Fresh new to FSX, addons advices?

[Hoang 108]

I got FSX several months ago but due lack of time and out of money, I cannot continue to play and "invest money" into it.

 

Now I've just bought a new SSD to install my win7 into it and put the 250GB totally for FS9 and FSX.

I have only installed Fs9 first and then FSX. Adding addons into Fs9.

 

I currently have no addons for FSX. Since I don't know where to start with. Searching Word Not Allowed and Nick's guide for FSX tweak. Hope it helps.

 

In Fs9, I installed FSGlobal2010 first, and then Ultimate Terrain for USA and Europe ( I fly mainly in USA).

 

How about in FSX, which scenery addons should I install for start ? Mainly USA.

 

Thanks all!

 

Ah,BTW, if I'm correct my FSGlobal2010 also can install for FSX. So does FSX need it? Or are there any better one for mesh?

[Spook 96]

http://bit.ly/Waw0R9

 

Check it out ( 1st at top)

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

My favorite: Orbx PNW (Pacific North West) scenery.

 

Add an airplane by RealAir Simulations, and you have a fantastic GA flying experience.

[Hoang 108]

http://bit.ly/Waw0R9

 

Check it out ( 1st at top)

Thanks I've just finishing tweaking it earlier and it did boost the FPS up much more than deffault. Hope with addons it will be good

 

 

My favorite: Orbx PNW (Pacific North West) scenery.

 

Add an airplane by RealAir Simulations, and you have a fantastic GA flying experience.

Thanks I mainly fly IFR but like to look around the airport when taking off/landing. I love detailed terrain

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Thanks I mainly fly IFR but like to look around the airport when taking off/landing. I love detailed terrain

In that case my recommendation stands - PNW is the best there is for FSX, right now.

 

And GA and IFR go together quite nicely.. especially if you add an Reality XP GNS to the cockpit,, B)

[Griphos 138]

I'd also recommend Orbx scenery. Start with the regions and add airports as you want. I would have stopped flying FSX long ago if it weren't for Orbx scenery.

 

I'm more of a VFR GA man, so most of my favorites don't really do IFR well. If you like IFR, then I recommend the RealAir Legacy. Fast, incredibly well modeled, and fully IFR capable. Their Turbine Duke is also very good. The PMDG J41 is very well done indeed. If you'd like a little sporty airplane that can get into short fields, fly pretty fast, is very well modeled and can do basic IFR, then the Bay Tower Studio RV-7 is an excellent choice.

 

RealAir and A2A (soon to have a C172 and perhaps also a Cherokee) top the developer's list at making very realistic flight and systems models, imo. There are other good developers as well (particularly of VFR GA), but also some that look nice but fly generically (including, I would say, many of the Carenado birds, although people like the 337 and I like the C185 and C210 okay).

[CTBlankenship 36]

Not sure if this is what you wanted, if not ... please disregard

 

1. PMDG's 737NGX product ... others try but NONE come close to the quality of this bird. This package gives you the 737-800 and the 737-900 Boeing airplane frames.

 

2. Active Sky 2012 and/or REX ... they give you great "textures" for clouds, rain, thunderstorms, sunrises, sunsets, etc. Some people champion one over the other for providing the best textures ... the general concensus is that REX has the best textures

 

3. OPUS FSXServer for your realtime weather engine. If you take off from your local airport and it is raining outside ... it will be raining at your airport when you take off.

 

4. TOPCAT (Takeoff and Landing Performance Calculation Tool) for load management, fuel planning, takeoff and landing performance parameters (there is a new version coming out soon ... I'd wait for that).

 

5. Navigraph ... this gives you the latest airport SIDS and STARS and Runway specifics ... they call these things AIRAC's. It is cheap and worth the money.

 

6. TrackIR ... this allows you to pan around a virtual cockpit just by moving your head ... indispensible.

 

7. Aivlasoft's Electronic Flight Bag ... allows you to many things. A couple of my favorites are the ability to create checklists, define ATC boundaries, flight planning, custom library (gets rid of all those charts I had laying around), generation of flight plans that can be imported into your plane (prevents you from having to enter your flight plans by hand), and more.

 

8. EZDoc - allows you to define different camera views throughout the cockpit (and outside if desired) where the different views still offer full functionality in the Virtual Cockpit.

 

These are not sceneries (of course) but they greatly enhance my flight experience in MSFX.

 

Cheers,

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Well since you said you were low on cash I would concentrate on the freeware side of the hobby. And there is plenty to choose from if you look around. For starters:

 

Orbx freeware for the Pacific Northwest - scenery demos and airports... excellent!

Any airports designed by "Shez" of 'Sun-Sky-Jet'

BlueSky Scenery if you want to try out photoreal scenery. Right now I am d/l the entire country of Spain!

 

This way you can see if you like the type of scenery above and if you new SSD likes them too. Then you can move into similar payware.

 

Planes... wow too many to mention but lately I have been having a kick with the Project Airbus version 3 of their A318's and 319's updated exclusively for FSX (well since I use them in P3D I guess not so exclusive).

 

But enjoy the hunt for those freeware gems out there.

[FloG 148]

ORBX can be great, even when you fly IFR in jets. Take PDX as an example, the approach, especially from the East, looks so much better with PNW enabled than the default scenery. Other parts of their scenery might not be so great for IFR flights, but PNW sure is stunning whatever aircraft you fly.

