Jim,

 

You are one of the good ones :smile:

My 2 cents,

50/50, Love the airport scenery people have put a lot of effort into, love having the aircraft taking off/landing when I am taxing out/in (world of traffic)  Enjoy the visuals of coming into an area that has the moving traffic cars/trains when on approach.

 

Spent a lot on buttons/yoke/pedals/switches, I have to have 3d cockpit for the complete feel as well as having a ipad for FMS work.

 

Spend maybe an hour setting up a flight in a tube liner with all the waypoints etc. then normal up to a 2 or 3 hour flight with great satisfaction when I can accomplish it without errors being reported from RC4.

 

Next day I may take the Cessna up for a quick spin and have a fly around lake areas, jump in, start up, have fun and enjoy the scenery.

 

Retirement gives me the time to play and enjoy it all. 

50/50 

Sorry, but I just don't buy the premise that there are hard distinctions at all, especially distinctions consisting of 2 and only 2 camps.  I'm either none of the above or perhaps all of the above plus a whole lot more, or... something else.

 

Look at the inherent bias in the way you subdivide - the stark, technical camp 1, vs the more elaborately described camp 2 which fits your own way of flying.  No offense intended, but this seems to put you in what you consider to be a "joy of flight" camp, as opposed to those cold, stark and rather lifeless procedural guys as if none of those who enjoy simulating the details of real flight are interested in spectacular realistic wx, sight-seeing over a realistically depicted world and so on.

 

Me, I'm in the aviation simulation camp - where I want to simulate to the greatest extent possible, the joys, challenges, details, sights (heck I wish we could add smells!) and so on and so on... of civil aviation in all of its myriad aspects.  I place importance in the ability to "do it all and see it all" to the greatest extent and with the greatest fidelity possible.  I want my planes to fly and operate as close to RW as possible, AND when I fly from, say, San Diego to Sedona on a warm summer morning, I want to feel as much as possible like I've really made that flight, being chased by building summer convection, bumping along as the turbulence builds and watching the spectacular scenery unfolding beneath my wings finishing with a landing on a challenging airfield with realworld air currents simulating what it's like landing at that RW airport.

 

I can't stand lousy planes and I can't stand lousy scenery.  I don't see 2 camps, I see a continuum.  Just sayin'  :wink:  ,

 

Scott

 

 

Agree 100%. This is a thread about a false dichotomy.

A very good response, guys...and thank you for your views and bullet-points.

 

The main impetus, for creating this thread, was in the questions, that I have been personally asked, when I post my screen shots.  One main question, (because of the visual representation presented in my screenshots) is "Mitch, you get great frame-rates for those max settings, but do you get the same FPS, when flying a fully modeled plane/cockpit?  I have to keep my visual settings in 'x' sim, at medium, or less than that, to keep my FPS in my fully modeled 3D cockpits in the usable range, with ASN pumping it out",etc.

 

So guys, I sort of saw it as two camps...those that WILL make visual cuts to their flight experience, to allow themselves usable FPS in the highly modeled cockpits/aircraft, or those like myself, that would not buy that type of aircraft, as having all scenery and atmospherics at the highest settings is fully required for my visual expectations, out of the sim base, and at 30 or more FPS mean-average.

 

To type it another way,  system fidelity over virtual world, or as in my use case,  virtual world, over system fidelity, with max system CPU/GPU FPS output.

 

I have read countless times, that even with the latest and hottest CPU/GPU combinations, simmers that run full fidelity flight decks, inevitably, have to dumb down the sim-world settings, terrain, airports, clouds, water, etc, to still maintain fluidity of animations, in the cockpit, and on the air-frame of full-fidelity (my term) 3rdP offerings, Commercial/G.A. They can't seem to have both, at usable FPS and fluid sim animation, at full virtual world, sim render settings.

 

 It is either 'one camp', or the other...mean-average.

 

 What is the simmer's main use-case 'focus' in enjoying their flight simulation?

 

Still for myself, the main focus is full world fidelity, over cockpit/air-frame. I still can fly a 'less system's modeled' aircraft and/or air-frame, and can still do all the proper F.A.A. flight procedures, maintain proper approach patterns, and finals...but with a less-intense and CPU cycles-intensive cockpit/air-frame...and can do so, over the best virtual world/scene, that the sim can render down to the numbers,--- at a mean-average 30 plus FPS...

 

 So...most likely I will always be in Camp 2.

 

Cheers!

 

Mitch

20% GA and 80% airliner flying, so call me a number 2 guy. But wait, even 90% of my GA flights is IFR after a good preparation, flight plan, collecting charts and fuel calculation.

Actually, there ARE two groups of people:  (1) people who divide the world into two groups, and (2) those who don't.

