Ways to generally improve simming experience

[Guest FO UFO]

Hi there,A while ago I asked what were the best ways to improve general scenary.I now have; Flight environment, Ground environment, Heathrow 2008, Ultimate traffic 2007 and a truck load of planes. What other ways can I improve this simming. Even with Ultimate traffic turned up to full (100%) bussy airports still are not exactly busstling on approach. Also, can the defult act be improved?thanksPS: any good, cheap airport add-ons?

[Guest ThrottleUp]

PS: any good, cheap airport add-ons? You can get high-quality free ones right here on Avsim. An example:http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=...hor=&CatID=rootAs for realistic super-busy AI you would need a supercomputer to be able to handle all that traffic. Many members on here do have busy AI but theres a limit to it...even on very powerful machines. That eternal tradeoff between eye-candy & performance will be with MSFS for a long time to come. Its your choice of course but theres loads of planes out there superior to the default ones. Want a NG737 series?...grab the free Poskys along with the PSPanels 737NG panel. If you want more real then perhaps try PMDG (payware). You mentioned you already have a "truckload of planes" so you prob know all this already. Other ways to improve simming?...get the biggest, sharpest monitor your PC can drive, invest in a good pair of headphones & a surround-sound system and a good stick or better yet a seperate stick & throttle. Also I would highly suggest grabbing some enhanced worldwide terrain mesh - like FSGlobal, FSGenesis etc.

[BlueString 0]

You could try making a home cockpit.

[Guest FO UFO]

thanks! terrain mesh seems the way to go. I bought ground environment- what will terrain mesh add to this?I have fairly good computer 3ghz dual-core 8800gts, 2gb ram.... copes fine will 100% ai traffic. As for planes I have all the pmdg boeings, pss 777, both airbus series and afew others.Im thinking of an x45- quite cheap on ebay :)

[january 19]

James- This answer goes in a different direction than merely adding scenery etc. In real life humans have a field of view in excess of 180

[FLEX1978 370]

My two best non software purchases for FS were a 42 inch LCD screen and TrackIR. I have the FMC, EICAS etc running off second monitors. It really adds to the whole immersion factor flying in the virtual cockpit :)Rob

[flyhalf 27]

Yeah for me, TrackIR was the single biggest leap in immersion by a mile that I have invested in. Next is a TH2Go and 2 more screens. I think these additions far outstrip any software addons. Next I would say a decent sound set and FS2Crew for your chosen aircraft.

[dolph98 4]

I concur, multiple monitors will make a huge difference. I have a single 24" monitor and I am happy with that but have flown my friend's multiple setup and it is really sweet. When you maximize your traffic, like I did, you will need a fast PC for sure. I have a Q6600 and I have to turn off "aircraft cast ground shadows" to make it livable (I have a known video card limitation). I have dozens of other planes sharing the skies with me at any one time. It does add a lot but you will need to use aiSmooth to regulate things at busy places. dolph

[mnmon 0]

Do you have the latest schedule for Ultimate Traffic? I've noticed something very interesting over the last several years as I've updated the UT schedules and always have traffic set to 100%: the airlines are flying less flights hence your noticing the lack of "bustle" at some airports. Pittsburgh is especially noticable; just doesn't have the traffic level it did several years ago. I've even noticed a bit of a drop at O'Hare. Hubs are still busy like CVG, EWR, DFW and I have to put the traffic back to around 93% to keep things flowing, but the taxiways and approaches are not quite as congested as before. The busy times still are Monday morning and Friday afternoon, but I think you're correct in general. Mike

[Chuck_B 2]

I can't impress upon you how much I agree with the multimonitor suggestion. After getting my 3 monitor setup, I sold my TrackIR as it so paled in comparison. Tiger Direct regularly offers cheap 19 inch flat panels for 139 -189 USD and stringing 3 together is just . . . well, realistic.I could never go back to single mon flying now.

