Flight sim recommendations

I'm going to be getting back into flight sims after quite a long break, and was wondering what you guys recommend. Due to cost and issues with Thrustmaster Cougar sticks and the fact that my FLCS/TQS/RCS won't work with my P4 3.0GHz I've decided I'm going to build a PC in the 500-600MHz range and just fly sims that it will handle. What I'm looking for are recommendations for good jet combat sims - I want realism in flight model, avionics, and weapons more than ultra-realistic graphics. I already have Falcon 4.0, Janes F15, and a bunch of older 486 sims I liked (Su27, Tornado, Longbow, even Falcon 3.0 Gold LOL) but I was wondering what the hardcore simmers here were flying 5 or 6 years ago? How about recommended 3D cards? (I was using a 16MB Voodoo3 2000 on my old P133.) Recommended RAM? AMD or Intel? Why? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

have you tried playing Warbirds2.77R3? its a WW2 type of flight sim. and maybe if your lucky that old pc could handle Warbirds3 FPA. you can download them here www.totalsims.com

 

I don't see the relevance between a Cougar and a Pentium...

 

Cougars are notorious for having major problems out of the box - bad speed brake switches, gimbals that don't last, bad pots, etc. Add the hundreds of dollars you'll spend on mods to make it more durable (Hall-effect sensors, new gimbals, etc) to the $250-$300 cost of the Cougar and it's just not worth it to me to buy a set. Therefore, since my P4 doesn't have an ISA slot for my ACM game card I need to build a PC that will support it and also run the sims I like.

 

Pentium 4 = a chip, your refering to a motherboard,

 

Chip, mobo, the point is there are no P4 motherboards that I'm aware of with provision for using my ISA ACM card. Standard gameports on soundcards tend to give bad results with FLCS/TQS/RCS, and gameport to USB adapters are just as bad. Therefore, I can't use my FLCS/TQS/RCS with my P4.

 

Now, if anyone knows how to run an ISA card (Thrustmaster ACM card) on an Asus P4P800 mobo, I'm all ears, but all the research I've done has told me there's no way to do it. The only other option I have is to install a sound card (I do have crappy SoundMax onboard sound ) and run my FLCS/TQS/RCS off it...but I've never had good luck doing it that way.