The 'Official' Screenshot & Tips thread 4 FSX enthusiasts & flight simmers.

[Soya]

Greetings fellow simmers & flight enthusiasts,

It was suggested to me in several other threads to make a proper thread concerning most things FSX related such as:

1) Screenshots (perhaps showing of your latest addon(s), some cool looking shots or just shots you want to share with fellow simmers, please keep them in compressed JPG format, the original 8MB BMP files that FSX produces is just too large, I also highly recommend resizing them to @1280x720, it will make their viewing much better & nicer when people browse these forums)
2) Tips, this can be on addons, freeware or payware, stuff you felt was really good and how to get the best out of a certain addon or general tips on how to improve hardware/software or the overall running of the beast that is FSX!
3) Comments/suggestions/questions & replies to posts are welcome, but please make them constructive and/or positive.
4) No loitering and definitely NO TRAIN or BOAT simmers allowed in here
5) Enjoy the view, tips & comments in this thread.

EDIT:
Current hardware list - OCUK Intel Sugo, E8600 4Ghz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, until recently was using a ATI 4870x2 2048mb now using a 480GTX, 2x 75GB Raptors Raid0 system drive 4x 128GB SSDs Raid0 FSX drive, Win7 64bit
Main addons payware - REX2.0, McPhat UHDT paints for CS 757 & Super 80 Pro, Earth Simulation's Alderney & Isles of Scilly.
Main addons freeware - ENB series mod, FPS Limiter, Ezwalk Camera, NL2000v4 Scenery, Blue Sky Scenery, many excellent freeware aircraft & paints from Ozx/McPhat.

So let me kick start this thread with both a valuable tip and my latest series of screen shot captures.

Tip, best link so far I have found concerning the running of FSX in both hardware & software would be this one: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041
It is kept pretty up to date and there is tons of info as there are many sub links there that will show you how to improve setup in pretty much every area concerning FSX. Read carefully though and always remember that you must be patient, test your changes carefully and see the results for yourself to make sure if it has either a positive or negative impact!

And here are my latest screen shots from FSX, Pick & Mix - Part 1, enjoy:

Thanks for viewing, hope you enjoyed the selection here.

 

[Soya]

Thank you both, glad you enjoyed the view. I use many addons, mostly payware but there is also lots of freeware. If there is anything specific that catches your eye in one of my screen shots just point which screen shot and what peeked your interest in that shot. IMO the most essential addon is REX2.0, payware, ENB Mod series, freeware, and NL2000v4 also freeware. The rest is personal preference, depending on your taste and willingness to spend money on payware or time on looking for freeware. Hardware wise, I am running FSX on a Dual Core E8600 4Ghz with ATI 4870x2 2048mb, although I just installed a Nvidia GTX 480 and Nvidia cards tend to be better with FSX due to shader handling. FSX is mainly CPU dependant, so the faster your processor will run, the better. If you follow the link I gave above, it does discuss the hardware requirements to run FSX reasonable. IMO I would say at dual core at 3.2Ghz or more + Nvidia GTX260+ at least.

Hope that answer your questions. Cheers.

 

[Soya]

How good is it at utilising multi core CPUs particularly quads?

Ever since FSX SP2 which is also included in the Acceleration pack, it does utilize multi core. How effective a dual core would over a quad core or indeed a six core I am not sure, if they all run at the same Ghz, I think there is very little difference, FSX is after all a rather old 32bit app.

I know it isnt FSX, but when i used to play FS9 back in 2005 it looked really nice:

*snip*

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Soya]

Thanks Luke, will look forward to your future shots. Do make sure when you get your PC built, to check out the above link on how to get the most out of your system with FSX, there is much to setup/tweak, so make sure you read up on it.

In the meantime, let me share my very first video making attempt on FSX, it pretty basic but gotta start somewhere. Hopefully I shall improve on these videos as I have done with screenshots.

Enjoy the view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwQXT6GmmR8&hd=1

Cheers.

PS does anyone know how to properly embed a video in a post? I thought it was simply a matter of taking the embed code from the video and pasting it in the post but it just comes out like it does below:

EDIT: Thank you Chris, I think I got it now. btw living in Jersey 2 I see.

