What are we giving up by moving from Flight to FSX?

[LHookins 3,103]

I forgot about the sound system in Flight.

 

Flight did some incredible things with sound. For example, if you open a door, the sound inside the aircraft changes considerably. I often open aircraft doors when I'm on the ground just to hear the outside sounds of the engine and prop. I opened a window on an FSX aircraft in flight and was surprised when the sound did not change at all. I'm not sure if that's modelled in any aircraft in FSX, but it's been a while since I've flown many of them.

 

Not sound releated, but opening the door in the Carbon Cub in flight will cause the aircraft to yaw to the right a bit due to increased drag, even though there's really nothing hanging out in the wind like there is in the Maule with an open door. Opening the canopy in the RV-6 will change flight characteristics as well.

 

Another thing is sound reflecting off the ground and nearby buildings. I was landing once in Alaska, at an airport that had a dropoff just before the runway. As soon as I passed the dropoff on approach, I could hear the sound reflecting from the runway. It's a little thing, but it makes a big difference.

 

Hook

[trevorbee 0]

1. Flight has a much more sophisticated flight model.

2. Flight's lighting and shadows are to die for.

 

Good-looking cliffs.

 

Flight did some incredible things with sound.

 

I agree, all of the above made Flight a huge improvement on what has gone before.

 

I just hope that any future new sim will encompass these enhancements.

[Melk003 0]

All of the above + one that's very important to me, MOUSE controls in FLIGHT are simply amazing.

 

Sometimes, I just want to fly for a few minutes (usually gets me flying longer than I want, but hey ;) ), and not having to get out my setup (HOTAS joystick, TrackIR5, etc) and just use the mouse to fly is just heaven..

 

Sooo simple to control the plane with the mouse compared to FSX.

[LHookins 3,103]

After doing a little research, I found that Accu-Feel looks like it will upgrade most of the sound issues to Flight quality. Not bad for $15.

 

This goes along with the basic premise of these threads: How do I make FSX more like Flight? This is a good subject for the Flight forum, but I'd never ever ask it on the FSX forum. :D

 

Hook

[LHookins 3,103]

A couple of additions:

 

4. The ability to get out of the plane and walk around. Such a simple thing, but you miss it when it's not there.

5. Autosaving where your last flight left off. GAWD I hate having to set up the flight each time in FSX. Yes, I could save the flight each time, but that has had some problems in the past. One complaint that I remember was that the autopilot would not follow the magenta line; you'd end up off to one side. This happened occasionally to me when I was working from a new flight as well.

 

To add to the lighting item above, some aircraft in FSX have a real problem if you turn toward the rising or setting sun. The instruments black out, even with instrument lights on. I've had to add additiional cockpit lights to remedy this. In SP1 I could leave the lights on all the time and they'd dim out properly at night. In SP2 I had to add a switch to turn them off when necessary. Flight's aircraft never had that problem, for which I am grateful. I understand some aircraft add-ons do not exhibit this problem; the Carenado C337 Skymaster is one of them, although the instrument lights do not illuminate all the needles, so a cockpit light is still necessary.

 

Hook

[DarkstarF16 72]

Personally I'm not giving up on flight period.

 

Reasons... When I Fly it, I feel like I'm flying for real. This is because of all the reasons above and because of its attention to detail.

 

Pre-flight I was always striving for the 'feeling' of flying and thought I had it. Now I know I was just kidding myself. This is why it will stay on my computer, because how can I give up on this 'feeling?'

 

I've taken steps to further enhance my experience. I brought 3 22inch led backlit monitors, which I use with Eyefinity, a good 5.1 sound system and even re-built my home cockpit to gain every ounce of enjoyment from that feeling. Go take a look...

 

 

For me, their is nothing that can presently compare with the experience of complete and total immersion from the view and the sound and the detail.

 

I'd also miss the glorious vista when flying Flight at dawn or dusk with any of the weather themes. The shadowing is just so well done. Don't forget the sudden glare of the sun as it pops into the cockpit, that is also a wow moment.

 

Hook, don't forget it's not just the flight physics, its the subtle way that Flight alters the eye point inside the cockpit that enhances the 'feeling' of flight. If you count this Within the physics of the flight model then I forgive ya :) personally, I think this should be treated as a separate enhancement because i feel that a lot of work went into this often overlooked, aspect of the flight physics.

 

To sum up...

 

1 A flight sim should achieve the 'feeling' of flight and immerse the person at the other end of the computer screen.

 

2 The frame rate should reflect reality, so it enhances and does not detract from 1

 

3 The details of cockpit, internal and external lighting, sound and scenery should be as realistic as possible, so that they enhance 1 and don't affect 2

 

Those are the 3 laws of flight simming for me. Flight achieves all three and are the things I miss most from all the other contenders in this market.

