Please Help Me-Can I Operate Old PFC Hardware a New Computer???

[1900driver]

Here is my problem. Just prior to ordering a new custom built computer to use exclusively for flight simulation, I told the builder that I had 'older' Precision Flight Controls hardware which had the 15 pin connector cables.  I asked if that presented a problem with the new build and FSX , to which he said he would research.
The following is the 'Old' PFC equipment  I have with 15 pin connectors:
1. Cirrus Beech Yoke.
2.Cirrus Rudder Pedals (Gen aviation).
3.Multi-Engine Turbo Prop Throttle Quadrant.
4.Throttle Quadrant Console.
5. Elite Universal Control Interface.

I know this as rather long, but please bear with me. The following are the specs of the unit he designed for me, knowing that I want to use three monitors(prior to the 15 pin issue):

-Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
-Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W Modular CrossFireX Ready Power Supply
-Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 970 (Gigabit LAN,8CH Audio,SATA (RAID) 6Gb/s,USB 3.0) ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 Quad-Core Processor
-PNY 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800) DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module
-ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express CrossFireX Video Card
-Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s Internal Hard Drive
-ASUS Black SATA Dual-Layer DVD Burner
-Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit

Now to the question. What do I need to do to make this new computer work with this old equipment? Do need a gameport or???
Please help. As you can tell, I have no computer expertise.
Thank you in advance for your help.
1900driver

[Maurice]

I think you may be setting yourself up for a lot of grief when dealing with serial ports. But there is no harm in trying a USB to serial port adapter. Here is one from Elite (assuming they are still in business)
https://www.flyelite.com/shop/software-upgrade/

As for the video card, you would be better off with an NVidia card instead of ATI. Seems to work better with FSX according to most people.

Good luck,
Maurice

[Garys]

First and foremost, If you havent taken possession of this build, STOP! This machine he is building specifically for FSX will run like crap. That 965 chip is 2009 vintage and he obviously didnt do any homework regarding AMD performance in FSX. The Intel chips of the time were faster head to head in FSX and the new Intel chips blow it out of the water. Do whatever if takes to get him to stop as performance wise you will just be throwing money down the drain, especially trying to run 3 monitors.

As far as your older equipment goes: you could try finding a cheap pci sound card with a gameport but the biggest issue is going to be drivers. you could search the internet to see if someone has made a hack but i dont think any manufacturer has made gameport drivers since win XP.

The next alternative is a gameport to usb adapter, but I recall guys having problems not seeing all the axis and buttons of the older PFC hardware. Again that is something that you will have to research.

Last option would be to rip out all the old controllers and replace with the likes of the FDS-C1, Leo Bodnar card, or the like. Personally that is what I would be doing if Win 7 and eyefinty or nvidia surround is your only option for 3 monitors.

Gary

[Maurice]

Robert, I thought you had already bought the hardware but if you haven't, take Gary's advice.

Maurice

[1900driver]

Gary and Maurice,
THANK YOU! I was going to order my new build tomorrow, but based on your very in-depth analysis, I will not!
I don't want to gamble $1500 on a computer that may not be able to run my serial PFC hardware, so let me ask one more question.
What do I give up by forgetting FSX and just fly using FS2004 and getting an older PC thats configured with a serial port?
Thanks again for your great advice.
Bob

[Maurice]

Bob,

There are several full flight deck builders who are still using FS9 and quite happy with it, Jack being one of them so maybe he will chime in.

Bottom line though is that if your PC budget is limited to $1500 or even $2000, there is no way you can build a system that will run FSX adequately. So your best bet is definitely to stick to FS9, especially if you are thinking of having more than one external view. With a $1500 PC you would end up with a slide show.

As far as using a serial port to interface with your Elite hardware, I imagine it is quite possible but I have no experience with that, so cannot help you decide what to do.

Maurice

[Garys]

Glad we were able to stop you in time. That is a low mid end system by todays standards and If they were going to charge you $1500, go somewhere else. They are fully taking advantage of your lack of computer knowledge.

As Maurice said there are plenty of builders still runnning FS9.

No matter what sim you decide to run your main focus should be on what operating system you should use. For your older equipment you need to run windows XP for gameport support for your PFC stuff. You can still buy PCI sound cards with gameport built in which come with XP drivers and you can buy that elite adapter that Maurice linked to earlier for your elite control interface.

Both FS9 and FSX run well with windows XP, But FSX will be prone to more OOM errors which is another subject for you to research 

Wish you the best in your decision.

Gary

[saabpilot]

My 10 Eurocents,

BEWARE OF COMPUTER SALES PEOPLE !!   
They do usually know Nada what is required for a fluent MS FSX or FS9.

Both sims require :

A FAST (= overclocked) processor, the one of choice right now is INTEL I7 3770K.
Not too expensive and easy to overclock up to 4.5 Ghz.

8 Mb DDR 3 RAM (e.g. Corsair Dominator Airflow 2) - NOT more than 8 Mb or your system will be slower.
A P67 equipped MOBO (with CPU socket 1155)
A descent Nvidia Graphics card with 2 Gb or more memory - (e.g. Nvidia GTX560)

A good CPU Cooler (handles the extra heat generated by overclocking)
A minimum 1000W Power System Unit - from a well known manufacturer !  Beware of "cheap deals"
A large box with good ventilation and many BIG fans does not hurt either.

The above system should not cost you more than your budget 1500-2000 US $.
It is NOT the very top line, but will run FS9 fluently on three screens/projectors with a Matrox TripleHead2Go in between.
It will run FSX, albeit NOT with every slider to the right.

I, like many other simmers use FS9.1 for several reasons, more 3:rd part scenery is one. Not so PC hungry is another.
And with proper add-ons you get as good sim as with FSX (or P3D) - especially if you will use 3 screens/projectors.
The above is my very personal assessment which will surely be disputed by those who runs FSX.   