 

[Soya]

Hey folks,

I managed to squeeze out some spare time to make up another pick and mix selection of screen shots from recent flights.

Please do enjoy:

If you enjoyed the above shots you may also enjoy some of the left overs, they can be viewed in a slide show here: http://s264.photobucket.com/albums/...2010/Pick and Mix/Part 3/?albumview=slideshow

As always, thanks for viewing.

 

[Soya]

Greeting folks,

Thank for the above comments & praise, glad you folks enjoy my work.

Let me update you with with 3 new FSX videos I recently made. The first 2 videos are identical apart from the time of the day but it shows you how different the sunlight reflections are on the fantastic UHDT skins. Anyways, here are the link, they are best viewed at their full 1080p full screen, enjoy:

Super 80 Pro with UHDT liveries on parade at Manchester @noon:

Same video but taken at @Late afternoon:

And finally some more complex tarmac action with the MD-80s:

Thanks for watching.

I did note you have the hercules any other more military planes you can show off?

Abit out of place here but forgive me

I do have many shots that I have taken over the past year involving military planes. Will post some of my best here over the next few weeks but in the meantime simply browse my Photobucket folders, all my images are stored there, simply pick a relevant directory. Here http://s264.photobucket.com/albums/ii172/Soya4me/TV Setup/FSX/FSX Resized/ and here http://s264.photobucket.com/albums/ii172/Soya4me/TV Setup/FSX/2010/

Here are just a few in the meantime:

Inspirational shots Soya, I'm always left in awe of the visual treat that is your pictures. The video's damn good to for a 1st attempt. Me thinks I need go investigate the NL scenery and the ENB Mod series which I've never heard of

Thanks and yes you must check those both out, the NL2000 scenery is free, just very large in size and the ENB mod is something you won't be able to live without once you used it a few times.

Thanks for sharing, Soya. It's great to see what FSX can achieve, and your shots always prompt me to go off and find new add-ons that I've gotta try. Which AI Traffic addon do you use?

I hadn't heard of the ENB Mod either, so I'll check that out. The tweaking guide that you linked to in your first post was also really useful - thanks! Once I get stuff tweaked I'll try to get some shots on here of my own...

Thanks and I use Just Flight's Traffic X although I recently purchased AirtrafficFX from Flight1 as they has some neat features. Look forward to your shots.

 

[Soya]

Greetings fellow simmers,

Where would the FS community be without the enormous amount of freeware software for flight sims? Whether this freeware software is made by talented individuals or a company, they all enrich the world of flight sim. These talented people give up their passion, skills and free time to give us hours upon hours of enjoyment for our flight sim world. My humble appreciation goes to all of them and in tribute to them, I will be doing the occasional freeware spotlight pick and do a series of screen shots on it.

So here is my second freeware spotlight, this time showing off the wonderful FSX KLM Lockheed Electra II by the very talented Team FS KBT & paint job by Fabio Cabral. I fell for the beauty of this aircraft as soon as I loaded it up in FSX, it is elegant, it is a classic and it is shiny! The model and paintjob are excellent, IMO nearly payware standard. Also in the spotlight is a freeware scenery package that is fast becoming my favourite scenery, from the NL2000 team, the excellent NL2000v4 photo-real Netherlands. Other addons used were REX2, FSWC & ENB mod and all shots are unedited apart from resize & JPGed.

So please enjoy this series:

Thank you for taking the time to view these.

 

[Soya]

Fantastic pictures, really good quality. I used to play FSX when it first came out, but my pc then wasn't a very good spec. Now I can run it and do it justice I cant find the disk doh! I've moved home twice since I last played it so it could be anywhere lol.

I dont know much about the add-ons, but as soon as I find the game again I'll take a look at your links and give it a bash.

Have you got any London docklands or Ibiza night shots?

Thanks, I do have London X and IBiza X, payware addon sceneries from Aerosoft. They both very good but London X is pretty heavy on FPS (at high settings ofcourse) and Ibiza X at night would be pretty dark. Not sure when I will get time to take some shots, but if you checkout the sceneries at Aerosoft.com you can see lots of screenshots of their sceneries.

