Firstly, yes, there's a catch! Read on;

 

It's always gutted me that I've not been able to enjoy the ifly747. Its a truly beautiful addon with stunning systems depth and brilliant FDE. But I experience awful fluctuating FPS performance with it. 30 FPS one moment, 12 FPS for 30 secs then back up. On approach, even to a quiet default airport, FPS would become a slideshow.

 

I tried it again today and while toggling through the cockpit views I passed the 2D panel... i went passed it but found myself thinking hang on, that looked nice. Really nice. In fact the nicest 2D panel I've ever seen. Let me say, I'm not a 2D flyer, nor a 2D fan. I don't think I've previously flown with a 2D panel since maybe 2005 or 2006.

 

But the sounds, the immersion, the great set of panels and pop ups set my imagination off. I'm going to give it a go I thought. After all, we can turn our noses up at 2D panels but people have spent £300 / $400 or so on the PS standalone 747 simulator, and that uses 2D panels. So I removed the VC from the model.cfg and loaded up the 747 and flew a short cargo flight from ELLX to EGPK.... and it was a fantastic, enjoyable, stand out experience. I had full autogen, almost max AI, max cloud settings with beautiful Opus and REX textures. I took off from EGLL where with the ifly747 VC, this aircraft would be unusable for me. I locked my frames at 40 FPS and they literally never dropped below 39.9. Every element of the flight was perfect, culminating in a wonderful approach into Prestwick in low visibility for a Cat III autoland; still at 40 FPS.

 

As a TrackIR fan and user I have to admit that it was also a nice change not to have to have my headset on, and to have every movement of my head, tracked.

 

A real eye opener. If you love what the ifly747 offers as an aircraft but cannot enjoy it because of performance, I'd say, keep an open mind and try it. I'd previously tried other strategies to improve performance in this plane, including removing the external model and downsizing the VC textures - neither made any difference. Whatever drags down the ifly747's performance, happens in the VC.

 

I won't be becoming a 2D convert full time, but I will be flying the ifly747 in 2D cockpit mode a LOT from here forward.

For a minute I thought you were running a Super Cray computer, but Ifly does have the best 2D panel options. I prefer 2D unless I'm on my tri-screen setup.

yes, you are right, the 2d panels have blown my mind, recently iam flying the ifly alongside the NGX both with 2d panels, clear panels for reading and learning, more FPS hence more details of graphics options so nicer and faster simulation, i hope the PMDG 777 get 2d panels so that it can be flown alongside NGX and IFLY. 2d panels are used by PS standalone simulator which a costs a great amount of money and it is very complex sim but the developers had knew that making 3d cockpit will cost time, performance and develops huge amount of technical difficulties and low performances. thanks

2d panels for trouble free sim.