I have been a flight sim fan since the late 80s. I lost interest in FSX until recently. MS flight re-ignited my life long ambition to get my private pilots license. I am now 3 lessons in on that adventure and so glad I started. FSX has been loaded on my system since the day built it. I went back and found my home airport... KFIT Fitchburg, MA. Although the flying was far from as real as MS Flight or flying a real Cessna 172, the detailed realism on airports and cockpits let me practice before every lesson. Recently I bought the Carenado 152, 172 and Cherokee payware planes to improve the realism.

 

Now that MS Flight is dead, I feel my only path is to go back to FSX. XP-10 was a big disappointment. I could not even keep the 172 from going off the runway with crazy left torque effect. Level flight was just as bad with constant roll to the left. The torque effect in a real 172 is minimal. And, XP-10 will be a big investment in payware airplanes and scenery to make it work. Aerofly FS is nice scenery but a flawed flight model as far I am concerned.

 

I need some help from you guys that understand how to pump up FSX to come close to Flight... or know where I can to find a step-by-step tutorial or book that will tell me how to build an FSX+ environment that I can use until the next great flight sim comes along.

 

I have used every MS flight sim program since the IBM PC back in 80s. But other than freeware airplanes I never dove in and bought that alphabet soup of add-ons. ORBX, REX, GEX, KORS, OPEN VFR, Ultimate TERR-X, Sim-Savy... it is an overwhelming nightmare of a learning curve. And... it will cost a bundle to "try" these things one by one. I have visited the FSX forum here at AVSIM and there is a wealth info there. I did find some material on tweaking FSX itself but nothing on a "how-to" build a "best" FSX+ with aftermarket add-ons.

 

Any help, recommendations or pointers would be appreciated. I am an advanced windows PC guy and can handle the tech stuff, but I need a start in the right direction.

 

Brian

Brian, and the rest of the guys, I don't mean to be difficult or a spoilsport, but shouldn't all these posts go in the FS X forum? This is not a criticism and I have FS X on my computer also, but this is the Flight forum, after all.

 

Best regards.

Luis

You have some good GA aircraft already and Carenado does great work.

 

To do it right IMO you need GEX, Active Sky 2012 or REXE, UTX/UTXEurope, and a good traffic addon (either UT2, MTX, or use freeware WOAI).

 

You can get all those addons all for a little over $100 and be in good shape.

 

That gets the scenery (at least in the US and Europe), weather, and atmosphere up to par IMO. If you want to go even better, get some Orbx areas. They are mindblowingly good.

 

After that it's personal preference. There are a ton of great payware airports. A ton of good big iron planes and more GA to chose from. Whatever interests you.

Buy all of orbx north america tongas fjords and the planes from real air. and fly in those areas. dont bother with anything else except rex od. real air is coming out with a 172 should be good

Brian, and the rest of the guys, I don't mean to be difficult or a spoilsport, but shouldn't all these posts go in the FS X forum? This is not a criticism and I have FS X on my computer also, but this is the Flight forum, after all.

 

Best regards.

Luis

 

Funny, this forum has now become the FSX forum apparently. I took a 6 year break from Fight simming until I tried Flight, and jumped back into it I was so impressed with the flight model in flight. I will probably fly Flight for awhile, but there is no way I could ever go back to FSX or X-Plane now that I see what a good flight model behaves like on a PC. I decided in the last couple of weeks to change directions, and am now becoming involved in Railroad sims ( Trainz 2012 ) and am having a blast.

Funny, this forum has now become the FSX forum apparently. <snip>

 

The funniest/saddest thing is that this forum is now the velatorium of the deceased Microsoft Flight.

 

I guess most people here are trying to scramble and find something else to do; while the buzz on Flight fades out.

 

 

By the way Brian; there are lots of great hints and tweaks to get FSX going at the FSX forum, right next door.

Hi Brian,

 

Don't try and do it all at once. Put UTX/GEX, plus a weather addon, then get the best freeware that is avialable and one payware plane you aspire to really master.

 

As someone who's gone through the payware route I can give you some tips where to save money and what NOT to do:

1. Skip payware airports initially. These are a LUXURY, but also a gamble. They sometimes do not meet expectations and/or drain FPS when you need it most (takeoff/landing/taxi).

Get AFCADs (airport files) in the AVSIM library instead - these will correct airports up to date with latest standard, put correct taxiways, correct runways, and all that stuff, even the correct gates for the airlines. An AFCAD airport with a traffic addon looks amazing - because it's the traffic that shows it.

2. Don't get ORBX initially. It covers some regions but restricts where you can fly and to buy it all can cost a bundle. Instead start with UTX & GEX. Especially GEX. These textures replace the defaults and improve most of the whole world.

3. Don't buy lots of planes. This was a mistake I made - now I can never make up my mind what to fly! and I'm always reading up on planes and trying to learn the next little thing instead of flying. I'm learning alot but would rather I had focussed on Mastering each plane before buying more and flying more.

4. Don't chase the "ULTIMATE" ATC addon. There isn't one. VoxATC has AI issues, RadarContact is only IFR, MCE doesnt' always listen to what you are saying, and Vatsim doesn't cover the airports you want. Instead, get EditVoicePack (it's free), and adjust default ATC for free. If you have some money and time, these addons are a luxury and improve the ATC but they aren't perfect.