@Soya

I remember in the screenshot thread you posted pictures of f-14 tomcats, you said they were freeware and i was just wondering where i could get them.

Also, i like doing the carrier mission, is there anyway i can choose the f-14 and use the carrier, as i can't find it when i want to do free flights.

Cheers

If you check the file library at flightsim.com and search for 'DINO', you should get the needed links for the F-14. As for missions, AFAIK, whatever mission your are doing, once loaded up you can pause and simply switch to a different aircraft and continue doing the mission, the mission parameters should still work for whatever plane you select.

That c17 looks fantastic! Who made it and is it payware or free? Thanks for posting!

That particular C-17 is payware from Alphasim, I believe there is a freeware version floating about on flightsim.com, just search their library for c-17.

 

[Soya]

My pleasure, that scenery really is something special especially as it is freeware, nice shots btw.

I just finished making 2 FSX flight recordings over NL2000v4 scenery, they came out pretty well. One is in DX9 the other mainly in DX10, atm I got 2 problems which I am trying to iron out while doing FSX recordings, FRAPS kills the frame rates, so even though I am getting 30+fps, as soon as I use fraps esp at 1080p, it halves the frames, so the videos look a bit stuttery. The other problem is video compression, from the initial recording and to the time I UL it to youtube, it loses much quality. Can't be avoided I think due to the original FRAPS recording files being HUGE, so I compress it down using window movie maker then UL it to youtube which I think must compress it down even more, cause when I watch the youtube recording at 1080p, it doesn't look anywhere as good as my resulting video from window movie maker. Still, c'est la vie.

Anyhow, enjoy these 2 FSX flight recorded videos I made, best viewed at 1080p (click on video title, should open a new window, select 1080p, let it load up the red bar, then view full screen).

Short flight(DX9) above Lelystad:

Flight(DX10) from Lelystad to Soesterberg:

Thanks for watching.

 

[Soya]

Greetings fellow simmers,

I thought I would never get some spare time to post some more of my screen shots, but finally squeezed in a post to bring you all my latest creation of screen shots. For the first time ever, I did some mild editing on these particular screen shots, nothing fancy as I am not a graphic artist and I prefer my screen shots to remain as close a possible to what I see on my screen. I kept the edits fairly simple (occasional sharpness/blurring/colour balance & clarity/light spots) so hopefully it won't be too over the top for most people's taste.

Anyhow, enjoy my first 10 'mildly spiced and edited' screen shots on Jets:

Thank you for your time, hope you enjoyed the view.

 

[Soya]

Thank you both and yes, for the first time ever I tried to do a little bit of editing. Not too over the top as I do prefer to remain as close to what I see on screen as possible. But its pretty interesting and challenging to do these slight edits just to make the shot look a bit more like a photograph. Anyhow, glad you both enjoyed it, and here is another batch I just finished over the weekend, this time props:

And last but not least, my personal favourite:

Thanks for taking the time to view my work.

 

[Soya]

Soya, like myself, etc etc Soya, feel free to add or subtract from this!

You covered that very nicely thanks, I will add two more things. REX now has a free addon texture package made available for itself, called REX Overdrive. It basically adds a load of extra themes and textures (mainly clouds/sky themes) and it weighs in at @3.5GB zipped and @9GB installed. I can tell you though, its makes REX even better, some of the new cloud textures are simply stunning, so get REX now cause with overdrive, it makes this the best value payware package for FSX. The second thing I will add in reference to water is this, I found a nice little mod to change the default shader2.0 in FSX to 3.0, check it out here http://forums1.avsim.net/topic/283701-bojotes-shader-30-mod-for-fsx/ this apparently should give a nice boost to ATI owners.

Thanks for the heads-up! I have heard of REX, seems to be the one to go for then. I'm struggling with fps near airports (7fps at Rotterdam ) and only getting 15-23 fps when flying above netherlands with that wonderful NL2000 scenery so may have to give that a miss or face flying slideshow-stylie! Even at 4.25GHz E8400 I'm severely cpu-limited here (my gpu only once reached 50% usage, but usually hovers around 30%).

