Couple ?'s before I open my boxed 747

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Well, I decided to go ahead and open the box and install it last night.I must say, I am quite surprised how good the FPS are. I did a quick demo flight from Oklahoma City to FSDT's KDFW and was surprised that on final I was getting about 23 to 28 FPS pretty consistant. Given FPS that high, its really not much different that what I get in the LDS767 and PMDG J41.I guess I did a lot of worrying about nothing based on all the talk I have heard in the past about it being an FPS hog. Franklky the FPS seem fine, but the 747 does seem to be a little bit of a memory hod when switching views. I may need to start looking for some DXT3 textures to see if I can lighted the load on memory.I do have one issue with the plane though. When I land and the spoilers deploy it makes a funny sound that is really hard to describe. I also hear the sound when comming out of reverse thrust and the spoiler are returned to the normal state. The only thing I can think of to describe the sound is from the old game PacMan, when Pacman would eat the fruit, thats the sound my spoilers make.Also I am not sure if the FMC screen should go black for a second or two after I press the EXEC key, unless perhaps thats how it is in real life, but it does return to normal after the brief black screen in the window.If needed I can open a thread in the 747 support area for that.Aside from the sound issue I am enjoying the plane so far. All the years I spent in the LDS767 seem to have made the transition a lot easier to get started in this bird. Now I just need to read the PDF's to get familiar with all the little things.Regards,Sean Campbell@Yos - No, I dont want to disable the VC, just the passenger cabin and external model. There's no way after the last 2.5 years of flying VC's that I would return to 2D panels. That would almost be like asking me to return to FS9, which I will also never do :-)

[FSXHD 5]

When I land and the spoilers deploy it makes a funny sound that is really hard to describe. I also hear the sound when comming out of reverse thrust and the spoiler are returned to the normal state. The only thing I can think of to describe the sound is from the old game PacMan, when Pacman would eat the fruit, thats the sound my spoilers make.

My Queen plays this sound as well. I do not know exactly what it is, but someone else can answer that question.

Also I am not sure if the FMC screen should go black for a second or two after I press the EXEC key, unless perhaps thats how it is in real life, but it does return to normal after the brief black screen in the window.

It should. The CPU in the FMC is somewhat outdated and it takes a few seconds to process the route. This is how it is in real life.

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

My Queen plays this sound as well. I do not know exactly what it is, but someone else can answer that question.

Yeah its a weird sound for a spoiler handle being moved. I guess I coud either re-name the sound file that's responsible or find another sound to replace it with. Maybe if Ryan comes to this thread again he can verify the sound.

It should. The CPU in the FMC is somewhat outdated and it takes a few seconds to process the route. This is how it is in real life.

I was thinking the same thing. The only thing in my fleet I can compare it to is the LDS767 which is pretty much instant when you press the EXEC button. Also from what I remember the FS9 PMDG 737 was pretty much instant as well. Like you said since the FMC is somewhat outdated that could be the slight pause I am seeing.

[CapnOz 109]

Question- Can you purchase a boxed version from another person and register it properly in accordance with PMDG policy?PS I tried to question support-but the system was/is down.

[Tabs 2,790]

Also I am not sure if the FMC screen should go black for a second or two after I press the EXEC key, unless perhaps thats how it is in real life, but it does return to normal after the brief black screen in the window.

It's actually partially right in our 400 and MD-11 - the real thing gets progressively slower the longer the route is because it has to perform more calculations. A certain 737 we're making should have this completely right.Addons that have instantaneous response from the FMS definitely are not correct though, the CPUs in these things are absolutely ancient - they're extremely slow. The tradeoff though is that they're extremely well debugged and stable at this point.

[Cras 6]

It's actually partially right in our 400 and MD-11 - the real thing gets progressively slower the longer the route is because it has to perform more calculations. A certain 737 we're making should have this completely right.Addons that have instantaneous response from the FMS definitely are not correct though, the CPUs in these things are absolutely ancient - they're extremely slow. The tradeoff though is that they're extremely well debugged and stable at this point.

Excellent reply.

[AA762 1]

Lol, I just bought it from Fry's last Saturday. I bought it from the one RIGHT NEXT TO KDFW (a.k.a. DFW International). I didn't know about the support thing, but FPS are good on my computer.

