Of course I have an answer.

 

What is it?

How should those of us who's hobby isn't developing a simulator but just flying one do that?

 

While I don't think FlightGear is *The Future*, having an open source flight simulator means you can just fly it if you want, same as FSX, but you can also fix things, unlike FSX.

 

I did a lot of "just flying" in Orbiter before I ever got into the code. I'm guessing most people never get into the code or make modifications to models or whatever. It's just that having that ability is a very powerful tool for those who wish to take advantage of it, and have the necessary skills.

 

You don't even have to make any changes yourself. Got a good idea that you think should be implemented? Present your case and someone else may take up on your idea and do it for you. All for free.

 

Hook

What is it?

 

I think Larry summed it up pretty nicely.

Have a great day!

So we are to support FlightGear by identifying its failings and hope some one will rectify them?

So we are to support FlightGear by identifying its failings and hope some one will rectify them?

 

Do you think that hover control you're working on for simconnect would be easier to do in FlightGear?

 

Since I don't use FlightGear, let me give you an example from the open source Orbiter spacecraft simulation.

 

Someone wrote an autopilot that would take a space shuttle from orbit all the way to landing on the runway. Sure, you could hand fly the same thing, with some help with calculations from the on-board computers, but this is completely automated; you just tell it where you want to land. It follows real deorbit, reentry, approach and landing procedures from the real shuttle. Watching it is a joy to behold, it's a real ballet. If you aren't familiar with it, the reentry is quite complex, involving banks of up to 89 degrees in each direction and high angles of attack to slow the shuttle without "bouncing off the atmosphere" and back into orbit.

 

Now, the lack of such an autopilot wasn't a failing. But someone took the time to do the research and write the autopilot. And it's gorgeous. That, and seeing how Russian spacecraft perform a launch (it's weird when you're used to US launches), are probably sufficient reasons to try Orbiter. Then there's the World of 2001 which is my favorite. I hand fly my reentries 'cause it's fun, but wrote a launch to orbit autopilot for that one.

 

And now, back to your regularly scheduled, uh, whatever. Hang in there, mgh!

 

Hook

I tested this, only think i've liked was the physics, it was very fun to fly.

 

 

What i didn't like:

-it is not well optimized, i should get smooth fps with poor graphics like that but i have massive stuttering in 3D clouds. (i have I5 3570K and gtx 660)

-aliasing

-very poor terrain mesh, triangular mountains.

-visibility, i can't even see the ground at high altitude.

 

 

It has potential but i don't see why i should play FlightGear instead of FSX, the game is even not smooth ...

I'll try it again in newer versions

It has potential but i don't see why i should play FlightGear instead of FSX, the game is even not smooth ...

I'll try it again in newer versions

 

Agreed - it just isn't very good compared to FSX.

Mgh, I think you're totally justified in asking for a refund!

I know its free but that doesn't make it any better.

 

Anyway it's nice to see some interest in the FlghtGear forums - only two weeks between posts!

It doesn't make it better but it's like your bashing some freeware aircraft producer because their release isn't as good as PMDG.

 

Personally will download and try out Flightgear thanks to this thread.

I know its free but that doesn't make it any better.

 

Anyway it's nice to see some interest in the FlghtGear forums - only two weeks between posts!

 

Is this the same FSX you're talking about? The one that other FSX users are discussing?

(I really wanted other peoples input on FSX and if it has any faults. They were very quick to reply.)

 

As I said FSX has many many faults, the fact it is heavily CPU dependent, its poorly optimized until you either spend $$$ to get a program to configure FSX or spend lots of time tweaking. Default visuals are ok, its the 3rd party community that makes FSX what it really can be, the default weather injection is pretty bad BTW. There are intermittent errors in the game that can cause fatal errors, runtime errors, out of memory errors, or just straight up CTD's. FSX is far from perfect, but it is loads of fun once its setup right for your machine, and the community is larger than all of the X-Plane communities from past to present combined, and that is one of the ONLY saving graces for FSX. Other than the community support FSX is a lag happy train wreck that seems to have been half-assed in code at best.

