What addons do YOU have?

[bob34 124]

I'm going to show my age here, but here's what I have put away in a box in the attic from the days before downloads:Check Yeager's AFT (my first sim)FS3, FS4 and 4.0b, FS5.1, FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2004 (remember WWI fighter?)subLogic Scenery Disks 1-6 and 12 along with STAR scenery for SFO (anyone remember that?)subLogic JETsubLogic ATP (which was way ahead of it's time)Most of the Jane's jet fighter seriesMost of the Microprose titlesTerminal Reality's Fly! (RIP - ahead of it's time, but full of bugs)I don't know why I have them, but every know and then I like looking at the packages.Maybe I'll donate them when someone starts up the first Flight Simulator museum. :)So I don't hijack the thread, my point is that we ARE junkies and we've invested significant amounts of our income over the years. I was in early 20's when I started and here I am 20+ years later still tweaking out frame rates. :)

Well what I get from this thread is that we are all junkies :( I still have every add on I bought for sub logic sim all the way up to fsx!

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

So I don't hijack the thread, my point is that we ARE junkies and we've invested significant amounts of our income over the years. I was in early 20's when I started and here I am 20+ years later still tweaking out frame rates. :)

I got your back on this hijack.Don't remember the WW1 fighter you mention, but I did spend a few hrs in the cockpit of the Wings of Glory Sopwith Camel.Microprose? If not for F14 Fleet Defender, I doubt I would've ever caught on with this computer stuff. My 1st puter ($2000) and just 6 months old was playing Fleetdefender like a slide show. I called Microprose to complain about the lousy performance. The support dude says, "you need a faster processor". I was like, DUDE?!? My puter is a top of the line IBM 486sx 25 with a 250MB hard drive!?! The support dude then tells me to relax, and then tells me that Intel has just released this new processor called the 486DX2 50 Overdrive that I could plug into my existing motherboard. He promised me that all my trouble would go away. They did! And I've been hooked on this stuff ever since. ...Remember the days when you could double the speed of your existing 6 month old puter for $300? Now those were the days.Ken Carlin

[bob34 124]

I remember a game called Jet Fighter that was brilliant for carrier landings.And yes, I got a Compaq 386 16mhz and had to find a program that would back it down to 8mhz or my games wouldn't be playable. F14 Fleet Defender was amazing. I think that came on 4 or 5 3.5" disks. Compuserve (@ $19hr for 9600 baud) had one of the best flight sim forums for years.I used to run a BBS called The 32 Bit Bus which was a flight sim board, but Nels Anderson (Xevius BBS, later flightsim.com) had the market locked in my area.But I truly think Microsoft allowing add-on aircraft and scenery swung the door wide open to where we are today.I think FS4 brought about A&SD? (Aircraft and Scenery Designer) and the reset is history.Now thanks to companies like PMDG, we have incredibly real simulations that we could only dream of back then.That's why I think some of us FS vets don't do much complaining about add-ons. Our expectations are met with every neat little idea someone comes up with.Sometimes I watch the landing gear sequence on the Queen and just marvel at the amount of realism we have at our fingertips and think about how lucky we are to have such an affordable hobby with a dedicated community of developers (freeware and payware). FS could have died a slow death along with the others. Instead, it continues to develop without the help of MS which says we'll have many many years of this before we have to (gasp) go back to paying attention to our wives. :(

I got your back on this hijack....Remember the days when you could double the speed of your existing 6 month old puter for $300? Now those were the days.Ken Carlin

[Turbine777 13]

Haha, you bring me back there Bob although it seems like it was only yesterday.I loved Chuck Yeager's Air Combat! That blue/green gradient running across the screen seemed so real, haha. I think that was my first, or perhaps the original Falcon,,, not sure. I do remember though every time I wanted to play Falcon having to format my 50 mb hard drive (Dos days) since it took the whole thing. That was back on my brand new 286 with everything on 5 1/4 disc woohoo! Thank god for newer technology yeah, but those two titles were the best.I actually recently went through my CD wallet and finally threw out discs that have been saved for too long. I tossed about 60 cds. I was sad I didn't know anyone that would want them. Not just old FS stuff but many many games no longer made of course/available.Let's not forget Novalogic's F22 Lightning-3! The first and I think only sim of those days to have Nukes! That was pretty sweet, just getting out of the blast zone was a challenge then seeing everything completely leveld was just awesome. That's the only CD I kept.