But - you can of couse also have both FS9.1 and FSX installed in the same PC.

FS9 and FSX are immensly Processor Speed Hungry - the processor gives you 70% of the frame rate.
The Graphics Card maybe only 15% of the frame rate and the memory/harddrive/mobo the rest.


Good luck with your PC,
Bjorn

[jackpilot]

Depending on your priorities FS9 biggest plus is fluidity even with a "normal PC".
Add ons airports bring you scenery complexity as good as FSX minus some minor details.
I would try the Serial-USB adapter on any PC avail to check full functionality of your hardware first. Should work!
Jack

[1900driver]

Jack,
Thank you for your information. I will order the Elite adaptor to try with my PFC hardware, on my desktop, to see if they function properly. Once I find they work , then I will get to the business of ordering a computer that will handle FS9.
Gary suggested using the XP operating system with a PCI gameport,and that is what I will order. If you folks could tell me what else I need to ask for in this build, I would really appreciate it. I did look at what Bjorn suggested, but his specs seem to be higher end to accomodate FSX. (am I wrong with this assumption?)I wish I were more saavy about computers, but.....
I cannot express how much I appreciate you all for digging into my problem to help me. This forum is great, informative and valuable. Thanks again to Maurice, Gary, Bjorn and Jack.
I look forward to any input you have to offer.
Thank you all again,
Bob

[rprather]

Just FYI, I just dealt with some old PFC equipment and apparently the old serial hardware is not compatible with FSX. The older USB controls seem to work fine, but not the serial hardware (radio stack, throttle quad, etc.). The basic flight controls (yoke, rudder) may possibly work with a joy-USB converter.

I don't know about FS9, but FSX supposedly gets a measurable frame rate increase with Windows 7. Supposedly, the way the OS offsets graphic commands to the GPU is more efficient. Somebody keep me honest here!

[1900driver]

Robert,
Thank you for your input. I belive I'm going to stay with FS9 to be able to use my old equipment. I enjoyed flying it before I quit the hobby and I'm sure I will enjoy it once again.
I appreciate all of this advice, and I'm sure that it will take me down the correct path to be able to fly again.
Thanks,
Bob
PS: I remember you and your website from 'back in the day' As I recall, you were doing some keyboard emulation.

[Sean]

NOT more than 8 Mb or your system will be slower.

Can you point me in the direction of that Bjorn, I've not heard that before?

Sean

[Garys]

16gb is slower in gaming systems. You want memory running at fast latencies which is why you will see 4mb at 6-6-6-7   8mb at 8-8-8-9 etc.  Unless your willing to put your hand in your pocket for high performance ram generally speaking the more memory the slower the latencies and slower the ram. It all goes together when building a system specifically for FSX and its dismal programming.

Gary

[rprather]

Yes indeed, good ole keyboard hacking! It's amazing how many I/O options there are since those days when EPIC was pretty much the only option.

Good luck with your equipment. PFC really builds stuff to last the test of time!

[FredK]

Adapters will not work for the old PFC serial port hardware (I tried all that). 

I rewired my old PFC hardware to Bodnar boards and all works fine with FSX.

[jackpilot]

Good move.
Handy for people with older hardware.
Thanks.

[1900driver]

Well, here I am again, hat in hand, looking for your help. I found this on eBay just 20 miles from where I live. Do you think this run my serial port hardware in FX9?

$290.00

System Specifications – Dell Precision T3400 Workstation
Chassis/Motherboard: Mini Tower chassis. Motherboard based on Intel® X38 chipset, 525 Watt Dell Power Supply 
Processor: Intel Xeon Quad Core X3210 2.13GHz & 2.66GHz (8MB L2 Cache & 1066 MHz FSB, 100% Stable)
Video Card:  Nvidia Quadro NVS295 256MB Video Card -  Has two Display Port Outputs (Two display port to DVI adapters are included)
Memory: Samsung 3GB PC2-5300 / DDR2-667 Dual channel ECC Memory (4 DIMM's...2 x 1GB & 2 x 512MB)
Operating System: Windows XP Pro SP3 using Vista Downgrade Rights,  Includes Vista Business COA and XP Pro Reinstall Disc (burnt copy)
Hard Drive:  Seagate 80GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Optical Drive:  48X Combo Drive (Plays CD's & DVD's, Burns CD's, Does NOT burn DVD's)
Sound Card:  Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
Network Card: Integrated Broadcom 5754 Gigabit Ethernet with Remote Wakeup and PXE Support     
Expansion Slots: Two PCI-Express x16 Slots (one used by Video Card), One PCI-Express x8 Slot (wired as x4), Three 5V PCI 32bit/33MHz Slots
USB Ports:  11 USB 2.0 ports (2 front - 6 back - 3 internal)
Keyboard: Dell USB Keyboard  (used but good condition)
Mouse: Dell Optical USB Mouse (used but good condition)
Software:  Adobe Reader 8.1, PowerDVD 8.3

What would I need to add to get this work?


If this is not the solution, then I'll go the Bodnar route.
Thanks once again guys, great info site!

[Garys]

Video card is pretty weak and would definately need to be upgraded. System overall would run FS9 decently if you upgraded that video card, but only on one monitor. Id pull the two 512mb sticks of ram as well. Mixed and matches sets of ram never work well. If you could get 3 of these at that price and then use wideview you would have a nice setup. Throw in a cheap gameport card and you would be set to go with all your old hardware.

For less than $300 I would give it a shot. If the performance in the end wasnt where you want it to be you could always use the computer in your network somewhere for some other application that your cockpit needs without pulling rescources from you main FS computers.

Gary