[DylanC 181]

Just purchased this myself (Saturday night), directly from PMDG though. I ran into one ambiguity with aligning the IRS, but quickly figured out the correct procedure. The manual titled "Normal Procedures" tells you to set the IRS knobs from the OFF position, to NAV, then to ALIGN, but the "Aircraft Systems" manual gives the correct procedure of "OFF" then "NAV" only. Other than that flew two flights and made 2 horrible landings (par for the course), at least we could walk away from them. :(

[yos233 1]

Actually, if the IRS has not aligned yet, you DO have to go into align, and then nav. So "Off, Nav, Align, Nav."

[Turbine777 13]

I have to admit, when I first saw this thread (about a minute afte it was posted), I thought it had to be a joke. I mean, looking at the addons in this persons sig he is of course no stranger to addons, and especially loss of FPS, obviously. So when I read:"If its around 5 FPS I can live with that but if its going to be more like 10 to 15 FPS then it will be something I will have to give further consideration before I crack the box open"I was think'n, here we have someone that spent a large sum of coin on his hobby, yet he bought the cheapest version of one of the best addon aircraft available today and wants us to believe, he may not open what he already bought? Haha, come on, if you have a question, ask it, but doing it in a way you expect us to believe your holding your purchase hostage unless you hear what you want is a bit much I think.Well, gatta run. I just bought a cheeseburger at a reputable place down the street and want to call some friends to get their advice before I eat it :(

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

I have to admit, when I first saw this thread (about a minute afte it was posted), I thought it had to be a joke. I mean, looking at the addons in this persons sig he is of course no stranger to addons, and especially loss of FPS, obviously. So when I read:"If its around 5 FPS I can live with that but if its going to be more like 10 to 15 FPS then it will be something I will have to give further consideration before I crack the box open"I was think'n, here we have someone that spent a large sum of coin on his hobby, yet he bought the cheapest version of one of the best addon aircraft available today and wants us to believe, he may not open what he already bought? Haha, come on, if you have a question, ask it, but doing it in a way you expect us to believe your holding your purchase hostage unless you hear what you want is a bit much I think.Well, gatta run. I just bought a cheeseburger at a reputable place down the street and want to call some friends to get their advice before I eat it :(

Hi Dan,Well its true, believe it or not. Let me give you a break down on how the whole situation came about, not that I feel like I have to justify my question, but I will tell you what happened anyway.On Friday morning I dropped my gf of at KDFW at about 5am, after which I drove over to a place called Founders Plaza which is located over by the UPS ramp and is set up as a spotting location equiped with speakers to listen to ATC. Anways, after I parked I opened Flightaware.com on my phone and was looking to see what planes were scheduled to arrive and depart. I had noticed that a Cathay Pacific 747 was scheduled to depart in about 2 hours, so I figuered since I didn't have much going on and the weather was pleasant I would sit tight for a few hours and watch all the planes landing and departing.Fast forward to 7 am. I spotted the said 747 taxing in the distance to 36R for departure. Once it was comming down the runway and lifted off I was admittedly in awe over the size and stature of the a/c. Not that I have never seen one in person before, but since they're not that common and you dont see them constantly like you do 737's and MD-80's, it was pretty cool to see. It was at that moment that I had enough interest and thought maybe I should go ahead and get the PMDG version since I have putting it off for years, but only if I could find one of those $30 copies and Fry's or Best Buy.2 hours later, I was in a Fry's here in Dallas and found 2 copies for $30, so I though what the heck, I might as well get it and with a 3 day weekend ahead of me and the gf out of town, I would have plenty of freetime to fly the plane and learn it. It was when I got home that I stated to have second thoughts due to things I had read in the past about it not performing very well as far as being heavy on FPS, so that's when I posted the question here about what to expect.Plus the fact that I wanted to make sure I could come here for support and not have to use Aerosoft since they are the ones who boxed the product. Nothing against them , but frankly I try to steer clear of Aerosoft when at all possible for products or service. Yes I know I have some of their stuff listed in my sig, but in those situations since no one else made versions of those sceneries, I had no choice but to buy from them and when I got their F-16, they were the only ones at the time to have one.It's true that I didn't open the package until Saturday afternoon after getting some feedback here. You see I have spent a fair amount of money on addons for FSX, but I have a habit of buying planes, using them for a few days, then reverting back to my LDS 767 for 95% of my FSX flying. I guess that even though it was only $30, I have gotten to the point that unless I honestly believe that I will use the plane a good amount, its just not worth wasting the money. Heck as cool as the J41 is, I admit that after I got it and spent a few days flying nothing but it, I hangered it and haven't flown it in months, mainly just because its too slow and I like to do longer flights. So I just didn't want to install the 747, be disappointed in the FPS and then not be able to return it for a refund. Plus I had read that I could also buy the -8 addon which is supposed to help the FPS, but I have no intention of spending another $25 for it.I admit that after a few of the first responses to my question where people said the FPS hit would be substantial, I had though honestly that I should just return it and get my refund, but on Saturday when Ryan said that he though my system would run it ok, I decided to go ahead and open it and install it.Now its been a few days since then and I am really enjoying the plane and is proving to be a pretty easy transition from the LDS767 I have been flying the past few years. The performance is also very good, in fact a lot better than what I had expected. I flew it from KDFW to KJFK on Sat, both of which I have FSDT's airports, and I got a steady 23+ FPS when landing at KJFK, which is more than acceptable considering that area is usually know to be a hard area to fly with complex addons due to the FPS hit.So there you have it Dan. Honestly when I posted my question I didn't think what I was asking was that big of a deal, and yes, I did hold it hostage until I got enough feedback to make me feel comfortable. Trust me, even though I spend a lot of money, I truely hate wasting money, which I have done by buying the majority of the planes in my sig and rarely using the majority of them.I will say this though, once the NGX comes out I will probably mostly just fly it and the 747 and hanger all the rest.Regards,Sean CampbellPS - You wont see me posting the same question once the NGX comes out, lol.

