John YThat’s a very much more sophisticated steering device than mine. I’ve looked for the details on mine to post here but can’t find them.
Mine is a single column stick, not a steering wheel if you see what I mean. I couldn’t accomodate that type of device. You may want to get something like that but I’ve found that I really need my left hand to operate other controls etc while holding the stick with my right.
Glad to hear you’ve registered with Horizon. You’ll be able to get a lot more expert advice there than I can give you. You’ll see my name all over the place there. When you get on, make sure to go to the ‘screenshots’ page. Some of the pictures in there are amazing and show just what can be achieved using FSX as the engine and with other stuff added.
John
John YBill
PS – Forgot to say. Yes, my computer is a quad core and works magnificenly with FSX. In fact, commonsense decrees it must work better than a dual but I have no proof of that because in its previous incarnation (?) it was but a single core.
I haven’t used the edit process because on this forum I just don’t understand how it works and when I’ve tried before I’ve lost the lot.
John
John YSorry for the confusion, I made a longer reply than I intended initially and it seems that part of it has got into the system so ignore that bit.
I use a wired keyboard, and a wireless mouse but my joystick is wired, and I’m happy with all of them.
To be honest, I don’t know the difference between a Yoke and a Joystick. I thought they were the same. Try Amazon if you want to get one like mine. It’s pretty good. It has a twist grip and at a quick count 11 press keys scattered about that you can program for various jobs like flaps, gear down, trim, and so on. It also has a brake….essential! And unless prices have risen considerably, its cheaper than the price you quote.
On the question of UTX Europe….get it if you can. It improves FSX no end and while I can only speak for Horizon Photo Scenery (which I have) I find its quite compatible with that too. But get the FSX on first and start flying. Incidentally, you’ll need to get FSX on first anyway because believe me, it really does need a ‘clean install’.
Yes, this forum is not very active. Even if you haven’t got the scenery it may be better if you were to register with Horizon. Of all the forums, its the most fun, not straight laced like some, and has got absolute wizz kids for flying both real and simulated. And also a wealth of screenshots which will help to show you the realism that can be achieved using FSX as the engine.
The first job is to get you in the air though and learning the flying – use the default Cessna 172 for that, like real pilots in training do. Navigation, the radio stack, VFR & IFR all also need to be mastered.
After that, you will want to develop more interest. Most of us at Horizon like to VFR fly over real scenery, finding our way about the Country following features and dead reckoning navigation by compass etc. And taking photos for publication on the forum as we fly. But we also have some fly high and fast boys who are flying in groups with others or actually running their own airline.
I only usually come on here once weekly, sometimes not even that, but I check in at Horizon every day.
PM me if you need more info. Preferably through Horizon because they notify me of messages received.
Best wishes
John
John YPS – Sorry , I forgot. Use XP unless you can get Vista 64x which is supreme and can work smoothly on very much lower frame rates that XP.
John
John YHi Bill
Welcome to flying. You’ll find it fascinating.
Right, well, first things first. You’re system is ok and FSX will work fine on it but don’t expect to be able to run FSX maxed out ie you’ll probably need to adjust the settings to more or less ‘normal/medium all the way through to get good performance. If you get burries or stutters, ten to one your settings are too high.
Only you can choose your priorities, but I would say you must have a twist grip joystick. Trying to fly with the keyboard is a joke. Saitek Cyborg Evo is pretty good and reasonable in cost.
Pedals are good if you can afford them but not essential. If you’ve got good speakers already you don’t need a headset unless there are people in the room in which case you might find it essential. If using your existing speakers, update the drivers because they can be the cause of FSX problems.
You’ve got three discs so install the FSX on a non system drive and if you go for scenery, put that on another drive if you can.
There’s tons of stuff you can add but wait until you’ve got the hang of managing FSX (which takes a bit of learning by itself) before you spend out on other things. The knowledge you gain from learning to fly will help you make informed decisions about what you want.
