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

[Soya]

That is a great spec. You must post your GTX 580 Nvidia FSX profile settings. Do you have a current profile you could post?

It will be a while before I am up and running, still waiting for the PC delivery. Alas I got no profile due to my raid array crashing a few weeks ago, I got to reinstall from scratch. But also, sharing FSX.CFG between PCs is usually not a good idea due to the many different variables involved, each PC being different for one. Hence why I created this thread, to share tweaks and useful tweak links.

EVERYTHING ON THE IRIS STOREFRONT - $5 AUD

http://www.irisfss.com/storefront/index.php

Bagged the vulcan, f16 and A10 for less than £10 WOOP

That is crazy value, I bagged nearly the entire shop, @£50 for 11 aircraft and 1 sound set! I have the good feeling about having more aircraft to play with, I got a great deal plus I supported IRIS by buying their products. Now all I need is a PC with FSX installed

 

[Soya]

Between reinstalling your whole fsx and testing these out that should keep you busy over the Christmas holidays!

And then some, got an insane amount of work ahead of me, thankfully, taking time off as from this Wednesday. Whooo

In the meantime, just went through some shots I did before my PC went down, here is a selection, enjoy folks:

 

[Soya]

Lovely shots as always Soya. Where is the first Continental themed one taken? What scenery is that in the easyjet and 707?

Thanks, the continental I took a while back, its FTX Brisbane. The scenery taken with the Easyjet & 707 is taken just south of San Franciso area with the excellent freeware from Blue Sky Scenery.

 

[Soya]

Nice shots there folks.


XMAS SALES TIPS

Most of you already know about the incredible IRIS sale, $5 AUS for any of their planes but here are some other Xmas bargain I thought I would let you all know about. (I bought nearly their entire fleet of aircraft, 12 aircraft at $60AUD = @£38!!!)

FlightSim Store 12 days to Xmas sale, some great bargains there http://www.fspilotshop.com/12daysale.php (Thinking about their Vertigo range which even beat the Xmas discount offered directly from Vertigo website)

VRS F18 special Santa code, 30% of their top quality F-18 product. http://www.vrsimulations.com/ (wanted this bird for a while but just a tad too expensive, got it now though at @£22)

The excellent airport range from FSdreamteam http://www.fsdreamteam.com/products.html if you enter their discount code (http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=3896.0) + add their multiple buy code you can get a very nice discount @30-40%. (Ended up buying nearly all their airports, total price for each individually would have been @£180, multiple buy and Xmas code discount came to £105)

More online stores are offering Xmas discount/code but none that I felt were worth putting up here, might want to check out Just Flight and make sure you shop around. Even if a place shows a discount, some other etailer may have a better discount, point in fact Vertigo Studios selling all their a/c at 30% discount, whereas Flightsim Store sell the same range at 50% discount.

Enjoy your shopping.

 

[Soya]

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.

 

[Soya]

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.

 

[Soya]

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:

 

[Soya]

Hey folks,

Here are my latest screen shots AND 2 new videos, this time showing a bit of MD-11 action with some excellent HD liveries by good ol' McPhat. Along side these shots I also made 2 new FSX videos this week based on the same HD MD-11 so now you can see how I get my screen shots with some wonderful moving images in full 1080p glory (mind you, alas youtube does compress the video files a great deal, so there is some lost of quality and a bit of 'grain'). So if you fancy seeing the videos check below or view the full 1080p version at youtube.

Showcase MD-11:

Action MD-11:

As for the screen shots from some of those videos, enjoy these right here, resized from 2560x1600 but unedited:
(NOTE: on a few of the shots I left on the fps counter from fraps, so you can see how fast it runs on the PC at 2560x1600)

 

[Soya]

Thanks and good luck with your new system. btw be patient and make sure you properly set up your PC & FSX to make it run as well as it can. I recommend following Nick's guides on both FSX install and windows 7 setup.

 

[Soya]

Greetings all,

Here is my latest short series of shots, accompanied with a FSX made video, dedicated to the superbly made area of Shawbury Fields. The 3D objects that are placed on top of Horizon's VFR Gen X scenery with Earth Simulation's Shawbury Fields, really does make the entire flying experience even more true to live and a real pleasure to view. In with the mix is the very nice C208B Grand Caravan from Carenado.

So please enjoy both the video (best watched at 1080p) and the screen shots:

(all shots unedited apart from resized)

 

[Soya]

Looks like your new PC is chewing up FSX very nicely, looking good there.

As for the wide view variable, I always have it set to False even when using 1920x1080 (16:9) and now using 2560x1600 (16:10). I never noticed a performance hit but I never used it as I just don't like the view it gives. It just does not look right to me, I tend to run FSX mostly with external views and wideaspect is bad. All my screen shots now and in the past were taken with it off.

IMO leave it to false.

 

[Soya]

Nice shots there shadow.

As for the MS new Flight, to me it will all depend on how 'compatible' it will be with FSX, especially when it comes to the 100s of pounds worth of 3rd party addons I have. If I cannot use any of them in the new flight, I won't be bothering. Plus, it also heavily depends on how they are going market addons for this new flight, if it is anything like Railworks 2, they can shove this new flight right up their tight MS behinds.

As for new PC & memory specs for FSX, you indeed do NOT require more then 6GB (last year DDR3 systems) or 4-8GB (sandybridge). I am pretty sure you have an easier time OCing a 4GB system then a 8GB system so I would say, stick with 4GB.