 

 

[jcomm 5,927]

To sum up...

 

1 A flight sim should achieve the 'feeling' of flight and immerse the person at the other end of the computer screen.

 

2 The frame rate should reflect reality, so it enhances and does not detract from 1

 

3 The details of cockpit, internal and external lighting, sound and scenery should be as realistic as possible, so that they enhance 1 and don't affect 2

 

Those are the 3 laws of flight simming for me. Flight achieves all three and are the things I miss most from all the other contenders in this market.

 

 

I could not agree more :-)

[DarkstarF16 72]

I copied a link in my post above but it didn't appear??? So I've put some quotes around it as I'm typing this on my phone ...help!

 

"

 

 

[Guest]

What I really miss:

 

- lighting and shadows

 

Things I miss but not too bad:

 

- reflections of everything without an fps-penalty

- great looking cliffs

- job board (although I am glad I won't have to see those onscreen icons anymore )

 

That's about it, really... but that's also due to the Orbx regions I use (NA), REX (great skies) and FSWC (better watercolors and reflections) plus the RealAir Legacy which prevents me from missing the Flight audio and feeling of flight for me. If I had been using default FSX planes I'd also miss those things.

 

To my amazement I don't miss the performance of Flight because FSX (which Word Not Allowed's guide) performs perfectly fine on my PC right now and Flight at max settings wasn't that smooth, really: I had to set a few things to high instead of max in order to keep things smooth. Seems to me Flight's Alaska brought some changes in smoothness too.

[vololiberista 205]

Should not the title of this thread be "What are we gaining......!"

[RoboRay 126]

Should not the title of this thread be "What are we gaining......!"

 

No. There's another thread for that.

[188AHC 2,138]

I am assuming the gist of this thread is that one would move completely away from Flight and to FSX. If that is the intent, then much of what has been posted is valid.

 

As for me, I'm not losing anything nor gaining anything as I still have both, fly both, and enjoy what each has to offer. Which one I fly depends solely on what I wish to do. For my VA, I use exclusively FSX. For fun hops around Alaska and Hawaii, I use Flight. Also, if I just want to get some stick time I'll load up the Cub and either fly a job or land at airports that I haven't visited. There is still a lot of AK I haven't seen.

 

As for the differences in the two, I just don't pay that any attention. I'm engrossed in whichever I'm flying at the moment.

 

Guess I'm not real hard to please. :lol:

[LHookins 3,103]

Hook, don't forget it's not just the flight physics, its the subtle way that Flight alters the eye point inside the cockpit that enhances the 'feeling' of flight. If you count this Within the physics of the flight model then I forgive ya :) personally, I think this should be treated as a separate enhancement because i feel that a lot of work went into this often overlooked, aspect of the flight physics.

 

I hadn't forgotten about it, but FSX does pretty much the same thing. It's likely that Flight does it better, though, so thanks for pointing it out.

 

In the end, your three reasons are the same as my three reasons, but stated in a different manner. I was trying to get something I could quantify, but the whole thing is really about the objective feeling of Flight.

 

Jeroen: I miss shadows on everything, including all autogen. In FSX a few special objects will cast shadows, but in Flight everything does.

 

Reflections are a good point as well; it's good that the reflections on the water are good in FSX. Reflections on buildings look good. I think the cockpit window reflections are great, better than FSX did them, certainly on default aircraft.

 

Hook

[Guest]

Hook, don't forget it's not just the flight physics, its the subtle way that Flight alters the eye point inside the cockpit that enhances the 'feeling' of flight.

 

I have EZCA for that (if I understand what you are talking about, that is...). It's even better then the effect in Flight imho. My view constantly wobbles as you would expect in a plane while in Flight my view is (too) rock solid.

 

Jeroen: I miss shadows on everything, including all autogen. In FSX a few special objects will cast shadows, but in Flight everything does.

 

Reflections are a good point as well; it's good that the reflections on the water are good in FSX. Reflections on buildings look good. I think the cockpit window reflections are great, better than FSX did them, certainly on default aircraft.

 

 

Yes, the shadows... How I miss those...

 

I don't agree about the VC reflections though because that really depends on the plane you are using. In FSX you can even edit them yourself (as I always did up to now). The RealAir Legacy reflections are great as they are imho.

[DarkstarF16 72]

Oops apologies, Hook. I too had overlooked that FSX does it too. As Flight is new, the effect is more refined IMHO.

 

I tried hard to express my feelings about Flight and what I'd miss, and yes, when reading it all through, we said the same things in different ways.

 

What Flight does, it does it superbly. Let's also not forget, that we are talking DEFAULT. People forget this small item and it's an important one. In addition, all this was offered in a completely free download.

 

If Flight would have had the 6 years of additional add-on's that FSX has been fortunate to have then at least we could have been less objective.