 

Seriously, all we are doing, in Zen Buddhist sense, is playing with electricity.  We create a reality in our heads that we are flying a real world aircraft is simulating the flying of a real world aircraft.  But the reality is quite different.  We have sophisticated machines which channel microvolts through a microprocessor according to a program consisting of a gazillion ones and zeros.  In our minds, we are flying an aircraft; in reality we are playing with electricity.

 

Now, I am not a pilot, and since I am diabetic, not a multi-millionaire and already have a profession that does not pay all too well, it is highly unlikely I will ever become one.  Similarly, no one in their right minds would let me anywhere near the cockpit of real commercial aircraft.  As a result,  I have no idea whether this simulator is actually simulating the experience of flying a real aircraft because I have never had that experience.  Someone tells me that it is, or more likely, that it is not, a realistic simulation;  but I have no actual experience which would tell me they are correct.

 

What I don't like is endless fiddling with my computer and having to read hundreds of pages of manuals to get it to work right.   When I load a piece of software, I want it to work right out of the box without spending days figuring out how it works.  I don't want to sit through hours of lectures on how to make it work or reading tedious volumes.  If I wanted to suffer through that, I would take on tens of thousands of dollars of student loans and become a real world pilot.

 

Actually my impression of being a real world pilot is that it is incredibly boring -- sort of like driving through western Kansas.  With a lot of modern aircraft, the pilot just basically sits in the cockpit and watches the dials go around and around.  At higher altitudes, especially if there are clouds below, the terrain is even less interesting than driving through western Kansas, if that is even possible.  The only real excitement comes with programming the FMC, pulling back on the yoke (or flightstick) when the plane takes off, and turning off the auto-pilot after the plane auto lands.

 

[Actually, I have a friend who is a semi-pretty flight attendant who tells me that the real world pilots at her airline (Frontier) turn of the auto-pilot just before landing so they can have the fun of not crashing the aircraft as it lands.  I, on the other hand, crash a lot of pretend aircraft.]

 

But even more boring is sitting through long lectures and reading volumes of material.  I did plenty of that in college and as a grad student, and really don't care to do that again.  Of course the fun part of being a student is flirting with pretty coeds, and I guess real pilots get to flirt with semi-pretty flight attendants.  Of course, flirting with semi- pretty flight attendants is not part of our simulation.

I don't think it's so much a question of "joy of flight" vs some joyless "vorsprung durch technik", it's "if you can choose one, and only one, would you have the perfect image or the perfect technical simulation". Neither is "wrong", and there can be just as much joy and satisfaction from a perfect hand flown SID as there can be from being able to pick out landmarks from a beautiful image out the window.

 

Like most, I'd love to be able to have both, sadly we can't (million dollar simulators aside), our (comparatively) primitive home PCs and simulators just can't hack it, but if forced to pick, it would be undoubtedly be technical simulation. I've done enough real world flying (mostly in gliders and GA) to know what the world looks like from above, and to realise how far from it even heavily modified XP and P3D are. I would like a perfect realisation of the world, but I don't "need" it to buy in to what I'm doing, provided things inside the cockpit are well put together, but as I'm generally using aircraft I would never get the chance to fly in RL (airliners, fast twins, exotics), it's more satisfying to me to understand the operation, the real nitty-gritty practical stuff that exposes the quirks of different types, both in systems and handling.

I don't think it's so much a question of "joy of flight" vs some joyless "vorsprung durch technik", it's "if you can choose one, and only one, would you have the perfect image or the perfect technical simulation". Neither is "wrong", and there can be just as much joy and satisfaction from a perfect hand flown SID as there can be from being able to pick out landmarks from a beautiful image out the window.

 

(snip)

Correct, and thank you...that is solely, the thread's intent.   One use case over the other,  and to still maintain 30 plus FPS

 

Is the full fidelity cockpit/airframe side of simming, more important to the user (Camp 1), than the fullest visuals, the sim can produce at 30 plus FPS (Camp 2)?

 

 It seems by much thread content on AVSIM, in the FSX/P3D/XP forums, that you can't have it both ways, to date.

 

The only sim that can, is FS9. In that, on modern equipment, you can have Ifly 737 and/or PMDG flight decks/air-frames, at full visuals (as well as 3rdP enhancements), and still maintain 30 plus FPS, and smooth sim animation.

 

 

 

Mitch

The only sim that can, is FS9. In that, on modern equipment, you can have Ifly 737 and/or PMDG flight decks/air-frames, at full visuals (as well as 3rdP enhancements), and still maintain 30 plus FPS, and smooth sim animation.

 

That made me smile  :smile:   Much as I can throw lots of criticism about any one of FSX/P3D/XPX, "full visuals FS9" is hardly a glowing recommendation... :wink:

That made me smile  :smile:   Much as I can throw lots of criticism about any one of FSX/P3D/XPX, "full visuals FS9" is hardly a glowing recommendation... :wink:

LOL...well.....you'd be quite surprised on what can be achieved in that FS9 department...visuals that is...

My primary reason for simming is to have more airplanes in my hangar than anyone here. Then I want to boast about it :smile:

I actually find this quite elitist.in a way..

