Back In The Skys Today !

[Guest Sybull]

My Last copy of FS was FS2004 which I ran on my old(but trusty) 1.3ghz Athlon with 512mb Ram and a 64mb 4200ti. I stopped "flying" about 2 and a half years ago.Today I received my new PC with Q6600 Quad CPU, 4gb Ram and a 512mb 9800Gt......and FSX!I have installed FSX (and DX10) and without any updates have spent a very pleasing afternoon with just the default planes marveling at the wonders of modern simulations.Now,= I know there are a lot of tweaks, tip, FAq's etc, but with so much to cover, I was wonderingif I could ask a few questions here that I would like answered.1) Is the "STraight-out-of-the-box" FSX using my Quad CPU's efficiently ? If not, what doI need to do enable the extra horsepower ? 2) Is the acceleration pack worth while ? I don't care much for the extra aircraft. What else does it have to offer ?3) I mainly fly UK & Europe in GA aircraft. From what I can see the freeware sector has died and everything now has a price (not suprising given the time now involved in producing some of these products). Do I have to now pay, or is there still some good freeware out thier ?Any information would be greatly appreciated. Now if you will exscuse me, I have some hours to clock up.chocks away !

[ryanbatc 12,854]

No, you need to update FSX itself, especially to SP1 to make use of all the coreshttp://www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/F...rvicePack1.aspxI'd also recommend SP2http://www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/F...rvicePack2.aspxYes, I love Acceleration. I personally think the new acft alone are worth the 20 or 30 bucks, but there are a lot more missions as well.Unfortunately a lot of addons are payware (at least for the good ones), but as far as aircraft go, Phil Taylor once posted a blog about FSX freeware planes located herehttp://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2008...ns-and-fsx.aspxAs far as scenery goes I'm not sure of any freeware UK stuff....

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

As already stated, you should upgrade to SP1 + SP2 to get best performance.The default aircraft are much improved over their earlier cousins, especially in the virtual cockpit.Well worth exploring the C172, Boeing 737, LearJet, Baron etc.Depending on your flying style, there are some GA addon aircraft that are a step above the default:Have a look at RealAirSimulations and their Scout,Carenado and their Cessna 152 and Mooney.Eaglesoft's Comanche,and Dreamfleet's Dakota, just to pick some of my favorites.

[FalconAF 213]

There's lots of freeware available for FSX. Check out the FSX download area of the file libraries here.One series of downloads you might very well be interested in are UK Airfields done by Ulf (I think that's his name...somebody correct me if wrong). I don't know exactly how many "series" he has done, but there are a ton of airports he had updated in the UK for FSX.One other thing about FSX vs FS9. A lot of "airport scenery upgrades" are now done with new programs that are very simular to the old AFCAD2 program., but actually allow adding scenery to the airport now. These files have been "scattered" in the download libraries since the release of them. Some are under the FSX AFCAD section, some are under the Scenery section. That will be confusing to you at first...or for a long time, just as it confused a lot of us for a long time.FalconAF