5. Buy a couple of addons that add to the realism feel. Trackir is good. EzDok is good if you are tech savvy to set it up. An easy one is Accu-Feel. These are good value because they are used on ALL flights.

6. Weather addon - used every flight. REX or Active Sky 2012 (my choice).

7. Traffic - ultimate traffic 2 or MyTraffic X. I use UT2 and it really is awesome, I can have 200 AI planes in the air and I'm still flying around with 25+ FPS. Again - something that is used every flight.

8. Don't bother with too much tweaking. Just read Word Not Allowed's guide and do it once, then use the internal frame lock at 20-30fps and you're good to go.

 

If you want some direction as well, there is a free 45 video course from angle of attack that can get you started. It's actually not bad videos for free stuff, although if you're doing your PPL then the PPL covers this stuff in more depth. But it's a good watch on the ipad or whatever:

http://www.flyaoamedia.com/aviator-90/

I hear they do good payware training too.

I apologize to Luise and others that thought that this post should have been on the FSX forum. They are right... and I will go there. But I valued most the opinions of fellow MS Flight fans who could sort through all the alphabet soup and give me advice on how to come closest to MS flight. The FSX forums are a little intimidating. Everybody is immersed in FSX add-ons and tweaking and there are wildly differing opinions on want is good and what is bad. I wanted to ask this question here first before diving into the learning curve of FSX add-ons.

 

Thanks for the advice so far. I will still do the aerocache of day until it stops and I will probably buy that last airplane if it has a cockpit.

 

Really bummed

Brian

http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

 

Improved my performance ALOT

Actually, I'd like to see some discussion here of migrating to FSX for the ex-Flight addicts. It will basically be a synopsis of everything we need, all in one place. Further research can be done on the FSX forum once we've gotten a starting point.

 

If you're going to get a texture replacement package and want a weather package as well, be aware that Active Sky 2012 has a large set of textures bundled with it. Some are great, some less so. I've always been happy with their coulds, not something I could say from screen shots of REX, which I haven't tried. Some of the runway and parking spot textures look just like Flight's and are much better than FSX default.

 

Weather smoothing has improved a lot in the versions since the original Active Sky X, but there's some room for improvement. What they have now is livable, mostly, and there's nothing like having real world weather to fly in. Varied, unpredictable most of the time, and you can use real world weather information to help plan flights. It's nice to look out the window, think "Today looks like a good day to fly" and then take off in a fairly good simulation of what you saw out the window. It won't be exact, but it will be close enough.

 

Hook

Make sure to check out Word Not Allowed's guide for good performance. I applied almost all his tweaks and settings apart from LOD_RADIUS, FIBER_FRAME_TIMER_FRACTION. And I use a lower nVidia Inspector FSAA setting (because 8xS is a bit too fuzzy for me).

 

BTW I also went back to FSX. I decided to only install what I really want/need and what I already had:

 

FSX, SP1, SP2 (obviously)

REX 2.0 (I don't own or need Essentials: I only use a few textures from REX)

FS Water Configurator (mandatory to get the water the way I want it)

ORBX PNW, PFJ, NRM (I decided to not install ANY airport addon)

 

I initially installed the BayTower RV-7A but I decided to buy the RealAir Legacy. That's the only plane I need for quite some time. Because the Legacy has some built in motion effects I also decided to not use EZCA.

 

I decided to not install any addon airports anymore because when you do so the other airports obviously look less good... and you tend to only fly to those addon airports. Also, some of them are very heavy on the system. I like all airports to be of equal quality so I can pick any airport I want without worrying if it will look better or worse or bring down my fps. Another reason is that I think they cost too much and if you have one or two you like to get them all... well, I do, but you will never be able to get an entire region with that same quality, so I rather use the large regions now without the detailed addons.

 

BTW I am still in doubt about ASE: although the weather engine is nice I always fly with night weather (since I live on the other side of the world) and using historical weather often gave errors... so for now I am using the supplied FSX weather themes.

#1.Contrary to what some may say and what most if not all 3PD recommend, Create a seperate folder on your drive. Name it Flight Simulator X. Install everything to that folder. Keep it out of the programs folder. This will avoid the 10 post a day of people having problems with UAC, turned off or not.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370594-read-before-posting-software-hardware-guide-for-fsx/

 

This is the link for the Word Not Allowed's Tuning guide that was referenced to above. It works wonders!

BTW I am still in doubt about ASE: although the weather engine is nice I always fly with night weather (since I live on the other side of the world) and using historical weather often gave errors... so for now I am using the supplied FSX weather themes.

 

If it's a problem, use the Historical Weather setting and set the time to the local time where you're going to fly.

 

Oh, and there's a newer version called AS2012.

 

Hook

Actually, I'd like to see some discussion here of migrating to FSX for the ex-Flight addicts. It will basically be a synopsis of everything we need, all in one place. Further research can be done on the FSX forum once we've gotten a starting point.

 

I think the Flight forum is the most appropriate place to discuss other sims in general, regarding how to recreate or approximate aspects of Flight. This is, after all, the place to find other Flight users, and it's their opinions I'm looking for.

 

I can only imagine the responses of going to the FSX or XP forums and asking "How do I make this like Flight?"

 

But once people do know what sims or add-ons to try, their forums are obviously a better place to seek specific guidance on using them.