Classic British Flight Sim

My two-penneth worth.

I actually started out flight simming with X-Plane, many years ago. It was hailed as the less pretty but more accurate of the flight sims available at the time, I learned to fly on that and then when I discovered online flying first with IVAO (which was then and maybe still is text only) and then VATSIM!!! WOW!

A friend actually persuaded me to try Flight Sim 2004 and I'm afraid I fell for the pretty packaging, all the freeware planes, freeware scenery, not that I haven't invested in my fair share of payware too!!

Recently, due to an unfortunate series of events I needed to get a new PC, its absolutely top of the range with knobs and bells on it and VISTA!!!! :-(

Suddenly Squawkbox doesn't work anymore!! What am I to do to get my daily fix of real life ATC with egomaniac teenagers with poor communication skills??

The answer, FSX, coupled with FSInn instead of Squawkbox. (A new version of Squawkbox is in closed beta testing for use with VISTA and FSX but I have not heard of any release date)

It has taken me almost a month to get the system configured but am happy to say that I've now cracked it. I found the following link very useful in sorting out my poor frame rates : - http://members.cox.net/spambait/FSXTweakGuide.pdf

I still do my FlyNet flights on FS9, because there is a serious lack of freeware A/C out there for FSX, I don't need to do them online, and because of the excellent aircraft we have for free for FS9 (thanks to those people who give their time to doing this for us D Maltby, R Piper et al).

My system (I was assured yesterday when I stood in Beckton PC World for 2 hours....well actually I eventually sat down in the stores wheelchair....) is absolutely top notch and my FSX is far from maxed out, I guess it is just going to take a couple of years for the hardware to catch up....unless you are a millionaire.


At the end of the day, if I get P'd off with FSX I just switch to FS9 for some garanteed fun.


Johnny

Im still FS9less atm! Im just having so much fun making bombs and missiles work in FSX and therefor am not bored enough to get FS9 installed... However i do have the Chippy, VC-10 on FSX!

well I don't think I find this any fun at all....

You can make the VC10 work in FSX.........don't tell me that, the virtual skies will never be safe again.

Johnny

There should be no problem making the Chippy work in FSX as Rick released an FSX version!! :roll: I even have it on MY load of FSX (gathering dust unfortunately) and DM's VC10's work ok there too.. as do most things I've thrown at it. I don't have SP2 (not gonna pay) so some slightly dodgy things that others have found have not inflicted my FSX. If making aircraft drop bombs is your bag.. then sobeit and all power to you. If I want to drop bombs on anything.. I use a sim designed to do it. That's my choice as seeing bombs drop in FSX is yours.

The ability for the new sim to do this sort of thing could be considered a bonus (and IS considered as such by some) and I really don't have a problem with that. However.. firing 'blanks' isn't my thing

ATB

DaveB :tab:

The intensity of the argument is like the Creation/Evolution debate. It doesn't matter how many learned scientific arguments that Prof Richard Dawkins makes, he will never convince one single creationist that they are descended from monkeys. And vice versa. |-)

Flight simmers get just as heated in arguments that defend their personal choice of sim. I have no experience of FSX purely because my favourite activity in FS is flying DM's British jetliners on to runways so pretty scenery simulation isn't a high priority for me. FS9 appears to offer me more opportunity to do what I like than FSX does at the moment. So I'm not going to get in to the discussion on either side.

What I do fail to understand is why it matters so much. Both sims exist and can be run on the same computer. Why pin your colours to one mast or the other? Why not fly whichever one takes your fancy at the time? I'm running two cars at the moment, a Micra and an Accord, both are nice cars but are good at different things and I like them both. Some days I take one, some days the other. Why couldn't I do the same with FSX/FS9?

In the screenshots that people have posted, it's difficult for me to see the difference between a good FS9 and a good FSX shot. And in all the arguments and discussions that I have read, I am still unclear as to what obvious differences there are. I have the same problem with XP and Vista. I run both on different computers and I like them both but couldn't tell you which is better :doho: But then again, I don't have to choose - I can run them both!

I haven't got time to set up FSX properly just to trial it, but I'd like to have a look at what it offers. Is that downloadable demo still worth doing or is that too old-tech now?

Ian

Hi Ian,

Extremely well put sir ;-)

As for the demo.. if it's out there still, you may want to download it to see what all the fuss is about. Of course, FSX has since been hit with SP1 and latterly SP2 but these are mainly bug fixes to resolve compat issues so I doubt they have any real impact on how the sim actually looks. One thing that SP1 did was to reduce the quality of things like trees so you can actually have a few kicking around without halving your framerates. They don't look as good as the originals but there are freeware packs available should they not be to your liking

It costs you nowt other than time so why not have a looksee ;-)

EDIT
A thought just occured to me Ian. Should you download the trial version.. ensure you install it on a DIFFERENT drive to your FS9. I remember reading horror stories where folk have lobbed it onto the same drive as FS9 and when it's been uninstalled, it's taken bits of FS9 with it :o Better to be safe than sorry ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Eeeeek! Thanks for the warning, Dave

I'll get round to it one day and remember your advice.

Ian

Hi Guys

I must be the only person here that loves FSX.(possibly Ben too) :drinkers:

no problems here and have removed my custom FS9 as it looks naff after Generation X under SP2.

just have a default FS9 installed for compatability testing only. (default FS9 looks crap after default FSX) but i doubt if anyone realises.

in My view Aces/M$haft have screwed up big timeon how they are going about bussiness but i am happy with current SP2 FSX now

Regards
Rick

What's Generation X?