The gold version should include the acceleration pack. But I think they come on separate disks, so you should install FSX itself and then run the acceleration addon installer, which should take care of updating the base version to the latest one. That's from 2007 by the way. See how old the soft is?  :-/


virge wrote on Aug 7^th, 2013 at 2:02am:

Anti-aliasing in many cases is more of a personal preference, since different people place different value in its worth.

I very much agree although I'd like to point out that the reference links given in my previous post should show a bit of the image improvement coming in with using antialiasing. And, as said, I'm happy to provide some example shots with a very good candidate for the use of antialiasing, the VC of the CS 707. Beautiful as it is, those gauges need a proper environment. And that's just one example.


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when a person has an issue with FPS in FSX, one of the very first remedies is to reduce or even disable anti-aliasing in order to achieve better frame rates.

That's most likely where we differ a lot. I wouldn't sacrifice antialiasing and I also doubt that the low fps scenarios in FSX are caused by it. If your approach or departure at a crowded airport comes in with low fps, you are most likely seeing the CPU limit of the old sim engine. Therefore, the remedy would either be to increase the CPU speed or to lower the scene's detail. No change on the antialiasing.

Low fps due to the use of (too much) antialiasing might happen in clouds, hence the tip to go the rather small step from the GTX650 to 660. The product name numbers of those cards may be close but the performance increase is very significant. In fact, it's pretty much the largest increase in performance on the whole Nvidia lineup with just going one model further. So the next step, which would be from going from the 660Ti to the 670, is much smaller for example.

I think that, with picking the 660Ti, the OP has made the right choice to allow for even cloudy skies to receive proper and fast filtering. I myself only run a GTX570 (which gets outperformed by the 660) and can happily report some good performance in cloudy skies. Now if I would crank up the antialiasing some more or if I had a smaller card, I would see more impact. So, on that point, we may agree to some extent.


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i5 is probably just as good as an i7, but you should also consider trying to maximize your investment as well by buying something that will have a longer lifespan.

Partial agreement. But it's a case by case decision. When looking at the current prices for the i7 and 'corresponding' i5 CPU and the close to zero effect on FSX when it comes to the small technical differences, a 'longer lifespan' can't be assumed. Even on a modern sim engine, which would be X-Plane, the i5 doesn't lack of any power as the modern sim engine makes more use of a modern graphic card. So, for this future and lifespan, you are equal on the old FSX engine and better off with the larger graphics card on e.g. X-Plane or DCS World.

The examples for making use of the i7 incorporated tech were given before. They did not include any current sim engine. That's from testing all of them. So, indeed, there is a choice to be made when it comes to buying the stuff and, most of all, looking at the price steps for getting the bigger equipment.