Flight Simulator 10, DeLuxe Edition

On a scale of 1-10, I’m a 2 on what makes the wheels go around inside a computer.

I own a 1½ year old Compact Presario to do spreadsheets, charts, write letters and use the internet. I am NOT a game player so I did not buy into the high end market. However one game always interested me and finally I received it for my birthday and that’s the latest Flight Simulator. This game has all the whistles and bells but is just too much for my machine.

The problem: Takes four minutes to boot up and the initial colors are beautiful. But when I execute a command there is quite a delay and the flight scenery has an lot to be desired. Not as advertised.

I don’t understand what it all does but here is what I have in my laptop: Processor-AMD Turion ML28, speed 1600MHZ, cache 512KB; Memory 256x2chips=512MB; Hard Drive 55.88 GB; Video Card-ATI Radeon Xpress 200M Driver ati2mtag.sys; Sound Card Conexant AC-Link Audio.

Three local “Geeks” gave me three different solutions but no guarantees. One friend found something on the internet concerning this “game” and gave me these numbers listed as Minimum/Recommend/Best. CPU 1.0/2.8/3.6 GH , Memory 256MB/1GB/2GB, Video Card 32/64/512MB.

Since this is all Greek to me, my question to you guys and gals out there is: Is it possible to upgrade this make of laptop or should I simply start saving for something with more muscle (opening a back panel only reveals the two 256MB chips).

Thank you.

 

Well unfortunately the only thing that most Laptops allow you to upgrade is RAM/Memory being that your only around 512MB it MIGHT help with around 1GB or 2 if your particular model allows that. Some newer High-end laptops have the ability to upgrade the processor and video card but, it's very rare.

Being that Flight Simulator has always been a resource hog, I doubt you will be able to run the game with everything turned up for eye candy, you might try turning the video settings down and see if that helps, if you haven't done so already.

Sorry wish I could be more help to you but unfortunately I see this all the time and it sucks but, really not much you can do unless you go buy a new rig and I doubt you want to do that for 1 game.

 

yea its not worth it to try and upgrade your laptop since its pretty hard to upgrade a laptop video card. id save up so you can buy a good gaming system which will cost around $1000 or less, depending on how future-proof you want it to be

 

I'd start saving up. It is possible, but expensive, to upgrade your computer's memory and most video solutions in laptops are soldered right to the logic board, so there is no upgrading that. Flight Simulator 10 utilizes DirectX 10 which is only built into Windows Vista. You would need a DirectX 10 video card (~$399), Windows Vista, and some new hardware to play the game in it's full visual glory.

 

Thanks gang. I was afraid of that.