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

lukext · 6 Jan 2011 at 13:50

I'm personally not holding out much hope on MS Flight. I may be surprised.

Remember that it will take developers a while to move to flight from fsx especially if its radically different. Also, after read avsim forums, someone quite rightly said that MS's strategy for flight sims is to release it for hardware that isn't even out yet, so unless they have changed their ways...

Bat fink.. turn up the AA levels or AA filter, that will soon bring your GPU into use.

Soya · 7 Jan 2011 at 08:31

My main concern with the new flight sim is how compatible it will be with FSX addons! I have spend £100s on 3rd party addons for FSX and if the new flight sim is going to be incompatible with these addons, I will not be bothering with it and I will stick with slowly upgrading my hardware over the years to make FSX run better. On a side note, having looked very carefully at the first few videos of MS Flight, it practically looks identical to FSX, especially the ground texturing and autogen. In fact, the difference I see is so little that my hope for downward compatibility is high.

Talking about new hardware, I finally got my new PC up and running. Still in the process of fully installing FSX plus testing & tweaking it, will have some new screen shots up soon.

Devrij · 7 Jan 2011 at 09:23

Soya said:
My main concern with the new flight sim is how compatible it will be with FSX addons! I have spend £100s on 3rd party addons for FSX and if the new flight sim is going to be incompatible with these addons, I will not be bothering with it and I will stick with slowly upgrading my hardware over the years to make FSX run better. On a side note, having looked very carefully at the first few videos of MS Flight, it practically looks identical to FSX, especially the ground texturing and autogen. In fact, the difference I see is so little that my hope for downward compatibility is high.

Talking about new hardware, I finally got my new PC up and running. Still in the process of fully installing FSX plus testing & tweaking it, will have some new screen shots up soon.

Ooh, looking forwards to seeing what kind of perf you get from it. Feeling the same about flight, but have invested less so will make the jump if it's worth it. They're talking all the right talk, we'll have to see how she goes.

chrismscotland · 7 Jan 2011 at 10:10

I really need to pick this up, drooling looking at these shots!
Should I buy FSX and FSX Acceleration?

Soya · 7 Jan 2011 at 10:22

chrismscotland said:
I really need to pick this up, drooling looking at these shots!
Should I buy FSX and FSX Acceleration?

I highly recommend you read through this entire thread as it will give you a better idea on how and what you need to get results like you see in some of the screen shots. Be aware that it can take more then just the basic FSX install & a fair wack of your time to learn and tweak it. But this thread should cover both hardware & software.

Here are my first (kept simple) screen shots of my new FSX PC!
I shall list the FSX configuration at the bottom of this post for those people interested, for now, on with the show:
(unedited & resized)

FSX config:
Resolution 2560x1600x32 16:10 (screen shots resized to 1280x960), using Nick's Nchancer settings (http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-and-nhancer-settings-for-new-drivers-updated_topic36586.html), FSX Bloom & Lens Flare, Max Texture & Autogen, Water Highx2, No AI. With these settings I am getting @45-49 FPS according to FRAPS (when the view is static), with FSX Bloom off, it stays @60FPS (max Vsync).

FSX addons in screen shots:
FSX & Accel, REX2.0 Overdrive, ENB series mod (default), Flytampa TNCM, Coolsky's S80 Pro, McPhat TWA UHDT.

Cosimo · 7 Jan 2011 at 10:47

Soya said:
FSX config:
Resolution 2560x1600x32 16:10 (screen shots resized to 1280x960), using Nick's Nchancer settings (http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-and-nhancer-settings-for-new-drivers-updated_topic36586.html), FSX Bloom & Lens Flare, Max Texture & Autogen, Water Highx2, No AI. With these settings I am getting @45-49 FPS according to FRAPS (when the view is static), with FSX Bloom off, it stays @60FPS (max Vsync).

FSX addons in screen shots:
FSX & Accel, REX2.0 Overdrive, ENB series mod (default), Flytampa TNCM, Coolsky's S80 Pro, McPhat TWA UHDT.

Thanks for this. I've not seen Nick's Nchancers setting and will try them. How are you finding the new setup?

lukext · 7 Jan 2011 at 10:53

Welcome back soya! Nice to see your new rig up and running! I will try to get some Iris Vulcan shots up later and a couple of my captain sim purchases

Love their B-52 although it does need them to tweak the flight dynamics a bit. Have managed the famous zero rotate take-off though!

lukext · 8 Jan 2011 at 13:23

Managed to get my shots up eventually so here goes:

Rex 2 does make for some lovely shots! Addons: Iris Vulcan, Iris F16, Iris A10, Captain Sim B52 and Captain Sim 727, REX 2.0, Replacement european winter ground textures. F16 shot uses Alps LOD 11 mesh and swiss glaciers freeware.

john_s · 8 Jan 2011 at 17:12

lukext said:

Fantastic!

Devrij · 9 Jan 2011 at 00:15

Good and bad news here.

http://polypoke.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/ms-flight-add-on-store/

Looks like FSX add-ons will not be compatible with MS Flight, which at least means new more efficient code. Not so sure how I like the idea of an add-on store managed by MS though.