You might also want to try FlyTampa's airports on the East Coast (and Sint Marteen, that's not excatly the US, but only a relatively short hop and a very nice scenery) and FSDreamteam's airports, such as JFK, McCarran or LAX. Make sure to try their demo versions before buying, because some of those sceneries might not perform too well, e.g. JFK because of the rather detailed default Manhattan scenery, which can eat lots of FPS.

Another nice experience, though for sure more aimed at low'n'slow flyers, is BlueSkyScenery. Looks great when looking out of a jet's cockpit windows as well, though.

 

Regarding aircraft: PMDG birds are great in every possible way, but they may be a bit FPS hungry. If you only want a medium systems simulation, but just a nice visual model and good flight dynamics, the QW 757 (and maybe the Aerosoft Airbus, though it has some flaws at the moment) is a good choice. In GA currently A2A and Realair are probably the two best developers, and Carenado does some great stuff, too, although they can not beat the immersion of the A2A and Realair birds.

 

Regards,

Flo

[Hoang 108]

Thanks guys!

 

About scenery I'll definately take a look at ORBX. But I don't know if my computer can handle it well.. FSdreamteam's sceneries definately must-buy since it covers lots of airport hubs that I usually fly in and out. But gotta hurt the creditcard :( Anyway I will have to try all of those demos first before buying. I don't want to take any risk,even though my computer is not that bad (I hope! )

 

About aircraft I'm looking forward for good Airbuses so I will check out the Airbus Extended by Aerosoft. And also waiting for the PMDG 777, since this is one of my favorite aircraft and in Fs9 I have to struggle with the PSS-Posky merge, didn't went well after all.

 

 

Not sure if this is what you wanted, if not ... please disregard

1. PMDG's 737NGX product ... others try but NONE come close to the quality of this bird. This package gives you the 737-800 and the 737-900 Boeing airplane frames.

2. Active Sky 2012 and/or REX ... they give you great "textures" for clouds, rain, thunderstorms, sunrises, sunsets, etc. Some people champion one over the other for providing the best textures ... the general concensus is that REX has the best textures

3. OPUS FSXServer for your realtime weather engine. If you take off from your local airport and it is raining outside ... it will be raining at your airport when you take off.

4. TOPCAT (Takeoff and Landing Performance Calculation Tool) for load management, fuel planning, takeoff and landing performance parameters (there is a new version coming out soon ... I'd wait for that).

5. Navigraph ... this gives you the latest airport SIDS and STARS and Runway specifics ... they call these things AIRAC's. It is cheap and worth the money.

6. TrackIR ... this allows you to pan around a virtual cockpit just by moving your head ... indispensible.

7. Aivlasoft's Electronic Flight Bag ... allows you to many things. A couple of my favorites are the ability to create checklists, define ATC boundaries, flight planning, custom library (gets rid of all those charts I had laying around), generation of flight plans that can be imported into your plane (prevents you from having to enter your flight plans by hand), and more.

8. EZDoc - allows you to define different camera views throughout the cockpit (and outside if desired) where the different views still offer full functionality in the Virtual Cockpit.

These are not sceneries (of course) but they greatly enhance my flight experience in MSFX.

Cheers,

 

Thanks for the ultilities check list! I will first get myself the FSUIPC and the ezdoc, I already have TOPCAT which helps me a lot in Fs9.

 

 

 

 

Anyway I want to ask again about FSGlobal. I already install it in Fs9 and it improves the mesh a lot! Should I install it also in FSX? Does it have noticeable improvements over default mesh?

[CTBlankenship 36]

I have never had any interaction with FSGlobal ... I'll check into it.

 

Also, Aivlasoft's Electronic Flight Bag has become indispensible to me ... since you already have EZDoc, another indispensible utility, you would do yourself well to get EFB (a little expensive but WELL worth the money) ... check lists ... create your own library files, automatically tune ATC frequencies into COM 1 STANBY and ACTIVE ... COM 2 STANDBY and ACTIVE, visually know when you are crossing into another ATC's airspace, creating and storing flight plans ... the list goes on.

[newtie 533]

automatically tune ATC frequencies into COM 1 STANBY and ACTIVE ... COM 2 STANDBY and ACTIVE,

 

How do you do this in EFB?

[1mikel151 71]

While lots of great suggestions, keep in mind that addons will impact your performance in the sim, mainly because it wasn't developed with all the 3rd party things we stuff into the sim in mind. Pick and choose carefully, What works well on one system does not always work well on another.

[Mickel 42]

If you're a tube driver and can wait - Orbx World, due out mid year. That will deal with worldwide textures. It's a fairly big outlay in one hit, but heck, the assorted alternatives add up. Expected to work with GEX as well to provide road/rail etc accuracy for the US. Don't discount the Coolsky DC-9 if you like something a bit older to fly, and the PMDG MD-11 (some would say FSX's finest airliner). AS1210 for weather and weather textures. There are plenty of people in each of the REX, AS or Opus camps (some have all three...) when it comes to weather. IMO, they all have their strong points.

[ryanbatc 12,856]

In case you didn't know, little planes fly IFR all the time.

 

So my vote would agree with the posts above - Realair Legacy or Duke, also Lotus L39, Flight1 Mustang, Carenado King air, Flight1 T182, (they're making a G1000 king air 200), pmdg NGX.

 

I'd also get the RXP gns430 or 530w for use in a few of them. Flight1 planes G1000 planes use Navigraph so that's handy I'd you like to fly online.