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

'We know why you fly'. That would be the current slogan of American Airlines, probably my 2nd most favorite livery airliner. This also reminds me to mention that McPhat studios have just recently released a wonderful freeware UHDT (Ultra High Definition Textures - 4096) AA livery for PMDG's NGX (this is their 3rd freeware UHDT livery for the NGX). Although I been very busy recently, spending much of my precious spare time on making several FSX videos which can be viewed via THIS LINK (be sure to checkout some of my latest videos in 1080p), I had to spend some time creating some new screen shots with McPhat's excellent AA livery for the NGX (plus dig out some older shots of other AA aircraft). So I dedicate this post to American Airlines throughout the ages, 'We know why you fly', please do enjoy:

(Coolsky's Super 80 Pro with McPhat UHDT freeware AA livery)
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2009-8-11_16-56-41-947.jpg


(Captain Sim's 737, 727 & 707 with repaints from Captain Sim's website)
fsx2011-09-1601-24-32-39.jpg


fsx2011-09-2001-24-54-36.jpg


(Captain Sim's 757 with McPhat's UHDT freeware AA Livery)
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(Level-D LDS Boeing 767 with McPhat's HD freeware AA livery)
fsx2011-04-0504-06-33-92.jpg


(PMDG's NGX with McPhat's UHDT freeware AA livery)
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fsx2012-01-2017-00-24-66.jpg


(AA NGX at FSDT's KLAX)
fsx2012-01-2017-06-54-42.jpg


(I also used REX2.0 Overdrive and various ENB mod settings)

Thank you for taking your time viewing my work.
 
..as ever Soya.. :cool:

So I took the opportunity on VATSIM to conquer my noob fear and fly into London and land at London City airport in my ATR from Liverpool.

There is a known bug in the ATR's FMC when loading in STARS from my EFB. This has been driving me nuts as it crashed FSX every time. But it seems a simple workaround is to delete the STAR from the FMC, before going to the 2nd page of VNAV.

My flight was good and I transitioned across London okay. Things fell apart when I was asked to go 'Direct To' Lambourne VOR. (I was more than happy on my set route). I added the VOR to my route and then lost it all. I ended up in the wrong direction. Then ATC had to claw this back for me. My altitude was all over the shop. Through ATC's patience, I eventually got vectored onto the glideslope.

It was up to ATC to tell me that I didn't have the right ILS freq tuned in :o and I'm sure I wasn't descending on the glide slope. I then turned Autopilot off and I flew in manually for a reasonable landing.

Overall a great experience and a recommended one for all you virtual pilots.

Also, if any VFR pilots fancy flying on a Tuesday on VATSIM, Teamspeak, with the CIXVFR Club, it's always a virtually fun night.
 
Vtec9k said:
A new Red Bull skin for my C337H
Click to expand...

Is that the C337 from Cerenado?
Where did you get the skin from? I've got that add on myself and love it.

I fly mostly GA and helos around the UK and North America.

Oh and a couple of shots of mine:

YsbP9.jpg.png
hcWBF.jpg
spx3Y.jpg
XVhlU.jpg

No add ons except the Marine One model.
 
spudbynight said:
How do I make FSX look as pretty as some of the screenshots on here? It looks pretty rough in comparison on my PC.
Click to expand...

Probably mainly down to freeware/payware addons, having a decent PC helps as well, running it on a high resolution with decent AA & AF settings. For more info:
I highly recommend reading this entire thread (if you bypass non relevant info like screenshots, Virtual online flying & tech talk on certain aircrafts, ie NGX) then all the info to improve your FSX will be there, as was the purpose of this thread. I may as well tell you now, it will be a considerable time investment to improve FSX, but if you stick with it, it can be very much worth it, as you can see from my screen shots.