What about the guys (& gals) that just sim for the fun of it?

Just because we do not have PMDG stuff, Orbyx, whatever, does not make us a lesser simmer than those who are deciding into which group they belong?

 

Simming is more than just classifying oneself into a group. Just because I want to drive a car, sail a boat or even just take off & fly a default plane, I'm still having as mush fun as the switch counters.

 

Just remember, the 1's & 2 guys, FSX's box, came with a 3+ age on it. (lol)

Please do NOT knock us FS9'ers. We actually spend more time flying than essential FSX tweaking, & can still have our fun. The flight models are basically the same, without all the eye candy.

I like both choices but lean towards camp 2.

I'm clearly a member of Camp 2, although I am a very picky guy when it comes to precise flight dynamics and systems modeling.

 

During years I looked after the perfect airline simulation. It started with fs4, then ATP and I really wanted to mimic every step of a commercial flight, because that was ( still is ) my dream profession... 

 

Problem is, as the years passed, I eventually started finding out how useless it really was to operate a PMDG 777 os a PSX 744 by the book, studying the manuals and company SOPs, and using the detailed features that these high standard products offer to their users, or simply simulating an IFR flight in a gorgeous RealAir or A2A...

 

When MS FLIGHT was released I was totally attracted by the concept. I really liked the visuals, but above all, I played a lot finding the aerocaches, and truth is, as much as I found it probably even more useless than pretending to operate an airliner, it gave me a hell of a great simming time... (not a limitation of PSX, which I find to be the most advanced ever simulation of a Boeing 747-400, in almost all of it's RW variants!, but rather my limitation as a user...)

 

The return to other old flight simulation platforms ( msfs and x-plane ) came as result of MS FLIGHT's fate. But I honestly could never find in any of these platforms the "thrill" of MS FLIGHT's missions or aerocache hunting - strange I know, but that's the pure truth....

 

Then, and because I really prize the flight dynamics, and because not even the higher standard models for MSFS / P3D / X-Plane satisfied me, and I actually kept finding major limitations on all of these platforms, I accepted, initially with big reserves, trying combat flight simulators. Started with the one I still consider by far the most detailed flight simulation platform in this area - DCS World - but visited others like IL-2 Cliffs of Dover, Rise of Flight and finally also IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad.

 

I also tried to like Aerowinx PSX, again trying to push me back into civil flightsims, and I do like it, but again, there is no thrill for me in completing a transcontinental flight in a 744, and I am not really interested in spending my simming time studying what to do when one of the detailed failure systems comes alive....

 

After this long route, for the second time in my simmer life ( had a hiatus that lasted 3 yrs ), I ended up playing only combat flight simulation - DCS World and IL-2 BoS - and also keeping my old soaring simulator for those Winter days when I can't soar for real - Condorsoaring.

 

Looking back, and browsing the AVSIM forums as I do everyday, more than once, and even after having finally spent some time testing, for instance, a very good ATC robot with P3D3 Pro ( monthly subscription ), I decided it was a total waste of time. It's very difficult for me to find back any interest in flying a C172 in a simulated x-country, or even less a B744 or a 777 or an Airbus in a commercial flight... OTOH, a good dogfight online with other human players, making use of the most sophisticated flight simulation platforms available ( DCS and BoS, each on it's own merits... ), even learning about air combat tactics for ww1 ( Rise of Flight ), ww2 ( DCS World ww2 modules or IL-2 BoS ) or Korean era ( DCS f-86 ), or maybe modern jet fighters now that I also have Nevada NTTR for DCS, or trying to find specific details about my preferred aircraft, and finding out how close to their real counterparts both DCS and IL-2 BoS can bring their models, is what I want to keep doing for as long as I can.

 

So, a Camp 2 clearly, but in the CFS arena, because civil operations have become very sterile for me.... 

 

And now that I had finally found my preferred civil flightsim platform in P3D3, given the smoothness and stability it provided  me with, using my preferred add-on of all times - PMDG 777.... I tried desperately to play it, with ASN making the beautiful weather injection it can do, but... it was too late ... no joy :-(

 

PSX went through the same track, even faster, as I really couldn't cope with the limited out-of-windshield World representation ( among other factors... ) and none of the alternatives using XP or FSX/P3D pleased me enough, and... even if it did, again... it no longer means anything really worth the use / time.... Maybe if someday DCS get's a Presidential 748i to escort :-)

Great thread topic...

 

I am mainly in Camp 2 while a buddy of mine is definitely in Camp 1,...he could care less about graphics, the outside world visual etc...just give him some gauges to monitor and he is in heaven.

 

I have the same experience with the train simulator....I am still in camp 2 while my father (having work on and driven trains) is a camp 1 guy. He always gets on me about the details when we sim together and he stays in the cab always...while I generally switch to the outside views, carriage views and take in the graphics.