advice please?

[233SQN]

Hello

I appreciate that this isn’t a cockpit building or PC geek forum, but as a long time follower I would value the opinion of the down to earth folk on here!

I run an Air Cadet Sqn and we are looking to upgrade our “sit in” flight sim, which currently runs FS9 with the instruments windowed to a monitor in the sit-in cockpit mock up, and the outside view projected onto a big screen in front.

We have now been gifted a Dell XPS8500, i5 3350P chip, NVidia GT640 1GB Graphics, with 8GB RAM, running Windows 8 64bit.

I recall all the bad press when FSX came out about stuttery performance, but have things moved on and would a PC of this spec be able to run it comfortably? The big advantage to us being the ability to run the higher resolution photographic scenery.

All views welcomed!

[DaveB]

Hi Colin

Thanks for not calling us Geeky

I don't think there's a pc in the land that won't 'cough' at some point where it meets a new area and spits out the last. After some fiddling, my E8400 now runs FSX at a completely acceptable level so your i5 should have no difficulty at all. A lot depends on what you want to see your customers seeing in sim. When I've seen folk 'playing' on public systems, they do the most ridiculous things and ground detail is the furthest thing from their minds. Who cares what the ground looks like when you're flying a jet fighter or rolling around the sky pretending to be Douglas Bader

The secret to minimising stuttering in FSX is to set it up correctly to where you're flying as I've recently found out. Most of us (I speak for myself mainly) leave many of the default settings alone because we don't know what they do but a few of these do need tweaking. The same things apply to FSX as applied to FS9 so you already know what to look out for. Detail too high.. autogen too high.. cloud definition too high.. too much AI and in FSX, water detail too high.. all these things can really punch your pc in the guts.. especially weather and water so take a little time and find a good compromise. You'll want it to run as fast as possible I guess so real weather shouldn't be an issue.

Running high res photo scenery also won't be a problem but note your mesh and texture resolutions.. set them to what the scenery recommends then tweak up or down to get it running as you wish. Don't leave the default settings as they are whatever you do. Many sceneries recommend you lock your frame rates.. par for the course seems to be 30fps. This may well work fine on your setup. I know George Davison has said he runs 'unlimited' as it runs smoother for him and on my system, that works best too but others find locking FR's works better for them. You'll need to fiddle a wee bit until you're happy

I really don't think you'll have a problem with that setup. If you're worried about it, I'll swap

EDIT: Oh, Colin.. a further note to the above. You get the best results with FSX native models mate. Many of your old faves will port over but they can also drain resources. It's also true that complex FSX models will do the same but that was no different as FS9.. Captain Sim users well know this Something listed as being for FS2004/FSX may be a portover.. even a 'new' payware model. The only guarantee you have with most stuff is if it's listed as being FSX only. You know then that it's been built to the FSX SDK

ATB
DaveB

[233SQN]

Thanks Dave.

our Flight Sim serves two purposes:

Instructional and AEF familiarisation, where we fly low and slow (normally continuous circuits and bumps out of RAF Cosford) and simple VFR nav exercises. The flight model we use is the Grob 109 tutor, with a simplified instrument cluster of the main instruments only. In these circumstances eye candy and immersion are the most important factors.

And of course it also gets used for occasional “fun” (read reckless) flying Tornados at zero feet across London etc (mind you Sqn Ldr. John Peters of “Tornado Down” is our Sqn President and frequent visitor so he probably encourages that!!)

rgds

[DaveB]

I can see how he'd encourage a little 'freedom' for want of a better word

I'm not sure what to suggest as far as scenery goes. The default, as with all previous incarnations, is pretty lack lustre but the basics are there. For navigation, especially VFR, the GenX/Treescapes packages (note.. GenXv3 is going cheap at the moment) would be a good tool to use. While lacking in autogen (v3 has more).. students have the advantage of looking outside and seeing exactly where they are.. albeit in a mostly 2D environment. FTX England lacks visual accuracy.. similar to the default in that without 'landmarks' you could be absolutly anywhere in the world.. you can't look out and identify the A5 or the M6.. they're simply grey roads that anonymously cross the countryside.. but it has more eye candy than the default and as with the other two, the airports are where they should be so students can get from A to B.

As a navigation tool.. all 3 have their merits. VFR/IFR.. I'd say GenX because you CAN find your way by road if you get lost or confused with navaids. With default and FTX, visual navigation is much more of a chore because the world you see is not accurate. Both would be adequate for IFR.. FTX a little moreso for VFR as it offers more 'out of the box' landmarks.

Pitted against what I saw in the VC10 sim at Brize a few years back.. FS9 surpasses its visual quality.. especially with addons and FSX in whatever form will be the same I know it's not important for a VC10 pilot to bother if a building has a roof on or not.. a basic representation of what should be there is enough. We tend to expect a little more in Flightsim

ATB
DaveB