And talking about screen shots, enjoy these folks:

(unedited apart from resized & JPG'd)
fsx2011-07-0803-35-09-53.jpg


fsx2011-08-1914-48-27-46.jpg


fsx2011-04-2316-59-20-31.jpg


fsx2011-10-2803-54-23-34.jpg


(lite edits, blur, light spots etc)
fsx2011-08-1910-54-38-22.jpg


fsx2011-08-2101-42-07-05.jpg


fsx2011-12-0414-14-18-46.jpg


fsx2011-10-3001-21-32-70.jpg


(composite edits)
fsx2011-12-0412-26-27-65.jpg


fsx2011-10-1303-56-37-34.jpg


(All various addons, settings, REX themes etc)
 
Beautiful screens as ever :)

I'm getting there slowly, I now have REX and TEX, PMDG NGX, PMDG Jetstream (very impressed with them both), and VFR for the east of England :) Would like to get some Airports also, make a massive difference to how it all looks. The PMDG planes make the original FSX planes look like something out of FS 98 :D
 
soya, how do you populate your airports? Is it AI traffic or static models? Im referring in particular to the 3rd pic of you latest batch. Im using UT2 at the mo because they supposedly have the best models for an AI package, but they are still pretty simple and not that pleasing close up., certianly nothing like what your pictures look like. I have tried using the tools provided with to swap out the AI planes with some of the proper models i have not none have really worked:

BA A321 - replaced by standard fsx model with ba livery. Very few spawn and never seem to move

BA 767 - replaced with captainsim 767. Wont spawn at all

BA 777 - replaced with freeware 777. Wont spawn at all

Ryanair 737 - replaced by NGX with ryanair livery. Does spawn and move but missing fan discs. I think thats due to an anti piracy measure (i do own the product legitimately), not really much i can do there as i guess the AI isnt loading it properly

Virgin 747 - replaced by PMDG 747. Does spawn and move but center gear bogeys are missing and nose gear is rotated 90 degrees. Again perhaps some kind of anti piracy thing?

considering mytraffic x 5.4 as i hear they have improved a few models significantly (i had 5.2 and thought it looked awful), and it uses flight plans now instead of direct routes (another thing i like about ut2) but i cant find anything really conclusive on it yet
 
Soya said:
Probably mainly down to freeware/payware addons, having a decent PC helps as well, running it on a high resolution with decent AA & AF settings. For more info:
I highly recommend reading this entire thread (if you bypass non relevant info like screenshots, Virtual online flying & tech talk on certain aircrafts, ie NGX) then all the info to improve your FSX will be there, as was the purpose of this thread. I may as well tell you now, it will be a considerable time investment to improve FSX, but if you stick with it, it can be very much worth it, as you can see from my screen shots.
Click to expand...

I got this for my wife to fly so don't want to spend any cash in case she loses interest.

I have an i7 920@4Ghz with a GeForce470 in it. Will that have enough oomph to cope with things at 1920x1200?
 
What do people want out of flight simulator x?

Do you want:
Pure beauty or sheer performance? (e.g. beauty, maxing out everything but only at 15-20fps or sheer performance, making sure you get 60+ fps)


Realistic settings (Addons, ASE/REX Weather) to maximise your simulator experience?


How about the planes you fly, do you fly a large amount of planes in the simulator for fun or do you stick to one or two aircraft you really enjoy/want to learn.

Are you a pilot, or aspire to be one, or are you simply an enthusiast?

If you are a pilot, general aviation, chartered or commercial?



I love airplanes, my goal in life is to study Avionics at uni (Engineering) and get my PPL. However, the idea of chartered does get me excited. I play FSX and mainly fly the cessna 150/172 and when I feel a bit adventurous the cessna mustang, As I love it's modern avionics.

I've done a few patterns in Airbus A320 and even took off in the A380 (didnt land it) and I feel these are fun planes, but they're so big. I don't really enjoy Boeing, the 747 is iconic but just not for me. The 737 is small enough but again, I prefer Airbus. Mainly because it's fly by wire.

So, thoughts?
 
1000 posts woop woop!!

Colasanto, it's a balancing act with my PC. Of course I'd love both, but I've got config files for different flights. As I've quoted another site before, you don't need high detail on the ground if you're 35000+ up in the air or high mountainous terrain settings if you’re in Holland, or high water detail if you’re over the Gobi desert.

The best thing I have is three screens. One for Plan-G or Aivlasoft EFB. One for my VC and the other for undocked controls and FSInn.