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

I am seriously considering buying REX 2 mainly after reading this thread but I am a little concerned in the frame rate hit, I can't find many people mention it.How much damage can I expect and if I do lower settings how much better than default is it (default high settings)?

[Turbine777 13]

People probably don't mention it because there really isn't an increase. Most of the time I don't notice any fps hit at all. In fact it isn't that REX is doing it, but the amount of clouds. In other words if I am flying in heavy triple cloud coverage I get stuttering, with REX or default so there is no difference.You will enjoy flying much much more with it, that I can promise you.

[bob34 124]

Jay - I can't explain it, but I have no frame rate hit with REX.Don't ask. I don't know. I don't want to know. :)Rex and Topcat have become my favorites over the last month (next to the PMDG MD-11 of course). Check my system specs at the top of the page and compare to your system.BTW, I use the 4096 HD clouds.My best performance has been in DX10 mode, although I'm skitsofrenic between DX9 and DX10 as they both have their issues.REX performs well in both modes.The real enjoyment will be ascending and descending through the most realistic clouds you've ever seen, not to mention the sensation of speed with the wispy layers made it a whole new sim for me.Thumbs up from someone who was on the fence such as yourself.

I am seriously considering buying REX 2 mainly after reading this thread but I am a little concerned in the frame rate hit, I can't find many people mention it.How much damage can I expect and if I do lower settings how much better than default is it (default high settings)?

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

Thanks guys, I have a good system with good frame rates (i7 overclocked, 6 gig ram 64bit etc) but I am always cautious putting money into visual mods that suck a ton of frames. I hear nothing but good about it so it looks like I will have to get it in the next few days. :)

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

Sorry for the double post but I can't edit my last one anymoreJust came in to say I bought REX 2 early today (nice to have a good Australian dollar at the moment), downloaded the huge files, spend ages installing and playing around with themes (which take ages to set in FSX whe you made your choice).A few thoughts from my quick impression:*My original concern was frame rate, I have everything in the fullest (except the DX10 parts as my AI package conflicts with it) and I am happy to say it hasn't done much damage at all, I even turned up water effects to 2x high (from 2x low) and my system hasn't been phased by it.*Clouds which wasn't the real reason I bought this mod but they have pretty much blown me away*Runway and Taxiway textures are very nice and I am happy with them*Weather effects are very nice (water on tarmac etc)*The water (sea, river. lakes etc) on the other hand I am not real happy with, it doesn't look all that much different to DX10 2x high default water from what I have seen, it has got some more shade difference but I don't know. Maybe I haven't gone to the best places to check it out.*Happy with the lighting options, my monitor is a little dark even with the settings at brightest and the intense landing lights make a nice improvement.*Not really impressed with the seperate weather engine and weather avoidance thing, I hate it telling me with a green bar when it will change weather. I admit I haven't given it a fair go yet.*My biggest concern is all the theme stuff, especially when it comes to water colours, it will probably drive me insane, anyone got some good themes they're happy with?

[bob34 124]

I agree with the water not being that great.You are not alone on the weather engine. They are going through the same issues HiFi went through a year ago or two (and a few that are not solved). I use ASE rather than the REX weather engine.So here's how I avoid going crazy on which textures.I pick the "I just want to fly" option.Enter the Dep/Arv airports.Rex checks the weather and chooses a good texture set for that flight.Then I wait 10 minutes for the textures to load :)I close down REX and fire up ASE, then start FSX.I don't fuss with texture choices that way. I let REX make my choice and I get to see something new all the time while trusting REX made good choices for me.Like I said before, the clouds are what I really appreciate in REX. The clouds were something that wasn't that important to me. But now that I have them, I would never give them up.

