FSX

[Stryker412]

I just got this and it's pretty good. First ever flight sim for me.

I was just curious if anyone can recommend a good site that has plane skins (ie. US Air, Quantas, etc).

Also, what are some good scenery upgrades? Someone had mentioned Ultimate Terrain X.

Lastly, I saw somewhere they had a Space Shuttle that you can just ride and not fly, anyone have anything like that?

[Weigh-Man]

This sight has some good freebies, most of the sights that support FSX etc you have to pay a subscription.

http://flyawaysimulation.com/

I would also make sure you download Service Pack 1 for FSX also, it improves performance by quite a bit

[Chock]

Best FS site for freebie stuff is without doubt: www.avsim.com (http://www.avsim.com)

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

I downloaded a Qantas skin last night from flyaway. It looks pretty good. The detail in Sydney is damn good. You can see the Opera House in the lower left corner.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2443/2007716224947531jw9.th.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2007716224947531jw9.jpg)

[Stryker412]

Anyone know a good tutorial for using GPS Auto Pilot? I'd like to learn how to do a long distance flight in a 747 or something similar.

[Chock]

You might want to try this:

http://www.fs2crew.com/product12.htm

It's not free of course, but it is geared towards getting the best out of the default FSX B747. The PDF that comes with it will tell you a reasonably accurate set of procedures for flying the default FS 747 'by the book' as it were, but bear in mind that the default FS B747's avionics are much simplified in comparison to most of the payware airliners that are available. Nevertheless, as an introduction to that kind of thing, it's a good choice.

The magazine 'PC Pilot' has been running a series over its past few issues covering how to operate the systems on board the PMDG Boeing 747, but since the PMDG 747 is for FS9 only at the moment, that's not a great deal of use to you I guess, unless you adapt them for your needs.

Other alternatives include reading the FSX tutorials and doing the lessons included with the simulator, but some of them are a bit dull, even if they are quite educational, another option would be to join a virtual airline, most of which have tutorials for their pilots, a lot of the VA tutorials can be had by none members too, here is one worth a look (one of the oldest of the VAs):

www.flywestwind.com (http://www.flywestwind.com)

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

Anyone know where I can get a list of what cities are "high detail" in the game?

[Chock]

You can get a list right here...

The FSX De Luxe Edition list of detailed airports includes:

Amsterdam Schiphol,
Anchorage,
Auckland,
Beijing,
Boston,
Chicago,
Copenhagen,
Dallas,
Denver,
Detroit,
Frankfurt,
Helsinki,
Hong Kong,
Kill Devil Hills (Kitty Hawk),
Las Vegas,
London Heathrow,
LA,
Madrid Barajas,
Mexico City,
Miami,
Minneapolis,
Narita,
New York JFK,
Oshkosh,
Oslo Gardermoen,
Charles de Gaulle,
Phoenix Sky Harbor,
Rio,
Rome Fiumicino,
Salt Lake City,
Seattle,
Seoul,
Lamber St. Louis,
St. Martin (Netherlands Antilles),
Stockholm,
Sydney,
Taipei,
Toronto,
Vancouver,
Washington DC.

The standard version has non-detailed versions of:
Boston,
Detroit,
Minneapolis,
St. Louis,
Toronto
The airports are still there, with correct runways and taxiways, but are much more basic.

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

Excellent thank you Chock.

[Chock]

You are welcome, incidentally, just noticed that you asked about the FSX Space Shuttle - here it is:

http://www.captainsim.com/products/s001/

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

Ouch $50 US?! These add-ons are a little ridiculous with pricings.

[Chock]

Yup some add-ons are pricey, so you have to kind of cherry pick the ones you want, and it's often a good idea to take a look around to see if you can pay less somewhere else.

But if I was some kind of mega-space shuttle fan, then being able to fly the shuttle around whenever I wanted to for about for 25 quid (UK equivalent), would sound like pretty good value to me. And apparently you can do quite a lot with the Shuttle in this add on, I remember reading a review of it in a magazine about a month ago and they rated it quite highly.

I guess like most things, you get what you pay for, and that's the real beauty of Flight Simulator, in that you can add whatever you prefer to it to make it your own. And even if exactly what you want is not available, then you can make it yourself quite easily, so if you wanted to put your own house in FS, you could do it without too much difficulty.

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

Looks great but it's a bummer you can't launch.

[Stryker412]

I have an issue that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I have a pretty powerful computer and the graphics look great, but the meshes aren't loading until I'm right on top of the area. I have my Level of detail area set to large. Last night we flew over the Grand Canyon and I was not too far from it and the canyon walls were very smooth and didn't look fully loaded. Here's a screenshot.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4221/20077222922921ww9.th.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20077222922921ww9.jpg)http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3707/200772204156156mq4.th.jpg (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200772204156156mq4.jpg)

Here are my settings:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/7774/settingspf5.th.jpg (http://img517.imageshack.us/my.php?image=settingspf5.jpg)

I had my texture mesh resolution and texture res set all the way to the right when I took those screens. Someone said to lower it so the PC isn't working too hard and I saw no change.