 

and

 

Let me put it this way. If FSX hadn't been crashing on me every third flight for years, I wouldn't know XPlane existed. FSX stopped crashing in November, but that could change any time.

 

Lighting sucks after SP2, and they took away our stars, which were prominent in SP1. Lots of places where the mesh is pretty awful; try a flight over the Grand Canyon. Lots of places where textures are really hideous. Cliff face textures are... well... awful. Some building and object textures have Z-order fighting, and Sitka, for example, has missing textures on some small buildings. ATC is a pain. There are sound problems at times, and you have to press Q twice to toggle sound to get it to work right occasionally after changing views.

 

You see, we know all too well that FSX has warts. A lot of these can be fixed with third party addons. But not all of them.

 

As for tweaks, I think it took me 15 minutes total after discovering Word Not Allowed's guide, then another 15 minutes total getting a few sliders right.

 

That FSX, right?

If I'm bashing any thing it's the title of this post -

 

Give it a try, I believe you wont regret ...

What's wrong with the title? The OP is just saying their belief is that they believe people won't regret downloading a free flight sim and trying it out. Some people will like it and some people won't but I don't think anyone will really regret just trying something out they don't have to pay for.

 

After getting my add ons all working together in FSX I feel like I'm building a sim anyway!

Hi All,

 

I'm one of the developers of FlightGear. Amongst other things I'm responsible for the Joystick configuration GUI which will be part of the upcoming release, and I hope will make life easier for everyone trying FG for the first time.

 

Obviously I'm quite late to this thread (I don't look at the Avsim forums very often), but I thought I'd answer some of the issues that have been brought up.

 

1) Regarding the video of the landing and John Lennon - I'm 99% sure that's all "real", with the exception of the fade-in at the start . There's been quite a lot of work put into the water shader recently, and it now responds appropriately to the wind, with waves in the right direction, whitecaps appearing at high wind speeds and a "blueness" reflecting the sky conditions and geographical effects such as silt.

 

2) Someone mentioned being in the sea when starting from KSFO. Given that FG ships with KSFO as the standard airport, that sounds very much like an installation issue. FG _should_ be able to find itself and it's scenery, but if you've installed/uninstalled multiple times then it may get confused. To correct this, press the Back button from the first page of the launcher. That will allow you to locate the fgfs binary, the FG_ROOT location (The root of the FG data), and the FG_SCENERY environment variable (which should point to the Scenery subdirectory of your FG install). Further information on these variables can be found in the FlightGear Manual (which I maintain amongst other things): http://mapserver.flightgear.org/getstart/

 

3) The comments about "FG being for people interested in building a flight simulator" has a lot of truth to it. It is something that we're addressing in the current release with elements such as the joystick configuration UI. The flip side is that the simulator is very "open" architecturally and functionally, so there's a huge amount of freedom for creating new stuff. For example, all the internals of the simulator are easily accessible through just about any interface you can think off - http, telnet, TCP/IP, scripting.

 

4) Talek - getting poor fps with a GTX 660 seems odd. That's a fairly high end desktop graphics card right? You might want to go on the Flightgear Support forum and ask for tips. Also, try using the Fair Weather scenario - there's a known issue with very overcast conditions that aren't handled well by 3D clouds in 2.8.0. They are improved in the upcoming release (2.9.0).

 

Apologies if I've missed any significant issues/questions. Please feel free to post them below and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

Best regards,

 

-Stuart

3) The comments about "FG being for people interested in building a flight simulator" has a lot of truth to it. It is something that we're addressing in the current release with elements such as the joystick configuration UI. The flip side is that the simulator is very "open" architecturally and functionally, so there's a huge amount of freedom for creating new stuff. For example, all the internals of the simulator are easily accessible through just about any interface you can think off - http, telnet, TCP/IP, scripting.

 

But very few of us are interested in that aspect.