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betelgeuse

Recommendation for B737

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>I would reccomend the>FeelThere, but something about that model doesn't sit rite>with me. Seems a little large. I do recommend FeelThere 737, too. After numerous patches it flies nice now. As for the look, you could merge it with 50N (if you have or intend to buy them) and they will look better and fly flowlessly. But that's if you care about the model look.Best regards,Rafal

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Thanks guys! Lots of downloading and testing going on. I'll post again with some comments - hopefully constructive!BTW, I mailed PDMG support about my problems with their 737NG (first post in this thread) but I've had no answer after 1 week. I got fed up waiting and paid for their extended download service to let me download the file again. Two days ago they posted me a link which did not work and so far they have not responded to my very gentle complaint. :-( B


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John

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Hellowhat version of the NG were you using ?I ask because the BBJ that i have loads Flightsim Commander plans perfectly.Maybe Ariane have improved the product, I own "all the other good payware"I like and dislike bits of all of them, there isn't a perfect addon out there, thats what keeps us all searching.

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I have flown a lot of IFR in 737s in the past few days, more than in 25 years of virtual flying. It hasn't been much fun and I long for VFR in my favourite Twin Otter! Just by way of a reminder, the idea was to identify the best Boeing 737 for IFR flying. I set up a test flight from EGSS (London Stansted) to EGAA (Aldergrove, NI). I run FS9 in XP Pro with the latest updates, patches and graphics drivers. I did virus, trojan and spybot scans before I started. I set the cloudbase to 600 ft (EGAA is 292 ft ASL). Default 737: This flew flawlessly in IFR with LNAV and VNAV delivered by FSNav. I had it set up for an ILS to Rwy 35 at EGAA. At about 8 miles out and within 30 degrees of the glideslope I turned on APP mode and did a Cat 3 landing on autopilot. I tried programming this same route on vasFMC but I got a CTD every time soon after take off at Stansted. Moach 737:This was the best to fly manually, and with the onboard AP, but it did not work well with FSNav - it was slow to respond to heading and altitude changes. We eventually wandered so far off track that we missed the next waypoint and got lost. With vasFMC it CTD'd as soon as we got airborne. This variant has a very fine panel visually and was the most convincing to fly - as far as this Warrior pilot is able to judge these things.FFX 737:This flew even better than the default aircraft and worked perfectly with FSNav. I even stretched it to Real Weather and AI traffic at 60% - this represents a lot of aircraft movements on my system. With vasFMC I lost the AP and CTD'd after a few minutes in the air. Kittyhawk 737/PS Panel combination:This was good to fly manually but the onboard AP behaved erratically. I could not make it fly with FSNav or with vasFMC. FSNav first: as soon as we got airborne the onboard AP shut down, the gear would not retract, and the previously working radio went dead. I checked the hydraulics and the electrical system - all on - no warning lights. It flew as well as could be expected with the gear down but CTD'd about 30 minutes into the flight. I did not use real weather with this plane. The same thing happened with vasFMC except that it crashed to desktop sooner. I tried this plane/panel combination with the default Flight Planner. Again, I lost the AP as soon as I got airborne. Despite what it says in the PS Panel documentation, this plane always closed down its engines at the gate at the start of the flight. Another weakness of the PS Panel is the absence of a GPS - well, I could not find it!Kittyhawk/original panel This flew really well in FSNav with the onboard AP and is similar to the default 737 and the FFX types. It did not work with vasFMC. I did not have time to test it manually. PMDG 737NG: I never got this to fly properly - 6 fps was the best I've ever managed on my system.In summary, FSNav provides lateral and vertical navigation (LNAV and VNAV) and works well with the default and the FFX 737s. The Moach 737 did not work with either of the external navigation programs but probably flies very well with its onboard GPS and AP. vasFMC provides LNAV only but did not work with any of the planes I tested. I am willing to admit that I may not have installed vasFMC correctly or that I was making some fundamental mistake in the way I was using it. I did RTFM and I uninstalled and reinstalled the program just in case. I am running FSUIPC 3.7. Similarly, I may not have understood the finer points of the PS panel. Asus A8N32-SLI DeluxeNVIDIA 7800GTX 256 MbAthlon 2.4 GHz1GB DDRLarge HDD with plenty of unused. 550W PS. Two screensB.