Purdy · 9 Jan 2011 at 00:36

Hi, im not exactly a massive enthusiast but, ive just purchased , This Joystick

And i'm just wondering what are the best flying games to purchase and how easy can they be to pick up and play, rather excited about getting stuck into some of them and may invest into more expensive equipment if i enjoy it.

Devrij · 9 Jan 2011 at 01:42

Purdy said:
Hi, im not exactly a massive enthusiast but, ive just purchased , This Joystick

And i'm just wondering what are the best flying games to purchase and how easy can they be to pick up and play, rather excited about getting stuck into some of them and may invest into more expensive equipment if i enjoy it.

Depends what kind of experience you're after. FSX is definately more in-depth, simulation-oriented and will take some time to get to grips with. It is, however, worth the time you invest because it just gets better the more time you spend on it learning how to fly/enhancing with mods/add-ons/tweaking performance etc. It is quite a beast to run with all the extras though so you will need a decent rig. What are you running?

If you want something to just dive into, I suggest Wings of Prey which can be quite arcadey if you tone the realism settings down, or more realistic if not. Very pretty game and you can shoot stuff

I personally find FSX more rewarding, but if you want something more casual WoP is great fun.

lukext · 9 Jan 2011 at 11:44

Devrij said:
If you want something to just dive into, I suggest Wings of Prey which can be quite arcadey if you tone the realism settings down, or more realistic if not. Very pretty game and you can shoot stuff I personally find FSX more rewarding, but if you want something more casual WoP is great fun.

This. I have wings of prey for when I want to fly and shoot stuff, FSX for when I just want to fly.

If you have a bit of patience, FSX can be very good. If your after a bit more of a jump in, fly and shoot, wop all the way.

Soya · 9 Jan 2011 at 12:45

There is also IL-2 and Rise of Flight, both more combat orientated and from the WWII & WWI era respectively. FSX is something that can take time to grow on you, it is definitely something that can be very enjoyable if it grabs you but if not, it will and can be very boring. Plus to get the full benefit of FSX you do need to invest both time and money into getting a few addons, read this thread on getting a better idea on what FSX is all about.

Let me share with you my latest test results of my new pc (specs in my sig). I have been mainly concerned with image quality and frame/smoothness performance, both are doing well, in fact I think I have the image quality to its maximum. Tricky part on the image quality was to get used to the new resolution I am running FSX now, previously I used 1920x1080 (1080p) now I'm using 2560x1600 on a 30'' monitor. Having more pixels sure looks good, awesome in fact, tricky part was converting the image bmps I took (16mb each!) to an acceptable size and quality on my photobucket account to share with the forums. Although much of the 'wow' factor from seeing the images at 2560x1600 taken down to 1280x960 with jpg compression is lost, I still hope you will all enjoy the quality of the images here and to come in the future.

For test bed purposes I am sticking with a simple install of FSX atm, just FSX Accel, REX2.0 Overdrive, ENB series mod, Flytampa's TNCM (as I have been using the intro flight of FSX as FPS tester) and Coolsky's Super 80 Pro with McPhat's World Airlines 1 & 2 for the S80 (this is to keep an eye on the maximum image quality). So please let me share with you this latest test series:

Batfink1892 · 9 Jan 2011 at 19:47

Well as you can probably guess, since all the bits came back I havent got round to installing all adds-on etc yet.

To be honest I am thoroughly enjoying the Iris A10 too much to be bothered. Having said that, I have just installed the PMDG 747 and JS41.

Been tweaking away this afternoon and I think I may have finally hit my sweetspot. All settings, bar traffic, set fully right and I am still getting 26-40fps completely smooth flight at EGLL... in the default 747.

Here are some pics taken in the A10 whilst tweaking... Including one over CYVR.

Happy Days!!!

As always, all completely unedited and straight from FSX.

hamesy · 15 Jan 2011 at 15:37

Can anyone shed some light into why installed aircraft aren't loading for me correctly?

At first I thought it was a problem with the aircraft, so I tried another one I installed but still the same problem. I must have tried 10 different aircraft now and they are all the same.

I'm installing them in exactly the same way I've done for years. It's a fresh install of FSX in case that makes a difference and the only addon I've got on there atm is Traffic X.

muttclugg · 15 Jan 2011 at 15:45

Hamsey - Can you actually click fly now and get into the cockpit of the downloaded aircraft? Just wondering if you have only downloaded the model and not the skin?

hamesy · 15 Jan 2011 at 16:03

I can fly them its just they appear completely white. At first I thought the texture files were missing but I tried several other aircraft and the same happens.

The one above has got a custom panel with it and non of the guages work either.

Lodgey · 15 Jan 2011 at 16:19

Do you have preview DX10 mode enabled? I believe some custom aircraft dont work in this mode but if you uncheck the box in settings it should work, hope this helps.

shadow_boxer · 15 Jan 2011 at 18:31

Lodgey said:
Do you have preview DX10 mode enabled? I believe some custom aircraft dont work in this mode but if you uncheck the box in settings it should work, hope this helps.

This. Many old payware aircraft have this problem too.