Misha K,

 

Welcome Back. Thanks for posting this!  I, too, am coming back to MSFS, this time FSX. I used all of my budget for the hardware so I'm watching this thread.

 

I just downloaded FSUIPC for FSX.

 

I hope all goes well for you!

 

Kind Regards,

 

Jim

MISHA!! WELCOME BACK. it's been along time

Hi guys,

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback and the kind words. And sorry for my tardy reply. I have a limited budget, so my thought was to use the FSX I have and for which I already have a ton of addons (mostly FSX versions of FS9 addons that I prevoiusly purchased), rather than going the P3D route which would also likely require much more expensive hardware. And, yes, I am not a student, so the pricetag for P3D looks rather steep for me.

 

For those of us who have been living under a rock - i.e. me - what is FSX Steam Edition? What about it is different from the regular FSX?

Thanks again!

 

Misha

Hi guys,

 

For those of us who have been living under a rock - i.e. me - what is FSX Steam Edition? What about it is different from the regular FSX?

 

Thanks again!

 

Misha

A UK based simulations developer called Dovetail Games bought the distribution rights to FSX from Microsoft about 18 months ago, and re-released it on the Steam platform. There are some bugfixes, and some stability improvements under the hood, but it's largely similar to the original FSX. They are also developing two new Flight Simulators being released later this year, as a very long awaited continuation of the MSFS line, details of which emerged earlier this month.

Thanks. Can you expand on what the bug fixes and under the hood improvements are? Trying to gauge whether this is worth the investment.  

Thanks. Can you expand on what the bug fixes and under the hood improvements are? Trying to gauge whether this is worth the investment.  

 

Welcome back! You are not the only one forced to take a hiatus or two from flight sims.  I twice had such lulls due to career demands so understand fully.

 

Sorry if you did earlier in this topic and I missed it.... You might wish to post your system specs to get well founded advice.

Frank,

 

Sure. The system will be this:

AMD FX 6300 3.50Ghz (6-core)
8GB DDR3
Windows 7
NVIDIA GeForce 750 Ti 2GB

Certainly not as high end as might be desirable, but will have to do.
 

Thanks. Can you expand on what the bug fixes and under the hood improvements are? Trying to gauge whether this is worth the investment.  

 

it fixes the memory management to unload stuff that isn't needed once you fly away from it which helps reduce VAS and the chances of crashing out with oom errors. it runs cleanly without forcing your desktop to turn off aero in win 7. most of the 'tweaks' that are required to make regular fsx stable, such as updating uiautomationcore.dll, adding highmemfix, and the like, are already taken care of.

 

steam has sales pretty frequently, periodically it is available for around $5, not sure when the next one is though

 

cheers

-andy crosby

Thanks, Andy. Those are all very persuaive reasons (and the current $25 price point isn't too bad either). (I vaguely remember highmemfix. Having flashbacks here. Uh oh)

I might just chime in here with the P3D vs FSX thing. I have both on my PC but have gone back to using FSX SE with the DX10 fixer (another development since 2010, google it) and it works a treat. For me visually the shadows are a little more subtle and nicer to behold than those in P3D and the cloud generation in FSX is way better. P3D clouds have been an ongoing issue.

 

Active Sky Next, REX with soft clouds, Ezdok, Shade (think you'll have to google that too) ORBX FTX Global and you're good to go. It won't take much hunting around to find the best airports. Flightbeam, Flytampa, FS Dreamteam, FSDG, Orbx and Taxi2Gate lead the scenery field at the moment. Proceed with caution with everyone else and do your homework.

 

Also the best airliners released in the last few years:

 

NGX

PMDG 777

Q400 (I even know a good bloke who shows you how to fly it)

Thanks Airline2Sim. That's helpful.

Frank,

 

Sure. The system will be this:

 

AMD FX 6300 3.50Ghz (6-core)

8GB DDR3

Windows 7

NVIDIA GeForce 750 Ti 2GB

 

Certainly not as high end as might be desirable, but will have to do.

 

 

Up until a couple weeks ago, my system was about the same as yours (AMD 6200 3.8Ghz, 550 Ti).  Though you'll have to make a few compromises, you can enjoy flight simulation with this machine and on a budget.  P3D is uncharted waters for me, so I'll share with you what worked best in the FSX world on my old machine:

 

1) Get FSX-SE:  As others have indicated, it is an improvement and you'll spend a lot less time going 'tweak crazy' with it than you will with the original boxed version.

 

2) Steves DX-10 Fixer:  A huge visual improvement and an absolute must on an AMD machine.  It will not 'up your frame rates' but it will keep the sim running smoother at lower frame rates.

 

3) Majestic's Q400:  Not only is this one of the best simulations available, it is astonishingly frame rate friendly.  This is the only heavy duty bird I could fly on my AMD machine and maintain respectable frame rates in bad weather and detailed scenery areas.

 

4) Anything from RealAir:  RealAir's offerings will also maintain respectable frame rates and are very well done.

 

5) Active Sky Next:  Another must-have IMO and you can run it and maintain acceptable performance.

 

Really, you can stop right there and get a whole lot of enjoyment out of FSX-SE without breaking the bank.  You can fly PMDG too, but you'll probably have to dial back the eye candy big-time (especially autogen, cars, boats and AI aircraft) to get acceptable performance.  I have the 777 and the 737NGX, and the 777 was the better performer of the two on the old box.  I was never to get beyond a slide show with the Aerosoft Airbus X.

Achtung! Enthusiastic post below!

 

Man, FSX:SE with the DX10 Fixer is a blast (see pics below). I have P3Dv3 too and it's a blast as well, but P3D can be rather sluggish on my machine (something to do with antialiasing and clouds). You can't really go wrong with either IMO!

 

Another must have is FTX Global. I tire quickly from the default terrain textures. Some 3rd party sky textures (REX or freeware sets) are essential to me too.