fsx-se Back in the saddle with FSX-SE

[zeviouszoquis 0]

Hello all.  Back in "the day" I was a huge FS9 devotee and spent a lot of time on these forums but as of 2010 or so I basically dropped out of the hobby.  However, I recently came across the Steam edition of FSX and having never tried the newer version of MSFS before and having also just purchased a fairly nice laptop I decided the price of $13.99 was an irresistible opportunity to give it a whirl finally.  Sadly, had I found it a few days earlier, or had I waited a few days longer I could have had it for a fiver, but oh well - still a deal afaic.  

 

Anyway, I've got it installed and up and running and it really seems to perform very nicely on this new laptop.  I've got the gfx nice and high and it looks great and I'm able to maintain a steady 30fps (locked) under the msot stressfull situations I can throw at it.  

 

So now - having been pretty much out of the loop for years, I'm looking for a few recommendations.  I've tracked down an autogen update (GEX I believe it is) that makes a nice general improvement to the look of the autogen, and I'm slowly downloading all the pieces of Raimondo Taburet's mesh for most of the globe, but as a guy who likes to fly low and slow and look at the pretty scenery I'm looking for a few suggestions as to some great freeware planes and sceneries to grab from the library.

 

Also, I have dowloaded Holger's Bella Coola scenery but it doesn't seem to want to install in any way I can figure out.  I've tried adding it through the scenery library as well as adding it manually to the config but the sim won't recognize it.  When I try and add it through the scenery library it never gives me an option to exit from the "add location" window...it just seems to sort of stall before it does anything once being pointed to the bella coola scenery folder.  Any ideas what the issue is?

 

 

[Wendall 50]

Low and Slow? A2A's Accu-Sim Cub is for you. I'd recommend at least downloading the manual before buying.

 

There is a bug in the scenery selection folder, when you select your scenery and double click, it should go to a further folder instead of accepting the entry. When it goes to that second folder, you should right click in the "folder contents" area, and it should accept the entry. If I'm wrong someone is free to correct me!

 

Hope it helps!

[BeechPapa 32]

Welcome back! I'm not sure if this is an old FSX issue they didn't fix yet, but try clicking into an empty space inside the window after you click "ok". I know that sounds crazy, but once you know the secret addon handshake you're back in the club for real. 

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I've tracked down an autogen update (GEX I believe it is) that makes a nice general improvement to the look of the autogen

 

If you haven't purchased it yet I would look at FTX Global Base....Too bad you just missed the ORBX sale as that one was on sale but Holger does do a lot of work with that company and it is visually better then GEX. 

 

Therefore when you fly out of Holgers scenery the FTX Global Base matches up and GEX won't. This is because Holder works with FTX technology and not GEX

 

 

 

Also, I have dowloaded Holger's Bella Coola scenery but it doesn't seem to want to install in any way I can figure out.  I've tried adding it through the scenery library as well as adding it manually to the config but the sim won't recognize it.  When I try and add it through the scenery library it never gives me an option to exit from the "add location" window...it just seems to sort of stall before it does anything once being pointed to the bella coola scenery folder.  Any ideas what the issue is?

 

Probably an installer issue with FSX:SE, there are a very few installers or library links not finding the directory for FSX:SE at the moment

[zeviouszoquis 0]

Yeah I realize there are all sorts of payware options available that are likely to give better results, but I'm just not terribly interested in getting back on the big money treadmill just yet.  I bought a veritable ton of stuff for FS9 and I am tempted to track down my discs and re-install that too but that would be a huge undertaking and frankly, I'm not really looking to jump that far down the rabit hole so to speak :smile:  Heck, I'm flyin around with an old PS1 dualshock gamepad here!  lol...actually it works surprisingly well though!  As great as some of the payware I bought was (RealAir, I'm looking at you! :smile: ) some of my favorite things in FS9 were created by the brilliant freeware guys (Howard500, Glacier Bay)...

 

The GEX thing I have is a freeware autogen texture package that just gives the buildings a bit more "pop."  Other than that, like I said I'm just putting the freeware mesh of Raimondo Taburet in there as it does improve on the default world mesh by a fair margin. 

 

So I guess what I'm looking for is just suggestions as to a couple really good freeware items that may have been released in the past few years since I dropped out of the scene...

[zeviouszoquis 0]

BTW, thanks for the tip about clicking in the empty folder window in the scenery library.  That worked and the Bella Coola scenery is installed now.  :smile:

[jcomm 5,890]

I'll have to check if the A2A and Real Air products are already Steam-compatible ....

 

So far, I couldn't avoid buying it yesterday, for €4,99 - FSX is still one of the most remarkable flight simulation platforms ever developed !

[Muhamad Aliff 10]

as for A2A you can try check their facebook page, i ve seen yesterday they posted their aircraft in FSX Steam

[SpeedBird4509 0]

FSX SE was $5 last week, some of you guys missed the sale.

[zeviouszoquis 0]

Yeah I know...as I said in the first post I bought right in between the two 5 dollar sales...  dangit!

[BeechPapa 32]

So I guess what I'm looking for is just suggestions as to a couple really good freeware items that may have been released in the past few years since I dropped out of the scene...

 

There's alot of top-quality freeware now. Off the top of my head the cream of the crop are:

 

OZx Grand Canyon

OZx Death Valley

OZx Liguria

OZx Tuscany

Sunskyjet KPHL

Shez Ansari KONT

Shez Ansari KLGB

NZFForg Hamilton X

NZFForg New Plymouth

 

There's alot out there though, so I'd pick a specific area you want to fly and search freeware for it specifically. This will help: http://www.freewarescenery.com/fsx.html

[jcomm 5,890]

Well, just a thumbs up regarding stability & smoothness.

 

I bought FSX SE to use it as a visuals generator for Aerowinx PSX. After setting VisualPSX, the application that establishes the communication between the two sims through simconnect, I experienced overall better performance than I recall having experienced with FSX Gold Edition or P3D v1.2 and V2.

 

Another positive experience, thanks to a very good suggestion at another thread, was FSXWX, a very very light application that I am using to inject the weather in FSX SE when I do not want to use saved situations from PSX, with their own weather conditions. I find it smoother to have weather separately injected into FSX SE by FSXWX when flying with RW weather in PSX than when the weather is injected from PSX through VisualPSX.

 

I could further enhance the visuals, which are the only aspects FSX SE works for using some high res cloud textures, but I really want my FSX SE install to remain minimal!

 

So far the only original FSX install I have done was RealAir's Duke V2. I didn't even configure Nvidia Inspector for FSX SE - using the default is working ok for me...

[zeviouszoquis 0]

Hey thanks for that, the OZx Grand Canyon scenery is lovely!  I'm going to grab the Death Valley one as well.  :smile:  Cheers...