[Turbine777 13]

I used nothing but the queen for a lonnnng time. I see you have the JS41 but how about the MD-11? I am a 747 lover personally, but hardly ever touch it ever since I got the MD-11. It wasn't even really my type of aircraft but after you get use to the queen and want to see some serious modeling, I would highly recommend the MD-11.Just curious but how is the RA SF-260? I never got anything from RA until recently and it was the Duke B60 for FSX. It's awesome and the 3D gauges are the best I ever seen, and the modeling seems top notch as well. However, it hits my FPS more than the fat girl does.I do know what you mean about getting something and not using it since my addon list would violate signature rules by a page or two. I would recommend getting the -8 expansion also if your having framerate issues or if you want to see a much better looking aircraft externally. It costs peanuts and well worth it.

[Guest Cag40Navy]

I am with Dan, i have been using the 744 for quite a while since i bout it at best buy. Its a great aircraft and i would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

Well, gatta run. I just bought a cheeseburger at a reputable place down the street and want to call some friends to get their advice before I eat it

Ask bout that Corona while you call them would ya? :( :(

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

I see you have the JS41 but how about the MD-11? I am a 747 lover personally, but hardly ever touch it ever since I got the MD-11. It wasn't even really my type of aircraft but after you get use to the queen and want to see some serious modeling, I would highly recommend the MD-11.

Buy the MD-11? Mmmm, probably not. Never had much interest in the MD-11, but you never know. I would be a buyer of an MD-80 if PMDG did one. I probably should have bought the MD-11 rather than the J41 though since it would suite my type of flying more than the J41 does.

Just curious but how is the RA SF-260? I never got anything from RA until recently and it was the Duke B60 for FSX. It's awesome and the 3D gauges are the best I ever seen, and the modeling seems top notch as well. However, it hits my FPS more than the fat girl does.

The SF260 is very good but seldom flown, lol. The FPS are not even an issue with that a/c, in fact the FPS are the same or better than any of the default GA planes that FSX comes with.

I would recommend getting the -8 expansion also if your having framerate issues or if you want to see a much better looking aircraft externally. It costs peanuts and well worth it.

Nah, the FPS with the -400 and -400F are fine, plus I could generally careless about the external model since I am mostly always in the VC. If I was a screen shot artist then maybe, but as it stands I would care if the external model was just a box, lol.