Inspired by Soya's slightly shopped images, here are a few of my own (with a bog standard untouched .bmp straight outta FRAPS for comparison at the end. All of this is freeware from the plane to the scenery.
*snip*

Very nice shots, I am surprised though that you fps is so low with your dual core running at 4.25Ghz. I'm using a E8600 running at 4Ghz so in effect, your PC should handle FSX slightly better then mine. My guess is your settings/fsx.cfg and/or tweaks. Please do check out the links I have posted previously, the main one would be this http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html read it through carefully and completely and decide which tweaks would suit you best, no need to do them all, also make sure you follow the sublinks which can give you lots of improvements as well. Make use of the ENB mod and keep FSX bloom option ticked off cause that is a real FPS killer, keep your AI low to moderate or completely off when not at airports, again this should save FPS. IMO keep your water details setting at 2xLOW, 2xHIGH/MAX can again heavily effect your FPS. Hope that will help. PS only the last 2 series of screen shots I have posted are slightly edited, normally I keep them pure. Even then, the edits were minor (little blur or sharpening/some light spots/colour clarity), but I thought the results looked pretty nice.

Nice pics, Devrij.

etc etc- Soya linked to an excellent guide in his first post of this thread... have you tried any of that?

Indeed, check them out, should help loads.



Cheers all, happy flying.

 

[Soya]

Thanks Soya, I'd got distracted and forgot about this new add-on... currently killing my Internet connection to download it - it's massive!

That it is... this is why I love the FS community atm. There is large thriving community out there that is producing a constant steam of ever improving addons that is either free or very good value. Complete the opposite on the nosedive the rest of the gaming industry has been doing for the past 5 years or so. Everything is becoming more buggy, shallow, pricier, less satisfying and you can forget about long term enjoyment (@1 week for a game if you're luck)

Cheers for the tips, last time I looked at that guide I was running vanilla and didn't need any tweaks. Not so anymore! I'll have a bash at fine-tuning it again (I'm pretty sure I have bloom on atm). As always, thanks for your advice and the great pics.

A pleasure, FSX is and always will be a bit of beast to tame & keep under control but if you do invest the time to get to know your own beast, it can lead to many years of enjoyment and frustration free flying.

A big thanks for making this thread Soya, i've found the info in here really useful and some of the pictures you and the others have posted really do amaze me

Here are a few screens from my FSX :
*snip*

My pleasure, I simply do what the FS community has been doing for years, sharing of ideas and addons. Your pics are looking really good, my guess is you have NL2000v4 installed (pic 1) but not in pic 4 for some reason (that is a Schiphol approach right?) unless that is an older screenshot, you also have REX (don't forget to get their latest free overdrive package) and is that the default 747?

As for the quality of the screen shots themselves, look like both compression and quality you got sorted, they are looking good. Is your original res 1920x1080 resized to 1280x960? Can I suggest two things though when it comes to taking screen shots, firstly, make sure you press ALT to remove the grey option bar at the top so that it doesn't become part of the screen shot, 2nd tip, in FSX.CFG there are 2 lines you may want to change:

ChangeTime=0.000000
TransitionTime=0.00000

These 2 lines control the red message for view etc on the top right corner of the screen, I believe they are set to a default of 20 or 30 seconds but by entering 0.00000 the message will simply not show up, very handy for taking regular and many screenshots. Also there are several lines in FSX.CFG which mention Info*****=True (ie InfoBrakesEnable=True) this means it will display the red message on the lower part of your screen when the brakes are on, again annoying for taking screen shots, just change any of them to False and the message will no longer appear.

EDIT: Can't be sure from your screen shots, but if you're not already using the ENB mod for FSX, you should look into it. (adds HD lighting at little FPS cost)


Cheers all.

 

[Soya]

Soya, whats your thoughts on using an SSD for FSX?

I would be all for it cause I'm using SSDs with FSX now for about 6 months and pretty happy with it. I did buy some pretty cheap SSDs, so not the best specced SSDs but still made a very nice difference compared to my old 500GB mechanical HD. If you read on some of the links I posted about FSX tweaking etc, somewhere in there they discuss SSDs, so far all the news on using SSDs for FSX is good, it speeds up loading (obviously) but also more importantly, reduces the dreaded blurries and slight lag pauses within FSX when it needs to load up airports that come into view. I'm planning to buy an entire new system over Xmas hopefully (if I can sell this setup first though) and with what I have learned so far, I would use 2 very fast SSDs with SATA3 connection, 1 as my main drive and 1 as my FSX install drive, it should run rather nicely .

In the meantime, here are some more shots (again slightly edited here and there) similar to my previous 2 screen shot posts but this time with Aerosoft's Airbus X and REX overdrive.

Enjoy:

 

[Soya]

I have a Samsung 1TB drive as my main drive with FSX on it and its running pretty sweet apart from a lot of microstutters are low levels. Shader Model Fix made a huge difference.

I don't use that many of the fsx.cfg tweaks really. I think an SSD would help too but would need a fairly large one. Do you use UTX Europe or GEX or just REX as the only environment addon?

I use REX and many photoreal scenery addon which takes up butt loads of HD space. Hence why I have 4x 128GB SSDs in Raid0 as my FSX drive. That is the main downside to photoreal scenery, ie NL2000v4 at full install is @32GB.

I've always meant to get more into FSX, especially with all the other aircraft available via download. Does anyone recommend specific websites, a simple google brings up a few links but was unsure if anyone had experience and felt some should be steered clear from or not?

Thanks

Are you talking about freeware or payware aircrafts?

 

[Soya]

Soya, May i ask what spec you are running?

OCUK build Sugo Lan box, E8600 4Ghz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, ATI 4870x2 2048MB (Although recently changed to a Nvidia GTX 480), 2x Raptors Raid0 4x 128GB SSDs Raid0, Win 7 64bit.

what controllers does eveyone use?

I use Saitek X52 nearly all the time, I did invest in the entire Saitek Yoke/Pedals/Quadrant/Instrument range but I hardly use it atm. I recommend the X52, should be able to find it cheap and it does pretty much everything within FSX once you program all the buttons. Oh and TrackIR would be a worthy investment too.

Have you tried the new REX Overdrive? I use FSGenesis Mesh and UTX Europe but I think the latter hits performance pretty bad.

Can you recommend any good UK photoreal scenery?

Yup, DL REX overdrive as soon as it came out, very large but very nice. Got some really great extra HD clouds/skies. As for decent UK photoreal scenery, @2 years ago I bought VFR Real Scenery from Justflight.com which cover most of the UK. At the time I thought it was pretty good, that was until I discovered other photoreal sceneries, some of them freeware, which were much better, alas none of them cover the UK. AFAIK this VFR real scenery is the only one that cover the UK atm, unless someone else knows different? I highly recommend you DL NL2000v4, it free and its easily the best photoreal scenery I have seen, it doesn't cover UK but Holland is just next door .

 

[Soya]

I would say minimum requirement would be FSX deluxe & REX, priced @ as stated above, plus a reasonable joystick to get a bit more control over the actual flying. As for scenery/planes & mission etc, there is plenty of freeware to keep you busy for years and tons of payware if you need anything specific which you feel cannot find in freeware.

There is simply so much you can do with FSX, mostly to do with flying of course, but you can even drive cars or ships about. The FS community is what is keeping FS alive, not just the tons of freeware/payware addons but also online flying, learning about flying, enjoying the view around different parts of the world or admiring different aircraft for their modelling or perfomance, airtraffic control, navigation, doing missions or simply fly any type of aircraft you ever fancied having a go at. Whether you're in it for wanting to learn for your PPL(private pilot license)/retired or wannabe pilot who enjoys keeping their flying skills up or just a casual flyer, FSX has it all.

But it may not be everyone's cup of tea, don't expect awesome visual & performance at the start unless you have a high spec PC and decent addons to FSX (whether freeware or payware), don't expect intense flying action like in a combat sim (HAWK for instance). So knowing that you do need to invest @£80-£100 for both software and a decent joystick, I would carefully consider it first and do plenty of reading and research into the Flight Sim world & community before taking that leap, but if the bug does grab you then believe me, no other PC 'game' has given me more hours of use and joy then FSX has, not even a few MMORPGs which sucked a few years of my life and left me feeling I wasted them. Whereas with FSX, although I properly never learn to fly, I do have a satisfying feeling that I learned something about flying and I can see myself doing this more and more especially the closer I get to retirement.

My 2c's.

 

[Soya]

I seriously considering getting REX. Just 1 quick question though.

Basically I have FSX on my SSD and probably wont be able to get rex on the space left (20GB). I do however have plenty of space on my samsung F3. Can you choose where to instal REX or does it have to go in the FSX folder?

Also, would it be worth moving FSX to my HDD and putting REX on the SSD?

PS: cheers for this thread Soya, I'm an aeronautical engineer and the flight sim bug is really starting to bite. I have toyed with bog standard FSX (no add ons bar a couple of freeware a/c) but am really looking for more, esp after seeing your pics in this thread!

My pleasure, once the flight sim bug bites and you have a decent setup (hardware & software) it can really be very much enjoyed for weeks/months and even years. As for installing REX, I have REX & Overdrive installed on my 4x SSDs Raid 0, but on hindsight I think it would be better to install REX on a storage device, after all, you are installing GBs of textures that are not directly used by FSX. Once you install them it looks at your theme selections, makes a backup of the original files and then copies the selected textures into the relevant FSX folders. Correct me if I am wrong but I would say keep it off the SSDs, only use files that are directly used by FSX (ie its normal install folder x:/microsoft games/flight simulator X/

You will be fine putting REX on the SSD but if you are wanting REX Overdrive then you will need more. I don't imagine there would be a problem with installing REX to the other drive.

See what I said above, would you agree that is the way REX works?

Would definately get overdrive seen as its free! Also, is there any good (~£20-30) switzerland add on anyone can recommend?

Ive seen an Aerosoft one but that £100!!!

It would either be the photoreal Switzerland Pro from Aerosoft, like you mentioned very pricey (got lucky myself and picked up an unwanted box copy a while back) or you could get UTX & GEX Europe which would be cheaper and cover the whole of Europe. I don't know of any other version payware or freeware, but it is a big community out there so there is a chance there could be some photoreal freeware switzerland out. Like NL2000V4 which cover the entire Netherlands and its free!

 

[Soya]

I do remember reading a major FPS problem with UTX concerning road traffic, if you read the UTX part in the link I posted before (http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html) it is towards the bottom. It should hopefully help you.

'Be aware that the UTX 1.2 patch increased car traffic for the USA on side streets.. many systems may find this a hard drag on perf especially in urban. The MAX car slider I would use with this is 5-7% and some older systems need to shut cars down completely by entering the UTX configuration Tool and under the ROAD SURFACE heading DISABLE moving traffic as that is the only way to remove the footprint of cars off the system.. the FSX slider for cars will not remove that footprint even when set to zero'

 

[Soya]

Yup, I use TrackIR4 Pro, the latest is TrackIR5. There are driver installers you can use here http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/06-support/support-download-software-and-manuals.html I tried the later V5 and although nicer then V4 it kept freezing from time to time when I tried to end the program. But either should do, depending on your preference it may require some tweaking, but you can configure it pretty much any way you want. What I learned from it, both the receiver and Pro head set tracker needs to be in a good aligned position. So when you use the software to track where the 3 red infra red lights hit when you are sitting straight and still, it should be close to centre with the red dots as far separated as possible. You may need to angle the receiver a bit as it can swivel somewhat and/or adjust your head tracker that I presume is attached to your headset. I also found out that you need to make sure no other infra-red or bright light source is shining in line with the tracker, ie spot lights, open lamps, candles (especially candles in fact) or bright sun shine coming through the window. These could all interfere with the 3 little infra red light send from the head tracker to the receiver.

So if you have TrackIR4 Pro or even TrackIR5, then I see no reason why you can't get good results. Let me know if I can help further on that matter, it would be a shame to stop using your TrackIR as it makes the flying experience in FSX so much better.