FSX on a new Mac Pro - share experiences please?

[Thunderbird8]

Is anyone here using Microsoft Flight Sim X under boot camp on specifically, a recent Mac Pro?

If so would you please be kind enough to share your recommendations, experiences, add-ons, flight sim equipment and your system specs? I am looking at the GEFORCE 8800 GT as the graphics option as this seems the most appropriate.

I am seriously thinking of a mac pro rather than a high-end iMac as a longer term (and upgradeable) work/play option.

Many thanks.

 

[dimme]

I was thinking the same thing, I always buy pro towers and run them for 4 to 5 years. But lately I have ben thinking I should go with a high-end iMac and change my upgrade cycle to 2 to 3 years. Right now I have a 2.5 year old G5 which is "old technology" not very upgradeable. With a iMac the cost is lower and so I could upgrade quicker and always have the latest and greatest. I used to think towers were future prof but now even the upgrade options for video cards are slim. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Thunderbird8]

Yeah - I am in a quandary about this.

 

[Fingermouse]

I've been running MS Flight Sim X on a brand new Mac Pro (boot camp with Win XP 32-bit). 2.8GHz 8-core 6GB RAM.

From what I hear, the 8800 is the card to go with if gaming is a priority, although my machine is configured with two HD2600 XTs and works great with them linked in Crossfire mode (with a couple of interconnects purchased elsewhere). You can also overclock the 2600s a fair bit.

With two cards, it'll happily do 1280x1024 with most settings maxed out (or at least very high) and run at 20+ FPS most of the time, looking great. I can run it in 1920x1200 (my monitor's native resolution) but it slows to a crawl on heavily detailed scenes (particularly New York with loads of buildings and a lot of water).

A single 2600 can handle things but it doesn't particularly like high water detail settings or a lot of clouds. Running at lower resolutions certainly helps, and turning the detail down a couple of notches makes things a lot smoother while not really affecting the overall look too much - still looks far better than the previous version of FS. With two cards (not in Crossfire mode) you can run across several monitors as long as you turn the detail down a little.

If you're really wanting to play hard, an 8800 is probably the better choice, unless you're on a tight budget or want to run more than two monitors. Two 2600s was a compromise for me between working and playing - I can run four monitors and my configuration cost a lot less than a single 8800.

 

[Thunderbird8]

I suppose a consideration for me is what size monitor (at native res) the 8800GT will run effectively (in FSX)..?

 

[brentborg]

New Map Pro Works Well With FSX

I just got a new Mac pro - 3.2 GHZ, with 4GB ram and the 8800 card running under Bootcamp and Windows XP Professional - it really rocks. I get about 54 fps with everything turned up high and have done no tweaking yet. I just loaded the PMDG 747-400 Queen of the Skies and noticed it dropped to 15 fps on the ground in Tokyo with all the scenery and eye candy set to high. I also have MyTraffic for FSX running with moderate high traffic. It's great, was a bit expensive, but in my opinion worth it.

 

[Fingermouse]

Just make sure you've got SP1 and SP2 installed for FSX - otherwise it won't utilise all the Mac Pro's cores and frame rates will be pretty seriously crippled.

As to maximum resolution, you should be able to run at 1920x1200 (widescreen) with virtually all settings at very high (certainly you can max out the aircraft settings) and still stay around the 20fps mark if you're using an 8800GT...

If you've got a larger monitor than that, it'll just be a case of pushing some of the detail down - the visual difference made by running in the monitor's native resolution is far more significant than many of the detail settings.

 

[Thunderbird8]

Thanks guys...all great info.

That 1920x1200 resolution Fingermouse, what size monitor would that equate to? I am thinking about the Apple Cinema Display (or a Dell/Samsung equivalent) at about 23"?

Thanks again....also....is there any difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows? Also, I have been advised to get the 'Pro' version to take advantage of multiple processors.

 

[Fingermouse]

That 1920x1200 resolution Fingermouse, what size monitor would that equate to? I am thinking about the Apple Cinema Display (or a Dell/Samsung equivalent) at about 23"?

I'm using a 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245B - not much taller than a 19" monitor but the same resolution as a 23" Apple Cinema Display...

I'm only really going by 1920x1200 as a decent resolution as this is pretty much equivalent to full 1080p HD (albeit with a few extra vertical pixels) and there's not a great deal of point going higher than that for games/movies etc.

As to the different versions of Windows, the most obvious differences are that a 64-bit version will be able to address more memory than the 32-bit (my Mac Pro has 6GB but my 32-bit Windows only sees 2GB) and the Home version only uses one processor (although it'll use all four cores of a quad-core processor). You'd have to look elsewhere for more details, though...

 

[bluedoggiant]

But doesnt making the resolution unative make it look ugly? Can some post a screenshot of a native 1920x1200 monitor on a lower res playing FSX?

 

[millar876]

on a side note to this, can you chuck in any old windows graphics card as a second card and git mac os to use the standard one and windows to use the 2nd one. i.e. stick with the stock card for osx but put in a huge monster card for Windows, without having to swap round cards in bays all the time?

 

[bluedoggiant]

on a side note to this, can you chuck in any old windows graphics card as a second card and git mac os to use the standard one and windows to use the 2nd one. i.e. stick with the stock card for osx but put in a huge monster card for Windows, without having to swap round cards in bays all the time?

Mac Pro's use PCIe slots, 4 of them, 4 cards at once.

 

[beige matchbox]

Ingame settings essentially maxed out, no autogen obviously, cars max, boats max, air traffic max, but none in the scene, AA/AF 8x or so, everything else set to quality.

Running the TileProxy to grab images from microsoft earth, this is constantly converting from JPEG to BMP, hence the CPU usage


Hardware is a early 08 Pro, Single Quad 2.8GHz, the stock 2Gb ram and an 8800


I get a constant smooth FPS, not sure of the exact figure, but I will say I'm a first person shooting gamer of old, so am a bit of a FPS whore


*****edit*****

Excuse the second screenshot, i really hate MS paint, but it's all i have installed under windows, I always end up screwing up something

 

[cbuchner1]

I get a constant smooth FPS, not sure of the exact figure, but I will say I'm a first person shooting gamer of old, so am a bit of a FPS whore

Let me just say that I am officially envious. My quad is made of the cheapest parts that were available.

So why didn't you get the 8 core version? ;-)

Christian Buchner

(author of Tileproxy)