Argh, multi quote doesn't seem to working properly, will have to try and do this over a few posts. Sorry if I missed a response, I do try but ask again if you need an answer.
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
Thanks, if you are after good looking aircraft then ensure not only the aircraft is well modeled but also well textured. An aircraft can have the most beautiful and complex modeling ever, but if the textures set is bad or just standard (ie 1024 texture sets), then it can be a real let down IMO. Both the 3D model *and* the texture set must be top notch for me to feel an aircraft is a looker. Nowadays only HD (2048) or indeed UHDT (4096) texture sets are worthy for a good looking FSX aircraft. In my experience the best looking aircraft to date are: PMDG's NGX (mainly with the 3 freeware UHDT texture set from McPhat) nearly all of Captain Sim's releases since their 707 now contain great looking models and textures, Carenado's HD series have been very good too. Thankfully, more and more aircraft being released nowadays are starting to sport better textures, something which was left by the wayside for way too long. Still, whenever spending your hard earned money on any aircraft, I highly recommend reading reviews on them and carefully looking at any screen shots you can find and then make up your own mind. EDIT: that reminds me, combining Horizon's latest VFR UK scenery with Earth Simulations Treescapes is very nice if you looking for UK scenery cover.
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
I use Just Flight's Traffic X, although you can setup flight plans and call up most models in your airplanes folder, you cannot seem to control which gate they pop up at. So I only tend to use Traffic X with its basic models for when I want FPS friendly traffic around (usually at a large airport). I also use something called AirtrafficFX, a rather neat little AI program which can do 2 things, 1) it allows for AI traffic (with a premade flight plan) with any model from your airplanes to fly around the airport of your choosing 2) this is really neat, it shows a map of the airport you are at and all its parking spaces, you can fill in any of the parking spaces with any model from your airplane folder, the neat part is that it acts like a static aircraft, so it doesn't use any AI routines hence saving on CPU power, but it really makes your airport look very cool. DO NOTE; not all models behave as they should, ie some have their landing gear missing, some do other strange things but most work pretty well. Also, having high detail payware models as either AI or static models at your airport will hit your FPS rather heavily. I found that it is best to stick with the model and texture set of the actual aircraft you are flying (in a sense duplicating it several time over the airport) as that seems to be most FPS friendly, as soon as you start using multiple models and especially multiple textures sets (ie, different liveries) your FPS will take a nose dive and you may even experience OOM errors (this happens easily if you use multiple HD liveries at the same location as that swamps the poor old 32-bit coded FSX program).
You could also use Mudpond's freeware program called Formation Tool, it can place upto 4 different aircraft (again you can choose any model) infront of your current aircraft and you can make them take off or let them just sit there.
Hope that helps.
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?
It should do but depends on 3 main factors, how your FSX.CFG is tweaked according to your PC (more tips on that in this thread), what kind and how many addons your have active during flying (the more is happening the harder the PC has to work) and last but not least, depending at what stage of the flight your are, it may run smooth during mid-flight (less happening so you can really turn up the settings) but when landing at large & busy airports you may have to adjust the settings to cope with smooth flight.
PS. It is NOT about how many FPS you can get out of FSX that matter, although on average anything above 20+ FPS is pretty good, but it is the consistency of those FPS that matter, in other words, smooth and judder free flying. The most common cause of judders, PC can't cope with what your throw at it, badly tweaked cfg/settings at the stage of the flight you are at, banking your aircraft real quick or changing views rapidly (think in terms of view point, the steadier your view point is, the easier your PC handles the flight).
Hope that helps.
I heard something floating around that this is a *Windows 7 64bit issue* where its WINDOWS that thinks its not licensed or something like that. Is this true?