"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com

First, I would recommend having it installed. I wasted almost an
entire day installing it. The installation is very, very difficult.

This statement should be modified with something like "...very difficult
[for me]." I've heard of few installation problems (other than taking a
while to load the many GB's of data onto the local hard drive). Installation
and activation went very smoothly for me.


FWIW, my specs a
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo 6700 @ 2.66GHz
RAM - 2 GB
HDD - SATA @ 7200 RPM
Video - nVidia GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB

So after all that I finally brought it up. First, it takes forever to
start. My system is almost twice what MS recommends but it still
requires more than a bathroom break to start.

Yes, it does take longer than FS9 to launch, but not enough for me to get
frustrated. It might be good to set up a default flight to use real-world
weather from your home field, then surf over to your favorite briefing site
to review the weather while FSX loads.

Once its up, I can't see much difference vs. MS FS 2000. Nothing
really seems any different.

Can't argue that point. The only differences I have seen between FS9 and FSX
are little things like slightly more accurate landscapes, traffic running on
the highways (OK, maybe the roads are a bit more accurate), and ATC that is
more "human".

It was many reports like yours that gave me significant pause in purchasing
FSX, but it turns out my trepidation was unwarranted. I've turned all
display settings to High with a target frame rate of 20 and the worse
volatility I've noticed was a very momentary drop to 16 fps (press "shift-Z"
a few times to display your fps). That's not enough for me to have noticed
any "stutter".

So far, I'm not disappointed to have bought the game (especially since I
couldn't locate my FS9 discs recently), but I also don't see a compelling
reason to upgrade from FS9.

--
John T
http://sage1solutions.com/blogs/TknoFlyer
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