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John

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Something isn't right-just saw your post and loaded up my PMDG 737 to check. Sitting on R27 CYYJ, Ready for TO/Clear weather- I'm seeing 15-20 FPS. Mid range FS9 settings, Autogen Off and AI low. Here's the kicker: I'm running triple monitors with TRIPLE VIEWS- LFwd,Fwd,RFwd giving a fully synchronized 180

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Thanks, Alex, I agree, something isn't right! I bought the PMDG 737NG a year ago but never got it to fly at more than 6 fps. For the purposes of this IFR exercise I used the PMDG tool to uninstall and then downloaded a new .zip and installed this. After your post I turned off autogen completely, set traffic to zero, set the sliders all to lowish and turned off water effects. I just used one monitor with the 2D cockpit. All my addon scenery is off and I have everything else off, antivirus etc. Result? I got the same thing exactly, 6 fps oscillating to 19 fps sitting at the end of the runway. During the t.o. roll the rate just sticks at 6 fps. I checked other processes - none running - FS 99% of CPU activity. The only other point I can think of which may be relevant is that I am running FS9 on a partition (S) not the C drive. If you have any bright ideas as to what might be wrong I'd be glad to hear them. This has been bugging me for a long time. B.


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John

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I'm not a tech whiz- can't help re partition question. You mentioned dual monitors- do you have a dual head vid card? If you are running two views, make sure there is no view overlap on an adjacent monitor.Try setting FPS to unlimited. If you have multi monitors you need to open up the horsepower. For example, my FPS are generally 12-25 in triple monitor- Unlimited mode. If I turn off two mons (delete Extend My Desktop), FPS jumps to a rapidly oscillating 30-60+ : almost faster than the eye can read. Have a look in Views/Options to see if everything is 2D, not Virtual which is hopeless in multi monitor.Go thru the PMDG 737 settings (top tool bar). I set Tech Data 2D Display Rate FPS to 15 & Virtual C'pt =5There are some quirks re Panel Switcher with dual monitors- I set this to Allow Undockable OH panel.Don't know if all this helps or hinders!Alex Reid

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Thanks for your thoughts. I have a dual head vid card and there is no overlap. I use the same setting for all the aircraft - only the PMDG 737 behaves this way. I checked the Tech Data settings. The only option here is to tune an LCD monitor - maybe that is just the way the menu is labelled. I set it to 15 and 5 as you suggested. I ramped up the frame rates to 40 fps. None of this made any difference. I don't know what you mean by Panel Switcher. I just use my second monitor for undocking GPS and AI planes. Sometimes for spot view. I think there might be something wrong with the panel set up. When I press the OH appears outside the plane (see pic). This doesn't happen when I use the buttons on the panel. Also, there is a persistent hiss, not loud, when I open certain panels. I wondered if there might be a conflict with the sound card but turning off the sound with Q had no effect on the frame rate.So, apolgies, Alex, no progress. John


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John

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John-If you've set FS9 FPS to 40, I think that the best you can get with dual monitors is 20 FPS- try unlimited FPS. In the top FS tool bar, go to PMDG/General/Options/Various/Panel Switcher. Check this box to allow the Overhead panel to be undocked to a second monitor. There is a known conflict here- funny things happen.In Control panel/Display/settings- the pic of the two monitors does have the box ticked for "extend my desktop on to this mon" when #2 is highlighted ?What Views do you have open? Fwd and ?Any problems when you undock, drag, resize a panel or view?(I'm probably doing more to confuse than help)Alex Reid

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In the FS tool bar under PMDG I only have PMDG/General/LCD Frame Rate Tuning and PMDG/General/Keyboard Commands. There is no PMDG/General/Options/Various/Panel Switcher.Can this be the problem? If so, what to do? Just to check, mine is the 737-600/700 series v.3 build 80. I'm flying the 737-600 in FS9 in XP Pro. John


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John

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You may have hit on the problem. As I recall, the PMDG 800-900 addon/upgrade which I'm using, had a fix to allow multi monitor use -notably the Overhead panel. Have you tried your 600-700 in single monitor mode- ie are FPS better?Alex Reid

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Thanks, again, Alex. I ran it in single monitor mode. No difference. I'll post on the PMDG forum. At least we've identified a possible installation problem.John