[Joseph29 25]

>thanks! terrain mesh seems the way to go. I bought ground>environment- what will terrain mesh add to this?>Look for FSGenesis/Justin Tyme here in the library. Lot of payware mesh for free! Install his Arizona mesh, then go fly over the Grand Canyon and you will see a HUGE improvment!

[Chuck_B 2]

FDC Live Cockpit has now taken the place of my FS2Crew, only because you can ultimately fly it in whatever A/C you want. I can't fly without it now.FSPassengers is another must have/can't fly without for me, now, too.

[FLEX1978 370]

Wow, your the first person I've come across that prefers static views to TrackIR

Rob

[january 19]

Rob- there are two quite different approaches here to sim visual presentation. Virtual, as in the youtube flick, gives a very realistic cockpit/panel presentation but suffers from limitations of view perspective at any one moment. The solution with virtual is three fold- multi monitors via TH2Go which widen the cockpit, Zoom to see detail and TrackIR to give the equivalent of turning your head. TH2Go only provides View Forward- a 90

[oqvist 0]

Why sell the trackIR because you get a multi monitor setup? They complement eachother you know :). Sometimes you want to be able to lean to see around that annoying yoke, or a-pillar or just look whats around you, taking in both the outside and whats inside the cockpit much easier and natural with trackIR then with pov-hat. Not to mention to zoom in on your instruments without using a clumsy pov or mouse based solution.But either a large widescreen or a triple screen system, TrackIR and of course a decent joystick and a decent yoke dependent on what you fly. Joysticks are more universal then yokes though but the saitek yoke is not that expensive and it

[Chuck_B 2]

>>Why sell the trackIR because you get a multi monitor setup? They >>complement eachother you know :). Not if you don't fly VCs. :) Gauges are too small in VCs for my eyes, and the moving forward to zoom and pan was annoying for me. I'll stick with 2D cockpits and my custom made minipanels, which TrackIR can't pan and zoom.

[flyinpilot212121 17]

That's what I fond the problem with VC's are, It's much too hard to read the instruments. As nice as it looks i wish I could read the numbers without having to zoom, Mind you I dont have trackIR so I have to manually zoom using a button on my CH Yoke.

[Chuck_B 2]

With TrackIR I found I had to do a lot of "bobbing and weaving" while concentrating on holding my neck and head fairly level and still. Don't get me wrong, if you like TrackIR, it's a great add on! But for me -- I'm over 50 -- I felt like I was chairdancing and "Walking Like An Egyptian". :) Just couldn't do it for long.

[january 19]

Chuck- Only 50+? Wait 'till you're 75+ ! The greatest feature of Flight Simming is that it seems to be a good prophylaxis against Alzheimer's !!! Now what was I doing before typing this message?Alex Reid

[oqvist 0]

trackIR does have head latency to simulate G-force effects so it

[january 19]

"But for sure if you run in 2D view trackIR is kind of pointless on any monitor. But it

[FLEX1978 370]

Hey Trelene, each to there own, and everyone likes different things :) But were you aware that you can assign a button to pause TrackIR at any time? I'm a button pusher :) but I have other instruments undocked to separate monitors.Rob

[Mike T 49]

First, As far at Ultimate Traffic, you will find that it is missing literally dozens of airlines and flight plans. Depending on where you fly, you will have to look elsewhere for AI packages to fill in the gap or else you will find yourself at many an empty airport if you depend on Ultimate Traffic as your only source.Second, you can replace all of the UT models with far better models from AIAardvark, EvolveAI, etc but this will be a VERY long a tedious process. Conversely some diligent searching on your part mayyield hyper-realistic AI Traffic results that blow UT and other payware traffic add-ons out of the water at no cost to you.BTW, you DON'T need a super computer to run 100% AI traffic in FS9. Mike T.

[FLEX1978 370]

Not sure if this will work but here are a couple of pics of my sim running in VC. If the screens big enough the gauges are quite clear.Rob

[oqvist 0]

No it doesn