Coming Back To Fs9 After Long Layoff...what To Expect?

[Guest edrutl2009]

Hey all!Long story short, I used to be a pretty active member of the Flight Sim Community, even worked here as a Staff Reviewer for AVSIM back in the ancient 2001-2002 era.But shortly after the release of FS9 we had a lot of life changes. Moved to Dallas, started a new job, had a second child. I suddenly found I rarely had the time to really enjoy FS. Plus my old rig wasn't quite up to running FS9 the way I wanted and I had tired of the endless upgrading/tweaking of my computer. I didn't load FS or make a single hardware upgrade to my computer for the last 4 years.Fast forward to now. I just bit the bullet on a totally new PC rig. The kids are often back and forth with the their friends, giving me some PC time. I'm thinking I may jump back into the FS scene again. But since I really don't know what I missed with FS9 - I'm thinking I can pimp out that rather than start all over with FSX and probably get the frame rates I wanted.Looking at the forum, it seems like FS9 is still getting plenty of love. Is there any compelling reason to upgrade or will my new rig give me the rock solid FS9 performance I'd want...Oh, I love the small airliners. Pretty much used the PMDG 737 exclusively. Anything in that vein that's come out in the last few years that you all would recommend....or any other 'killer' add-ons?

[dolph98 24]

Welcome back. I think you missed much and there's no way I can catch you up quickly. I'll tell you what I do with my simming time, maybe you'd like to try it. I have gone the route of updating and tweaking and I got sick of it. This time, I installed FS9 on a separate partition so I can quickly defrag it. I also didn't add on a whole bunch of thingamabobs, I only installed small tweaks and major payware pretty much as follows:Reinstalled FS9Patched to FS9.1Active Sky 6 (There is an update to this called Active Sky Advanced or ASA but I have had no reason to shell out for it)FS NavigatorUT USA (Europe will be added soon)FSG MeshFSUIPC - RegisteredExplorer Suite Tweak for >2GB (Yes it works even for Vista)myTraffic 2006 at 75%Halo fixAircraft light fixAI SoundsAquarama Water TexturesEdit VoicepackRWY12 for those few addon airports I like to play withRenamed default autogen fileTree ReplacementsPro Flight Emulator to get rid of MS' ATCI use only payware planes these days. Citation II, Citation X, ATR 72-500.I have been flying routes in FSEconomy (www.fseconomy.com) exclusively and enjoying it immensely. I bought my own Citation II and just last week bought a Citation X - what a nice plane (Eaglesoft Citation X v.2.0). This list is very short compared to all the stuff I used to do. I have a trouble-free sim experience these days compared to the CTD/tweak/CTD/occasional good flight/CTD I used to get and... well... you get the idea.Good luck in all of your sim experiences.Dolph98

[jagabom 21]

FSPassengers and vatsim are a must. Radar Contact. The MADDOG is an excellent jet.FSNavigator is not available anymore. You can still download it but can only be used about 20 or 30 times before it times out.You cannot buy a key anymore.Oh ya, 3 - 22" wide screen monitors setup like january has them. Where are you Alex?. You did say killer apps. Ha Ha. That's what I have.Belga1, I don't really understand your little movie whenever you post.Jim CYWG

[Guest G. Stone]

Since you didn't specify what kind of hardware you have installed in your new I rig... I will chime in and say you should be very happy with FS9 with new hardware.I was a pretty big FS guy myself until I got tired of poor performance on my P4 2.66 and 7600 GT combo, so I like you left the FS scene for awhile. I have owned a few of the big payware software like Ultimate traffic, LevelD 767, PMDG 737 series, FS2Crew, FSUIPC (registered) and a few others. However since I upgraded to an Intel Q6600 (overclocked), nVidia GTX 260, and 4 GB of RAM with Vista Ultimate FS9 is locked for me at 30 FPS pretty much with everything I have thrown at it. All with the sliders maxed. Since I have upgraded my PC I have picked up a few more payware airports and Ground Environment Pro and I just could not justify purchasing FSX and buying stuff all over again for a small improvement over what I already have. FS9 and my updated hardware combo is a perfect match.Long story short if you are not ready to upgrade... FS9 will impress you with it's capabilities with updated hardware.