What sort of XP10 performance can I expect with my current setup / graphics card

Question

I am considering purchasing X-Plane 10.  I am not a gamer, I'm an average PC user, but also a pilot, want to practice approaches.  I don't need the very best in performance or the highest definition scenery, but I don't want jerky.

Having said all that, I have a dual core Intel I5 processor, with 8 gb of RAM DDR3-1333 / PC3-10600, and my video card is a Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 PCIe v2.0 x16 with 1 gb of  dedicated DDR3 SDRAM,  I understand that the card is DirectX 11-capable.  I have an SSD drive.

Now I know for most gamers here my video card will be a joke, but for an average user, do you think I will be satisfied?

Appreciate all opinions.

Answer 1

The information you provided here may meet the minimum specs to run X-Plane 10:

• Dual Core, 2.5 GHz or faster (you don't specify which i5 processor--only the 6440 meets this)
• 4 GB of RAM (you list more)
• A video card with at least 1 GB of VRAM (sounds like the card meets this spec)

However, running the minimum may not be very satisfying--runway markings could be blurry, etc. I would recommend trying the free demo for both X-Plane 10 and X-Plane 9 to see which one you are happier with.  Bonus if you decide X-Plane 9 is for you: it's cheaper! ;)

Comments

Are the system resources more modest for X-Plane 9, and if so, what will I miss from v.10?

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Yes, X-Plane 9 system requirements are:
A 2GHz processor
1.0GB RAM (physical memory)
32MB VRAM (video memory on your video card)
10GB of hard drive space

The X-Plane Knowledge Base says the biggest new features in 10 are:

a brand new system for auto-generating plausible scenery for the entire world,
a new, highly-detailed cloud and weather rendering system,
a flight model with improved accuracy and even greater power,
a completely redone ATC and AI Aircraft system, and
the ability to more fully utilize multi-core CPUs for enhanced realism."