rigs.1) Intel i9-990 8 core 3.6ghz,RTX G force 2080 Super,Transcend 16gb DDR4 2666mhz,exar 1 TB SSD up to 2100mbs,1TB HDD cost $4300.2).Downgrade to Intel i7-970 3.6ghz and RTX G force 2070 for$3600.How important is one's internet speed going to be?I live in the country and get around 32 Mbs, well short of the 50mbs recommended by MSFS 2020 as their ideal high spec.Appreciate your comments,Ian.

I'm pretty sure that both your choices would give good performance, although I do think you'll see an improvement going to the top system. This is simply based on my comparison between what we've seen posted in public via the alpha screenshot forum, and the latest trailer, which is stated as real footage, but is visually bounds ahead of what the 'normal' user's screenshots have shown. By this I really mean sharpness/detail, although the actually scenery is the same. I'm sure this is the difference between a normal system and one where you can turn the settings way up!

I don't really recall seeing any real discussion about the affect bandwidth has on the performance, but I would think that at 150% of 'recommended' specs you shouldn't suffer too much!

I did a lot of research before making my new PC purchase, and realized that you don't need to spend megabucks to get a decent system to run MSFS.

I bought my PC from PB Tech in March 2022, part of their End of Financial Year sales. Got it for $1900 (I'd actually budgeted for $2,500). Runs MSFS 2020 smoothly in Ultra mode, at 40-50 FPS consistently (with no tweaking). Actually, if it was running at 30fps, I would be just as happy. I have not overclocked the CPU either. My Dell Monitor is set at 1440p, and the graphics are absolutely stunning.

The GGPC Legend specs are :
Intel Core i5-11400
16 GB RAM
500 GB SSD
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Home

Internet is Spark Fibre 100mbps.

Running AIG for traffic.
Have REX Weather Force, ORBX NZ Mesh, and most available NZ airports.

I have since added a 1TB HDD, just for all the other MSFS stuff I need (e.g. Volanta, Navigraph, Little NavMap, etc). But, MSFS still runs from the SSD.
Looking at the future, I will probably be upping the SSD to 1TB (still have about 130Gb available). Memory? nah, plenty still not being used. I don't see 32MB giving me anything extra. No paging going on.

I must also state that this PC is solely for MSFS. It doesn't run anything else.

Are you running any system taxing add on aircraft like the PMDG 737 or the Fenix 320? If so, how does it affect those frames, and more importantly, the smoothness?

Add-ons like AIG can put a huge performance hit on airports such as LAX, but you have to try and be sensible and tone down the settings on traffic (framerates can drop to 20-25fps at LAX). Although nice to see it in action, dealing with a busy airports with 50-100 flights all moving about (on the ground and in the sky) is a bit of a nightmare if all you want to do is fly. And, I don't want to spent 30 minutes plus, waiting to take off. Less busy airports like Auckland and Wellington don't suffer from that problem.

I haven't invested in any add-on aircraft for MSFS yet (but I did have a lot of Carenado aircraft in FSX). I haven't seen any big hit in the default Airbus A20N, and I fly the TBM quite a bit using all the FMS features and that aircraft is as smooth as.

Scenery wise, I bought the London Landmarks package, and that drops the framerate by 5fps. Just bought the ORBX Auckland City Pack, and haven't seen a framerate drop at all.

Regards, Dave