[Chock]

This is usually a mip-mapping issue, what is happening is that your graphics are using the smaller mip-maps and staying on them until you get very close. It was supposed to have been fixed by the patch, but it doesn't seem to have been as far as my experience of the patched version of FSX gos. But...
If you are having problems with this, turning mip-mapping off or messing around with some of the FSX anti-aliasing options should sort it.

BTW, just in case if you don't know what mip-mapping is: Mip-mapping is a method to speed up your computer by using multiple textures at different sizes. How this works is the original texture file of (for example) an aeroplane in the sim, will actually have about four versions of the texture in different sizes, and when your plane is very far away, it will use the small one to display your aeroplane's textures. In this way it uses a bit less memory and processing power to display it, and it (theoretically) should look better at a distance without everything looking razor sharp, as it would do up close, which is the main reason for it. Initially, a mip-mapped image will take up more RAM, because it loads several versions of the same texture, but once they are in, it will speed things up if you have enough RAM.

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

Yeah I have 2GB of PC6400 RAM and a DC6600 processor along with a BFG 8800GTX vid card.

Someone flying with me that same night took this screen and it looks better than mine (he has similar specs).

http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200772203131419tb4.jpg

Chock do you have teamspeak?

[Chock]

Yes I do have TS

:D Chock

[Stryker412]

If you have a minute, can you jump on mine?

The ip is ts.ninjaserve.org

[Camaero]

Anybody try that Cargo Pilot add on? It sounded very interesting! I would like to know what you guys think if you have gotten it.

[Chock]

Yup, it's good fun, Freight Dogs is good too (that's kind of like the 'bush pilot' version of it with less of the empire-building, but I'm not sure if Freight Dogs supports FSX). Cargo Pilot definitely is patched for FSX and Vista too (although it doesn't like 64 bit apparently).

CP's airline equivalent - Airline Pilot (not FSX compatible) - and similar utilities, or even joining a VA tend to give FS a bit more purpose, as does doing it all properly with the add-on airliners with all the systems modelled correctly and the FS2Crew add-ons (which are really very cool), so most things like that are worth a look, but be sure to check for FSX compatibility (or planned patches, or get a cheap copy of FS9).

Note that Just Flight is (http://www.justflight.com/) currently working on Cargo Pilot 2, which is going to add more functionality and flexibility, which means you can probably get the original CP cheap, or, you might wanna hang on a bit, check their forums and see how far off CP2 is from release, not sure how far along they are with the second version though, so maybe it's worth getting the original anyway. Or, why not try out the demo?

If you want to get really serious, this is worth a look too:

http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/re/iboshop.cgi?showd,,10450

As it emulates real world operations very closely, but that said, stuff like Cargo Pilot is probably more fun!

:D Chock

[Camaero]

Very informative reply Chock! Thank you!

I just might have to wait for Cargo Pilot 2 now. I have never heard of Freight Dogs... bush pilots... sounds like fun!

By the way, what do you mean "empire-building"? How much of the business do you actually get to control?

[Chock]

Basically, you start off working out of a crappy freight container that is your 'office'. You have to manage things and decide what plane you are going to 'buy' with your starting budget, and what other things you are going to spend cash on, what sort of routes your are going to run etc.
You earn money for delivering stuff and lose it if you screw up (arrive late or whatever), then it's kind of up to you how you expand the business, buy a bigger plane, or a fleet of them, set up more offices, that kind of thing. You have to do maintenance scheduling on your aeroplanes and stuff like that. But the nice thing is that you can basically use any plane you have installed in FS, so you could use a B-17 as a cargo plane it you really wanted to (not that it would be very practical, but there's nothing really stopping you).
The trick is to do 'circuits' so that you can deliver to several airports on a 'lap', that way you maximise your trips. If you like things like EVE and stuff like that, it's not dissimilar to mining and selling stuff or something like that in an MMORPG, but with flying planes involved too.
The next version is set to improve that aspect a bit, amongst other things, since at the moment, it isn't that necessary to do positioning flights. The fact you don't have to do them in the current CP means you can move things along a bit quicker, but people have asked for that feature, so they are evidently putting it in the next version. There is a thread on the Just Flight forums where you can request things you'd like to see in the next version. But just reading a few of the threads on that forum will probably give you a good idea as to whether you'd enjoy it.
It's quite a fun thing to play in my opinion, in that it combines a simulator with an empire building game.
It's really as complicated as you want to make it, which I suppose is the beauty of it. But effectively, it turns FS into a game as well as a flight simulator.
Incidentally, the demo is not FSX compatible, it only works on FS9 (2004), although the full game will work with either FS9 or FSX.

:D Chock

[Camaero]

Cool, thanks!

Oh and I would so fly a B-17 as a cargo plane, I don't care how inefficient it is! :D Such a beauty.

[EAGLE_01]

I downloaded a Qantas skin last night from flyaway. It looks pretty good. The detail in Sydney is damn good. You can see the Opera House in the lower left corner.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2443/2007716224947531jw9.th.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2007716224947531jw9.jpg)

Nice Pic. You just convinced me to make this my next purchase. That and 1946...