*My original concern was frame rate, I have everything in the fullest (except the DX10 parts as my AI package conflicts with it) and I am happy to say it hasn't done much damage at all, I even turned up water effects to 2x high (from 2x low) and my system hasn't been phased by it.*Clouds which wasn't the real reason I bought this mod but they have pretty much blown me away*Runway and Taxiway textures are very nice and I am happy with them*Weather effects are very nice (water on tarmac etc)*The water (sea, river. lakes etc) on the other hand I am not real happy with, it doesn't look all that much different to DX10 2x high default water from what I have seen, it has got some more shade difference but I don't know. Maybe I haven't gone to the best places to check it out.*Happy with the lighting options, my monitor is a little dark even with the settings at brightest and the intense landing lights make a nice improvement.*Not really impressed with the seperate weather engine and weather avoidance thing, I hate it telling me with a green bar when it will change weather. I admit I haven't given it a fair go yet.*My biggest concern is all the theme stuff, especially when it comes to water colours, it will probably drive me insane, anyone got some good themes they're happy with?

[Turbine777 13]

Hi Jay, All I can say is it's a new addon that will take some adjusting. You might feel blown away but there really isn't much to it. I don't use the weather engine personally and keep it disabled. Any weather engine you use will still use the REX textures. You should experiment and see which seems to pick them the best. I have ran a ton of tests in various weather conditions and it's funny but out of REX, ASA, ASE and the default WX, the default WX picks the textures the best in my opinion, although I bounce from it to ASE and am normally using ASE for getting my wind info anyway. It's a pain but the default weather as buggy as it is, is the only one I can fly with without any weather pops (gradual cloud transitions).The way I use it is I create a theme and install the textures for it and then don't touch anything for months now. When I first got it though I wanted to see them all, so I would constantly be swapping out my themes. I don't have any themes that I think are better than another, just different so that's really something you'll have to just find for yourself.As for water textures, the lakes and rivers I don't see much difference with since I am always fairly high and they are small but the oceans I notice a lot, especially when in the tropics! Fly a few dusk/dawn flights, it's incredible. Especially with the differences just the sky color makes.

[Airbusman 1]

FS9 is my simProject Tupolev Tu-154M- Frequently flownIfly 744- Flown once in awhile, not really a 747 fanTinmouse II 732- Flown frequently for my US based flightsReal Enviroment proUpdated AFCAD for ORDFreeware LYBEAnd thats about it, I don't use addon sceneries as my pc can't handle them too well so I simply update their AFCAD when needed. Since I don't have a credit card I'm mainly limited to buying FS addons that are sold in retail stores which there is almost nothing worth buying, and I'll junk my 8 year old pc for something new this winter hopefully so I can upgrade to FSX.

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

Like I said before, the clouds are what I really appreciate in REX. The clouds were something that wasn't that important to me. But now that I have them, I would never give them up.

Yep same, clouds weren't important for me but I don't want to go back now, they have much more impact than I expected.

The way I use it is I create a theme and install the textures for it and then don't touch anything for months now.

Yeah thats my intention, make a theme I like (they're all good really) and stick with it, maybe switch the tropical choice depending on where I am flying but thats it.Truth is I haven't even experienced a proper flight yet with this package, only small aerodrome circling checking things in day or night. Time to do a real flight with sunsets etc.I would like to thank both of you (Bob and Dan) for you're assistance, I am glad I purchased it. :(

[Guest ted320]

Just thought I would add PDF Kneeboard.You can download pdf charts and then view them in FS9/FSX. Its really easy to use and you can assign a joy stick button to show/hide the kneeboard.http://code.google.com/p/fscode/wiki/PDFKneeboardTED

