I suggest you download the demo version of X-plane 9 from
X-Plane 10 Global | The World?s Most Advanced Flight Simulator | X-Plane.com. It is free, with a limited scenery but everything is functional but time-limited; You need a good graphics card such as NVIDIA with the OpenGL drivers installed. I use GT-650i for less than 100€. You will find the specs on the website.
There is also very good community user support at
Flightsim Community for X-Plane ®
You can use the included planemaker to customize the aircraft you fly by rearranging the instruments etc.