Hi Guys

Did you know that FS9 runs much faster and more reliably with the default scenery alone - but how many of us use the program for pure flight rather than being fixated on trying to make it look 'different'?  I say this because I spent the afternoon flying yesterday and was so engrossed with the procedural aspects of this (flight) simulator that, whether or not the terrain was anything near perfect, did not matter a jot......

 

Sure, we can make the ground look different - but even with the most enhancing of scenery packages, there is usually a glitch, or an autogen, or a tree, or a hill, or a river, or a road, or a railway, or a town, or a city that stands up and batters our (ground) reality to the point that we are put off or sent into an endless search for a tweak and a fix. Maybe we should master the flying first and become competent and confident in anything from the Wright Flyer to the latest and meanest of jets.

 

Yesterday I  re-discovered FS9 and of course, I remember now, this is a flight simulator. Just perfect and probably worth hundreds of times more than its asking price.....

 

Cheers

Jont

You say "different", others say,"better", "more realistic", "more accurate", "more life-like".

 

Enjoy your FS and we'll enjoy ours!

 

 

probably worth hundreds of times more than its asking price.....

 

Agreed.  

And most of us here have spent hundreds of times its asking price on add-ons for it too.  :huh:

Enjoy your FS and we'll enjoy ours!

 

There's nothing to add.

Except one thing: My simulation experience did not suffer from add-ons so far. And my FPS in most cases didn't, too. B)

Agreed.  

And most of us here have spent hundreds of times its asking price on add-ons for it too.  :huh:

:lol:

Good post Jont,

 

I too have become soooo fixated with all the add-ons trying to make my sim "perfect" that the actual flying takes a back seat sometimes!

 

Though after a tough day at the office it's sometimes nice just to sit at an airport and watch the nearly virtual world go by  ^_^

Once you go REX you can't go back.

Well, I think there's a happy medium in there somewhere.  I recently did a clean install of FS9, and have a nicely performing sim now at around 49 gb, but it takes some discipline to keep the installed planeset and scenery down to a reasonable level.  My last install topped out at around 92 gb, and that was even after moving pdf manuals and rarely-flown planes out of the FS9 volume.  

 

Of course, adding scenery and planes is half the fun, and this is a hobby after all.

The addons add immersion and realism for me. 

Mmmm... makes a big difference.

 

Happy medium is where I'm at too. I often disable scenery layers I'm not using for a particular flight, even if they are geographically specific to that flight - there's no point using photoscenery or complex airports under my track if I'm six miles above the ground. The same goes for autogen density, scenery complexity and AI density. Even weather gets pruned at times.

 

All these things are constantly altered to suit my mood and reason for sitting in front of the PC, whether it's sightseeing, AirHauling, circuits or just practising manoeuvres out over the Atlantic, though I probably wouldn't fiddle so much if I had a beast of a PC...

 

D

I'm always using FS9, discovered FSX around a weak ago, tweaked it, loaded up a Tu-154B-2 and have airports installed and made flights. But I don't know... FSX lacks something FS9 has, it's not sure how to explain. It just the feel? Maybe familiarity, maybe there's something thats "homing" you back? I don't know. The graphics are much better, and it has more features but at a cost of a more unstable program and framerates. I never really cared for the terrain either as I don't have the time for that in classic complex airliners.

 

In FS9 you can load up a mega airport, fill it with AI, great clouds and sliders at max. In FSX however, you need a supercomputer for it. Hence as I'm restricted to flying in small airports in FSX I might go back.

 

In my FS9 install I do not have any addon textures installed. Only for clouds, as I like to have an amazing view during cruise.

Hmmm. While what you say is true, once I had installed Active Camera and Ultimate Terrain, there was no going back. I can't stand flying the default sim anymore... my familiarity with the landscape around where I live prevents that pretty thoroughly, as does my habit of using my middle mouse button to pan the view around.

And - with all my textures in the right format and a little skill with Sbuilder and ADE9, performance is just about equal to an unmodded copy of FS9 and taking time out to fix a bug when I see one isn't a big problem or a big use of time. I can almost do it while paused, mid-flight!

But I don't know... FSX lacks something FS9 has, it's not sure how to explain. It just the feel? Maybe familiarity, maybe there's something thats "homing" you back?

 

I know what you mean. Maybe it's first love?