I always fly with real weather through REX and yes the only flaw is the weather transition whereby the clouds will disappear and then re-render.

In the virtual flying club, they prefer the default 172. It's got everything, easy to fly and a good introductory aircraft. On my own, I love:

  1. ATR72 – You can fly into London City. (it’s a love / hate relationship really)
  2. BN2 Islander – Easy to fly, robust, just like a big Cessna.
  3. iFly 737NG – Simply awesome. Especially the autoland of the BBJ3.

The new Boeing 777 is fly by wire. They keep ‘standards’ to make it easier to train pilots, hence the yoke, the MCP, throttle console etc. Hopefully PMGD will be on the case with this one! So if you're familiar with one, the rest shouldn't be difficult to pick up. Same with Airbus I guess.

Once I got to grips with the FMC in the ATR, then I felt I actually understood flight plans, SIDs and STARs. This made the 737 easier to pick up.

If you’re interest in flying VFR, join a club like CIXVFR. You need a VATSIM account, headset, teamspeak to fly. Tuesdays is especially good! Beginners go shared cockpits to learn the ropes. I also learnt there’s one in Bristol called bristolflightsimgroup who meet (in real life) once a month. I might catch up with them in February. This has really helped me learn ATC and I now understand what they're on about at LIVEATC website.

I’ve always had a thing for flying and would love a PPL. But the cost of 40 hours flying training is expensive. Then if I got my PPL and wanted to fly e.g. from Sandown to Kemble, it would/could cost in the region of 6+ gallons per hour in fuel in a single prop, let alone the hire of the plane and landing fees. They liken it to the cost of running a 2nd / 3rd car, which I sadly couldn’t afford at this point in my life.

Then the dream lives on with: http://www.pipistrel.si/plane/virus-sw/overview
 
Colasanto said:
What do people want out of flight simulator x?

Do you want:
Pure beauty or sheer performance? (e.g. beauty, maxing out everything but only at 15-20fps or sheer performance, making sure you get 60+ fps)


Realistic settings (Addons, ASE/REX Weather) to maximise your simulator experience?


How about the planes you fly, do you fly a large amount of planes in the simulator for fun or do you stick to one or two aircraft you really enjoy/want to learn.

Are you a pilot, or aspire to be one, or are you simply an enthusiast?

If you are a pilot, general aviation, chartered or commercial?



I love airplanes, my goal in life is to study Avionics at uni (Engineering) and get my PPL. However, the idea of chartered does get me excited. I play FSX and mainly fly the cessna 150/172 and when I feel a bit adventurous the cessna mustang, As I love it's modern avionics.

I've done a few patterns in Airbus A320 and even took off in the A380 (didnt land it) and I feel these are fun planes, but they're so big. I don't really enjoy Boeing, the 747 is iconic but just not for me. The 737 is small enough but again, I prefer Airbus. Mainly because it's fly by wire.

So, thoughts?
Click to expand...

Ive only recently got into getting addons for fsx, as up until about 2 years ago i had an ancient pc that could barely run the stock fsx. However once i started, i couldnt stop. My aim is to get the UK as real as possible (genx and whatever 3d packages i can get, ie uk2000, treescapes, londonx etc.). for flight sim i see 20+fps as decente as i dont think it needs to be silky smooth to be enjoyed.

I am also doing my ATPL training (passed cpl at the end of last year, currently just started the instrument rating), and it really opened my eyes as to how innacurate some things in the fsx planes are, and how realistic PMDGs line of products are.

However, i only have access to a fairly low powered laptop at the mo (the desktop running the full shebang it sitting at home) and fsx is a handy tool to practise outside of school so my choice of addons had to be very limited due to fps reasons. At the mo i am running:

fsx deluxe
uk2000 vfr airfields vol 1 (need a reasonable representation of oxford/kidlington airport)
carenado seneca II (what im currently training on)
REX (gives me more power over choosing weather, in particular winds)

all of this gives me about 15-20fps on a 1.2ghz pentium U5400 and a hd5450. Im trying to tweak VFR genx vol 1 into it but it still gets too choppy with this enabled.
 
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