As for SLI or using more then 1 GFX card, for FSX definitely no, but if you are planing to use the PC for other games as well, as I do, then SLI is an option. I use 2x GTX580, it has no advantages in FSX but it does not seem to bother it either.

Last, here are some delightful random picks from shots I took of my previous (RIP) PC.

Enjoy:
(all shots are unedited just resized for posting purposes)

 

[Soya]

I must say that I am breathing a sigh of relief and I'm glad I decided to stick with the tested X58 & i7 950 chipset series when I bought my new PC for FSX. I knew the new sandybridge was on the way when I bought a new system just before Xmas but 1) I though prices were going to be sky high and 2) didn't think it was going to be a big jump forward from the old i7s 3) always risky investing in the 1st generation of new hardware.

When Sandybridge was released, I was could have kicked myself up the a$$, as it was cheaper then I thought, seem to run a fair bit faster then my current setup and hardware was readily available for it. Now however, with the recent OC problems and the official Intel statement that certain m/b can degrade the system over time, I am very relieved I stuck with older and tried tech. Hope no-one else here will get bitten by the problems of the new sandybridge.


Noxia: Devrij is correct, check this thread for tips and pointers on what software is worth getting. NL2000v4 & Blue Sky Scenery is deffo worth a look.

 

[Soya]

Soya - I was toying with the idea of swapping the ATi 5850 for a GTX470. Any input on whether you think this is worthwhile? I don't think there is much performance difference but nVidia is meant to be far better for FSX.

I can only speak from my own experience. I went from ATI 4870x2 to a GTX480 then 2x GTX580s. Graphically there is hardly any difference between ATI & Nvidia when it comes to visuals in FSX, when it comes to frame rate it gets a bit trickier. From my own experience I found FPS between the cards to be similar BUT Nvidia seemed to have a smoother and more even FPS during flying. Overall the experience I had was better with a Nvidia card then an ATI card, I think this is mainly down to how Nvidia cards handles the old type of shaders in FSX. Do not forget you can use Bojote's Shader 3.0 which apparently does a better job with ATI cards. If you have the money though, I would recommend the best Nvidia card you can afford for use in FSX.

 

[Soya]

Here is my final batch of screen shots from my old FSX PC (RIP) which died late last year. These shots follow on from my last batch as I felt there were a few more shots left over that might be enjoyed by others.

So please do enjoy the view:
(all shots are unedited apart from resized)

 

[Soya]

Hey folks,

Now that my new FSX PC is fully up and running, I really wanted to challenge the new system and see if I could still match the visuals from all my previous shots taken with my older PC. And what better way to challenge that then with the 3 freeware American Airline Ultra High Definition Textures for Captain Sim's 757 from McPhat, throw in a nice airport (Flytampa's TNCM), add some great scenery (freeware NL2000v4) and to top it all off, why not try and make a video based around the same theme!

So here we have it, Ageless American in both video and screen shot flavour, take your pick. The video can be seen via this link Ageless American Video best watched in full 1080p glory using full screen. I would appreciate if you could add a vote on the youtube channel (whether you like it or not) and perhaps a comment as well, I am trying to gauge the interest people have in the flight sim videos I make (and hopefully will continue to make).

Time for the screen shots, enjoy this series based on some of the classic American Airlines liveries, Ageless American:
(all screen shots are unedited just resized)

My thanks for your time and I hope you enjoyed the view here.

 

[Soya]

Been a little while since I posted but here is a compilation I made showing 15 of my personal favorite wing views screen shots. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did in making them.

(unedited just resized):

 

[Soya]

Which scenery add ons are you using there dude?

Devrij is correct in his statement, the excellent NL2000v4.

Other sceneries (airports) I used are Flytampa's TNCM, UK2000 Birmingham & Heathrow.


I have recently been enjoying flying a few freighters in FSX while admiring the view of both the scenery and planes. Some great new HD liveries were added to my hangar recently with the likes of PMDG's MD-11 & LDS 767, all cargo liveries. The 5th World airlines addition for the MD-11 and a 1st release for the LDS 767 from the talented chaps at McPhat all in glorious HD quality paints. It also gave me a chance to enjoy my latest airports addition from FTX and a bit of freeware scenery from Blue Sky Scenery. And lets not forget REX2.0 overdrive, another important ingredient to increase the viewing pleasure within FS.

So please let me share with you a few captured moments of my times with the freighters:

 

[Soya]

Which scenery are you using for the "Eva Air Cargo" shot?

That would be the excellent freeware photo scenery from Blue Sky Scenery.


Here is another selection for you this time some specially chosen shots featuring various BA liveries from the past few decades.

 

[Soya]

Nice shots as always

Is that a working train I see in the forth shot? Where did it come from? I'd like to see more trains in my AI world

Its indeed a moving train and it comes as part of UK2000 Gatwick v3.0.

What free mods/addons if any do you recommend that will improve fps without killing the eye candy ?

I suggest checking this thread for many recommendations on addons both payware & freeware that will improve the visual of FSX. You could also check the FSX library at both AVSIM and FlightSim, tons of free stuff and I think they have a comments/rating system.

and while I am here, I been catching up on my ever growing library of screen shots. Here is a selection that has passed my scrupulous level of quality control. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did in making them:

(resized from 2560x1600 and unedited apart from added occasional minor light spots for taxi/landing/nav lights as the method of AI I use, it does not always switch on those lights)

Hope you enjoyed the view.

(Addons used: REX 2.0 Overdrive, ENB mod, LDS 767, McPhat LDS 767 WA2, UK2000 Liverpool, FTX Melbourne, custom AI traffic using Traffic X, AirtrafficFX & formation tool)