For most simmers, the aim is realism, so eventually you’ll almost certainly want Photo Scenery for England and Wales and Scotland and perhaps UTX Europe, and GEX and UTX for America and Canada.
But those are in the future. For now it may help to give you more realism if you were to get FEX (realistic clouds and water) and FSWC which is a shader complementing the FEX water features.
You are going to need help to start with so if you have any questions, PM me. I’m no expert but can probably point you in the right direction for an answer if I don’t know it.
Enjoy yourself.
John
John YThe above really is the bare minimum. One of the reasons is that once you’ve got FSX, you start to want to put more and more and in the end FSX only becomes the engine for everything else you put on.
There’s a wealth of addons (quite often free) but they all take Memory (Ram) , and disc space. And the more you put on, the more processor intensive FSX becomes.
Don’t buy cheap. It’ll cost a fortune in the end. Buy at least dual core, (preferably quad) buy at least a Q66600 processor, buy at least an 1GB 8800 GT graphics card and a computer with 4 GB RAM. Buy extra power, say 850w and extra cooling. Lastly, buy a minimum of 3 (preferably 4) 150 GB disc drives.
You’ll then have a machine you can chuck anything into and know it’ll work with no stutters, no blurries and no frame rate worries and not need upgrading for a considerable time.
John
John YTry AVSIM. Its probably got everything you might be looking for.
John
John YYes, that’s probably good advice. There’s still an awful lot of support out there for FS2004, such as scenery and A1 aircraft which if not actually freeware you can get quite cheaply.
John
John YOf course, you can always use the speed control knob which will limit your speed to that which you dial in.
Very useful when you’re landing a fast jet. Throttle set at nil and flaps won’t help you get down to 140/150 kts (normal landing speed for fast jets) if you’re on the glide slope at over 180 kts.
With the speed control you can lower your speed in increments during your approach. See the learning centre for these details.
John
John YHi Bsmyth
It sounds as if you already have photographic scenery and probably not Horizon’s.
If that’s the case, I imagine your supplier has a forum which contains information about the flattens you need to get rid of the escarpments.
Additionally, UK2000 have just issued a whole wad of airports in the south of England (72 I think) which are being supplied direct or through Horizon. It’s compatible with the Horizon scenery but I’m not sure if it can be used with FSX only or indeed with alternative photographic scenery suppliers.
You can get onto Both Horizon and UK2000 scenery by tapping in their names in your Google search.
Let me know how you get on.
John
John YTry ‘My Traffic’. I don’t have it and don’t intend to but I’ve heard that at the moment its just about as good as you can get.
John Y
John YHave a look at this. Its a promo video. It may help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3waJ79hA0
John Y
John YUnfortunately, the makers of FSX do have a terrible habit of putting roads in the wrong places. Actually, airports too if you get photographic scenery at any time but that does improve the road placements. Also, with that scenery you can get addons that provide traffic on minor roads too and addons with flattens that take out the cliffs the bad placements of the airport perimiters create.
Sounds awful, but its quite good really and so much more realistic that the basic FSX.
Have you also noticed that they make even motorways look like farm tracks that tractors have driven over?
John Y
John YThe following applies if your computer works reasonably well with whatever else you do with it and it sounds as if it does. However FSX is very processor and RAM intensive and with the A1 aircraft you’ve loaded into it I very much suspect you’re expecting too much.
Go through the motions of starting a flight and get the metallic stuff up, then walk away from your Laptop, have a cup of tea, go shopping whatever.
If, after a long time, say an hour, your textures still haven’t resolved themselves into the proper colours etc., it’s ten chances to the penny you’ve got insufficient processing power.
If, they do come on but take as long as you intimate, then you probably still haven’t enough processing power.
Even if they come on after a very long time I suspect your flight experience, especially taxiing around an airport would almost be like a slide show with stutters and very low frame rates.
Try it. See how you get on before you start spending money. Unfortunately though, I suspect it probably does mean you need a more powerful machine for what you want to do.
John Y
John YDone it. Look forward to your contact Dean
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