[jon b 2,047]

from memory, I`m sadly away from home stuck in Vegas:REX fs9 and fsx- I cant quite understand this thing about having hi def clouds when real life clouds aren`t they`re hazzy!?PFE- dont really use it, like Dan I find the voices strange and also unrealistic heading vectors like " turn right heading 317 degrees" ATC only use 5 degree headingsHorizon VFR- for the whole of the UK (exept Scotland) fs 9 and fsx-superb for sunny day low level flying in fsx, the fs 9 stuff is ok for airlinner us but not so good below 4000ftGary summons VFR airfields for fsx all volumes and uk2000 all volumes for fs9- all good stuff.Heathrow +gatwick xtreme, and the new Manchester xtreme is first class,I operate out of these fields and they are great reproductions of the real thingBlueprint KMCO- hmm its ok, but the docking system and gate areas aren`t true to life and theres a big frame rate hitImaginesim Vegas- very realistic and includes the fs9 version + mega scenery vegas photoscenery flight 1 Instant sceney- I`ve populated the local gliding strip behind my house and use that as a light aircraft baseEarth simulations Alderney- very good for flying into, looking forward to Guernsey(I learnt to fly there)Freeware TBPB barbados, I cant remember who did it, theres a couple out there I`ve tried both, one version is really good thoughTongass fjords- a great place to escape to for an hourAircraft:Freeware CBFS hawker siddley HS 748 fs 9 and fsx- I cant reccomend this freeware highly enough, I used to fly these aircraft and it really captures the feeling of flying one so well, the sounds are fantastic, and there are loads of liveries available. Ok the VC doesn`t have 3d buttons and switches but its still a really great aircraft to fly.Flight 1 Hunter and CBFS freeware hunter- one has an exellent VC and flight model and is free, and the other doesnt and costs 30 dollars :( Skysim hawk- I spend a lot of time in this little trainer very easy on the frame rates but questionable in aspects of the flight model, ie I can bring it to a stop on the runway with it sitting nose up with the nosewheel in the air. but still a great add onVRS F/A 18 superbug for FS9 and just released fsx- This is just supperb in every way, I havn`t learnt the systems yet but its just great to fly and play around with, I`m certainly going to be buying the pro version as the thought of learning how to fly an F18 really interests me. If you like high end study sims you need to get this, even if you have no interest in combat systems.Aerosoft F16- still finding my way around this, a nice alternative to the VRS F18 but not as in depth,looks great though.Eaglesoft citation II- not bad but hard on the frame ratesFirst class lancaster and wellington- both nice, but lancaster is much better I havn`t spent much time in either yet.RealAir sf260- fantastic little aerobatic propRealair ACA aircraft- a really nice package of bush and aerobatic aircraft.Realair Duke- the best light twin simulation available, great for IFR practice, though the RMI and HSI needles are a little block in movement and aren`t as smooth as the other flight instruments which is a shame.Digital aviation Do27- seems a good aircraft but has a bug on my system in which the cockpit keeps flashingCarenado 152- incredible realism great reproduction of the light trainer their best aircraft in my opinion.the flight model at the extremes of the envelope dont seem quite right thoughCarenado archer and arrow- very nice VCs but let down by the blocky movement of the artificial horizonA2A accusim piper cub- great bush flying aircraft but expensive for such a simple aircraftAerosoft catalina- fantastic, very atmospheric, very easy to fly, infact too easy, it seems too stable to me. put it in a 30 degree turn at 3000ft go and make a cup of tea, come back and its still doing the same thing, wouldn`t happen with a high wing aircraft, they`re dynamically stable not nuetral.PMDG 747-400- very good as you all know, but too much like the day job so just use it for practice rather than entertainmentPMDG J41- just superb, one of the few add ons that makes you think its a real aeroplane.Airsimmer A320 fs9-theres been a lot of complaints about this one but i find it a great VC especially for fs9 and again has the feel of a real aeroplane. limited systems at present but IF the pro version ever gets released it should be good.CH yoke, throttle quad and rudderI`ve probably got a couple more but cant remember without looking at my rig.the future:I like the look of the new simcheck A300 but its been ruined for me by the fact the altimeter drum readout rotates the wrong way, from what ive seen on youtube,ie in decent the lower numbers come from above, they should come from below. its only a small point but enough to blow the realism for me.Might treat myself to the pacific Northwest scenery,saitek hotas and flight yoke.cheersJon Bunting