First, I wish you all (dare I say “pray for”? ) A Happy New Year!
Do any of you play Flight Sim 10 off Steam and do you play it with or without joystick?
Secondly, I have WoD on an old machine now, and have not expanded to Legion because I have been told it (graphics card) cannot “handle” the expansion, and I have no reason not to believe this because with Star Wars and WoW, I have to delete SW in order to play WoW. Since I cannot afford and upgrade at present, I am stuck on WoD.
Make sense so far?
I can send some diagnostics to y’all:
Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 46 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
Dell Inc. 0D517D (CPU)
Graphics
Generic Non-PnP Monitor (1360x768@60Hz)
1024MB ATI Radeon HD 5450 (XFX Pine Group) 57 °C
Storage
465GB Seagate ST3500414CS ATA Device (SATA) 37 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD±RW GH50N ATA Device
Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device
So you can see what I have.
Anyway… FS Ten is affordable right now on Steam, so I’d really like your opinions.
Also at least a couple of reviews mention needing joystick and pedals as adds, but would I really need them to fly. In other words, does playing off steam make the game an easier to play with just mouse and keys.
I know this is long as hell, but I’ll appreciate your answers if you have time.
Your PC meets the minimum requirements of at least a dual core 2.5 Ghz CPU and Dx 9 GPU. It’s a pretty old game.
It’s also scaleable and demanding with settings on high, so you’ll likely need to go low settings. If you’ve got a gamepad around, it will work fine with that, but it’s a flight sim so a HOTA setup is going to be a lot more immersive and accurate. even a very basic one (which can be had for about $20) would be better than a gamepad. I never tried playing the game with just a mouse and keyboard, so I can’t say, but it would likely suck.
Since we’ve never met here, I guess I need to explain that I’m an older guy (turned 67 on 12.31) who is severely lacking in the area of self-taught tech knowledge. I pretty much just know the basics and use the internet for gaming, surfing and my blog.
I had a LOT of help from folks right here in the gaming community of SDMB, but it took me three years just to understand what the action bars do.
Just wanted you to know you’re dealing with an older guy who games in order to maintain my cognitive functions (o/w known as ALzheimer’s Related Dementia) and who appreciates all the help he gets.
It’s very nice to meet you, happy new year, and thank you again!
I don’t play it myself, but know people who do and who develop for it. You will find Flight Simulator much more enjoyable with a flight yoke. Rudder pedals help too. Joysticks are for combat aircraft.
Are you playing on a laptop because that’s a seriously low resolution screen. And your GPU is well out of date. Look at the Geforce GTX 1050 Ti.
No, it’s not a laptop, just an old workstation. Didn’t have a whole lot of money at the time, so I had to settle for it. It plays WoD, but I was told by the guy who sold it that the card absolutely cannot be upgraded, so I haven’t bothered to look for a new video card.
Do y’all agree with that statement (about no upgrade of card possible)? If you don’t agree, I’d be wiling to try to install that 1050 Ti.
I’ll wait on FS 10 with the peripherals until I get this thing figured out. My previous machine was an IBUY Power Gaming machine and the guy who sold me THIS one took the IBUY in trade. I’m thinking now maybe I should have come here first rather than trust the shop. They do want to make money, right?
What model of Dell PC is it? And is the form factor SFF, pizza box / desktop, or mini-tower? Because those specs look awfully like my old Dell Optiplex 755. If it’s a mini-tower you should be okay for any upgrade, but if it’s a desktop, your choice will be restricted as the card may need to be single slot, low profile, or both.
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0) 500.00 GB 371.16 GB free
======================
Display
ATI Radeon HD 5450 [Display adapter]
Generic Non-PnP Monitor
======================
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device
USB Input Device (3x)
HID Keyboard Device
HID-compliant mouse
General Purpose USB Hub
USB Composite Device
USB Root Hub (8x)
Generic volume shadow copy
Okay. Looking at images on the web like this one, you are ever so slightly screwed on the GPU. You have 2 or 3 low profile slots and the PCI Express slot is the top-most. You need one which is low profile and uses a single low profile slot. The best I can find is this GTX 750 Ti. There is a low proflie GTX 1050 Ti but I’m not sure it will fit - you’d need to remove the DVI socket and I’m not sure it’s detachable.
) A Happy New Year!