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John

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>I have flown a lot of IFR in 737s in the past few days, more>than in 25 years of virtual flying. It hasn't been much fun>and I long for VFR in my favourite Twin Otter! >>Just by way of a reminder, the idea was to identify the best>Boeing 737 for IFR flying. >>I set up a test flight from EGSS (London Stansted) to EGAA>(Aldergrove, NI). I run FS9 in XP Pro with the latest updates,>patches and graphics drivers. I did virus, trojan and spybot>scans before I started. I set the cloudbase to 600 ft (EGAA is>292 ft ASL). >>Default 737: >This flew flawlessly in IFR with LNAV and VNAV delivered by>FSNav. I had it set up for an ILS to Rwy 35 at EGAA. At about>8 miles out and within 30 degrees of the glideslope I turned>on APP mode and did a Cat 3 landing on autopilot. I tried>programming this same route on vasFMC but I got a CTD every>time soon after take off at Stansted. >>Moach 737:>This was the best to fly manually, and with the onboard AP,>but it did not work well with FSNav - it was slow to respond>to heading and altitude changes. We eventually wandered so far>off track that we missed the next waypoint and got lost. With>vasFMC it CTD'd as soon as we got airborne. This variant has a>very fine panel visually and was the most convincing to fly ->as far as this Warrior pilot is able to judge these things.>>FFX 737:>This flew even better than the default aircraft and worked>perfectly with FSNav. I even stretched it to Real Weather and>AI traffic at 60% - this represents a lot of aircraft>movements on my system. With vasFMC I lost the AP and CTD'd>after a few minutes in the air. >>Kittyhawk 737/PS Panel combination:>This was good to fly manually but the onboard AP behaved>erratically. I could not make it fly with FSNav or with>vasFMC. FSNav first: as soon as we got airborne the onboard AP>shut down, the gear would not retract, and the previously>working radio went dead. I checked the hydraulics and the>electrical system - all on - no warning lights. It flew as>well as could be expected with the gear down but CTD'd about>30 minutes into the flight. I did not use real weather with>this plane. The same thing happened with vasFMC except that it>crashed to desktop sooner. >>I tried this plane/panel combination with the default Flight>Planner. Again, I lost the AP as soon as I got airborne.>Despite what it says in the PS Panel documentation, this plane>always closed down its engines at the gate at the start of the>flight. Another weakness of the PS Panel is the absence of a>GPS - well, I could not find it!>>Kittyhawk/original panel >This flew really well in FSNav with the onboard AP and is>similar to the default 737 and the FFX types. It did not work>with vasFMC. I did not have time to test it manually. >>PMDG 737NG: >I never got this to fly properly - 6 fps was the best I've>ever managed on my system.>>In summary, FSNav provides lateral and vertical navigation>(LNAV and VNAV) and works well with the default and the FFX>737s. The Moach 737 did not work with either of the external>navigation programs but probably flies very well with its>onboard GPS and AP. vasFMC provides LNAV only but did not work>with any of the planes I tested. I am willing to admit that I>may not have installed vasFMC correctly or that I was making>some fundamental mistake in the way I was using it. I did RTFM>and I uninstalled and reinstalled the program just in case. I>am running FSUIPC 3.7. Similarly, I may not have understood>the finer points of the PS panel. >>Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe>NVIDIA 7800GTX 256 Mb>Athlon 2.4 GHz>1GB DDR>Large HDD with plenty of unused. >550W PS. >Two screens>>B.>Hello RE PS PanelI had the same problems as you with the autopilot shutting of etc.I solved this by assigning the "V" key on keyboard as the avionics switch and that solved the problem.I like PS panel and have had no problems with it.Its a good bridge between the simple panels and the very complex ones that are available.cheers Andy


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I'll try this dodge next weekend, if/when I get back from the Moldova/Ukraine. Saab 340 from Budapest with Moldovan Airlines. Fingers crossed. Since all that testing, I managed to get vasFMC working with the default 737. I know the default planes are a bit 'infra dig' with some of the flightsim intelligentsia but 737s fly like bricks in real life and with AP in control for flying in pea soup who can tell the difference? Apart the more finely tuned whirrs and clicks....and the panels of course. I liked it a lot, especially the TCAS as I've a lot of AI commercial and GA on my system.Will post later with an update. John/B


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John

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JohnIf you didn't hear back from me when you sent an email to support, the email didn't make it to my inbox for some reason. Drop me another note at support (at) or updateme(at)precisionmanuals.com and i'll see if we can figure out whats going on with your PMDG 737.Regards Paul Gollnick :-cool Technical Operations/Customer Operational SupportPrecision Manuals Development Groupwww.precisionmanuals.comhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/priv/img/forum/sig_pmdg.jpg


Paul Gollnick

Manager Customer/Technical Support

Precision Manuals Development Group

www.precisionmanuals.com

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