Is 2004 for me?

[Guest aca_dia]

Questions? I use 2002 for nothing but instrument practice for real world flying (helps keep the rust from forming). 99% of the time I have visibility and ceiling set at 2 miles & 200 feet solid overcast.Is there a substantial advance in the panel quality of the GA aircraft over 2002 to interest me? I know that it includes a Garmin 500 for GPS approaches. Is it coupled with OBS or HSI? If this works well I am certainly interested in getting 2004.Lastly if it is worth getting, for my use will it run on my machine (keeping in mind I would have the scenery turned way down, but the panel quality would be maxed). 2002 runs great the way I use it 30fps locked most of the time.P3 800mhz512mbGeforce 4 128mb

[KevinAu 441]

The panels are the same. What has been improved for people like you is the ATC interaction. Instead of an ATC system that can get you from A to B with vectors for approach and a missed approach at B, the ATC in 2004 can get you from A to B and then do full procedure approaches, vectors, full procedure missed approach with holding, altitude changes and destination changes. So the basic difference is that the ATC system can now fully interact with you on a flight that mimics an IPC.

[Geofa 108]

I use fs exactly the same way. With the new weather and ability to request any approach it is an GA ifr dream. :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Guest aca_dia]

Thanks for the info. Any thoughts on trying to run it on my machine? I would plan on reducing all of the external scenery sliders to the lowest settings. I would prefer to have the 2D panels set to maximum. I can live with 20FPS or there abouts, but doing a scan with 10-15FPS or less gets old quick.Geof how well does the Garmin work for real life GPS approach practice?

[Geofa 108]

Believe it or not I am not a Garmin 430/530 fan (find it unintuitive to use-my philosophy is if you have to read the directions it is poorly designed-lol-I am a ups fan(now taken over by garmin?!)). However, from what I can tell yes it resembles the real unit but not to the level that the reality xp version does-but you can do approaches with it-I have stumbled through a few.If you turn everything down you should do better than what you can do with fs2002-so I would use that as a performance gauge. Faster is always better of course.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Guest JonP01]

Aca dia,From what I have heard, your machine can be made to run the sim quite well. If you look for posts in this forum where the author is "JohnCi", he runs FS2004 on a machine almost identical to yours. Although he says there are a few minor frame rate / stutter issues on this configuration, I still think you will be happy with the performance. Although the game isn't available in my country yet, from what I understand it is completely possible to make FS2004 run as well as FS2002. It just means some of the sliders in FS2004 need to be moved further left than they were in FS2002, and some newer options in FS2004 need to be disabled.

[Guest aca_dia]

I guess I will give it a shot. I will report back once I get it up and running (I hope to pick it up today since I have the day off from RW flying).Geofa I'm not a 100% Garmin fan, but it is what I trained on so I am pretty comfortable using it. Most of the aircraft I am flying have Garmin 430's, but Im looking forward to using a UPS unit when I come across one. I am a commercial pilot convert from being a boat captain and I was already pretty familiar with the Garmin structure from the marine products so its pretty intuitive for me.Thanks for the input Im going to see if I can track a copy down.

[Geofa 108]

I love your Elman quote-I wonder how many know who he was!? :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[turner112 52]

I know who he was, and he should have stuck with his violin.:(There's this weird thing that when people become famous for something their words about other things become taken as gospel.Like rock stars taking up political stances on things they know nothing about.I respect those who deserve respect and pay no attention to age.>I love your Elman quote-I wonder how many know who he was!? >:-)>http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Geofa 108]

I happen to think it is a great quote-no matter who said it (and surprising for Elman who was not supposed to have great intellect). At least he wasn't talking politics-I agree completely there ! :-)Getting back to my violin....http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Geofa 108]

Sounds like we use the sim in the same way. I am also comm pilot, and use exclusively to train and keep proficient. In all the sim versions, I have to confess I have never tried any of the aircraft I haven't flown for real!I haven't used the Garmin or UPS unit live in a plane yet-but on the demos I can find my way around the UPS pretty well without reading a manual. I may be getting the new Waas unit in a future airplane deal that I am working on now.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Guest JonP01]

>I happen to think it is a great quote-no matter who said it>(and surprising for Elman who was not supposed to have great>intellect). At least he wasn't talking politics-I agree>completely there ! :-)>Getting back to my violin....>http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpgHi there Geof :) I thought you might like the quote ;) It seems as every day goes by those words mean more and more to me :-lol btw, I'll have to email you soon to show you my "new" 1940 fiddle - once it gets back from being setup and I take a couple of jpegs.

[Geofa 108]

Look forward to it-hope it turns out like you want it!http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg