Hi Flexman,

I was planning to build around a PC with a single large monitor and since I’m a huge F-16 fan, Falcon 4.0 was the natural choice. I did have my sights set on the Thrustmaster Cougar, but wasn’t aware of the issues you mentioned. Could you provide any details of where I could fine upgrades and how to about it?

As for heatracking, it looks amazing and would be a must for a flight sim. However, I was considering both head tracking and visuals combined, i.e. a virtual reality headset with headtracking. However, some digging around and it seems that the prices of these units are still quite high 😮

Thanks again for all the info

Hiya again. The Hall sensor upgrade, as well as numerous DIY and other projects for the Thrustmaster Cougar can be found at the following community site: http://cougar.frugalsworld.com/

Look for the “Hardware Mods” link.

I have to say the combined head tracker and HMD while expensive is attractive but as you say expensive. Bit hard to invest all that and find you get motion sickness. 800×600 doesn’t seem that great for reading HUDs and the only HMD I’ve used was a headache inducing 640×400. Try before you buy would be my advice. I wouldn’t mind giving that Z800 3DVisor a go myself.

Don’t expect add-on packs for the “open falcons” to work with Allied Force, but this is perhaps not the right place to ask, try the Open Falcon forums.

Good luck pilot

Hi there, just to chime in, I completely aggree that TrackIR is perhaps one the best hardware purchases I ever made. Despite several PC upgrades and different sims, its still plugged in and works with nearly everything.

When it comes to control sticks, my advice is spend as much as you feel comfortable with. It’s very much a case of getting what you pay for. Overall, I found the new Saitek X52 Flight Control System hotas is a good all round, pretty robust stick and throttle.

Alternatives include the Thrustmaster Cougar, costs nearly double, weighs a ton due to it’s nearly all metal construction. And if you have an arm like a boxer you might be comfortable with the springs. Personally I found the internal build less than satisfactory, force required too much and there’s dedicated web sites for hardware modifications/improvements, which suggests a thing or two about the satisfaction level out of the box. Although the ULTIMATE all round flight stick IMO would be a Thrustmaster Cougar with a third party “Ultimate Cougar” Hall Sensor upgrade which eliminates the springs and turns the stick into a pressure sensitive device just like the sidestick in a real F16. That doubles the price but makes it a no-brainer if your budget allows. If you’re planning an ultimate Falcon 4.0 sim and cockpit, then the upgrade is a must must must have. It’s good enough for the US Air Force in their mock-ups.

Graphics according to budget. The current best of the crop is the nVidia 9600GTX2 but costs about the same as a Playstation 3 here. A good price performance compromise right now would be an nVidia 8800GT as there’s a new 9900GTX due out very soon meaning prices will come down. Allied Force isn’t a graphically intensive sim however so you can aim a bit lower here, a PC with dual core CPU for running all the little AI guys should be high on the list.

If you want to use three monitors in a tripple screen (see http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming ) then you will need a graphics card with a really really fast fill rate to update all those pixels. Weather and transparancy effects really hit 3D cards with large screens hard. So the nVidia 9600GTX series is a must there.

Of course, you can ditch the TrackIR, ultra-fast 3D card, multi-monitor setup and opt for a nice projector and screen. You can get away with resolution do away with need for head-tracking (espeically if you can curve the screen and set FOV or zoom settings in the sim accordingly).

I’ve been doing this stuff since the 1980s and tried a bit of everything, it’s really down to budget and deciding what you really want to do. Bit of everything? Air combat, comercial sim or general aviation? Space? All of the above? Doesn’t matter so long as you enjoy it, it’s a great hobby.

Somehow I wrote about three pages again for which I apologise :/

/You have control

It’s great to have a flight simulation show up north for a change. Do you have to be a member of the club to attend?

/You have control

I know this thread a few weeks (months?) old but I’d like to chime in as it’s my first post in the forums and I can offer some helpful advice in the matter of the pros and cons of using Matrox hardware.

The Tripple-head2go device can output a virtual display size of 3840 x 1024 (or 4080 x 768 if you have 3 widescreen format monitors). That’s a lot of pixels. As such, you need a graphics card that can push all those pixels. But it can be used in dual-head mode if you don’t have 3 monitors laying around, you can add another monitor later.

The new tripple-head2go digital edition has bezel management which allows you ‘hide’ parts of the image behind the bezels (doesn’t work in dual-head mode). This feature has a price, the width is removed from the flanks of the display reducing overall image size.

Wideview ( http://wideview.it/ ) is a more practical option in terms of using bits you have laying around the house, although you look at some set-ups and have to wonder and how much it costs to run 5 to 10 PCs with monitors.

I find the the Matrox GXMs practical and can almost justify it as a work expense (as a developer I find the desktop real-esate bloody marvelous). In the UK “Scan” computers had them for a good price (good = cheapest I could find).

Clear skies