Hello all, been lurking for a couple days now and decided to register.  I have played Flight Sims off an on for most since the 386 days but took a long time off and only recently picked it back up.  Working off a copy of FSX:SE with a few of the DLCs but nothing crazy.  I had purchased it a year ago for my Father-in-Law since he has a Real Cessna 150 and we got it for him for when he couldn't go out flying that day due to reasons.

 

Recently installed it on my system at home because my 2year old loves to crawl into my lap while I'm playing other video games and the wife doesn't like it when I play violent FPS games with my daughter in my lap   She is showing a real liking towards aircraft and is constantly telling me to "crash into the water!"  Hey, she's two...

 

After installing the game and starting to have more fun with it I wanted to see what stuff I could get for it and about lost my mind after a 5 minute Google search.  Which lead me here as well as elsewhere on the internet.  I will apologize in advance, I will have a lot of questions which may seem common sense for those of you have been here for years.

 

First question - Do I stick with FSX:SE?  This question I understand will bring out some bias, so a good quick pro/con of the various products (P3d, DTG, XP, FSX) would be good.

 

My goal is to have a stunning but flyable simulator (The thought of OOMs scare me, because as someone who has been around computers my entire life, am an avid video gamer, and work in IT; this VAS issue just seems like something that should have been long resolved, about 15 years ago.), I enjoy taking off from one of the major US Int'l airports and flying to another one (LAX to ORD, DFW to KLGA, etc.).  I would also like to do some US to Europe flights.  Love the airliners, military aircraft are only fun in a multiplayer fly-shoot-kill.

 

Current Hardware is:

 

Core i7-2600K OC to 4+GHz

16GB RAM

GeForce GTX780TI

WD 500GB HDD

Corsair H80 CPU cooler

23" Monitor

Xbox One controller

 

At some point Ill start collecting real aviation controls and will ask for feedback on what I should get.

 

BTW, where I work, we have multiple Quantum3d IDX's, though we are converting them to Quantum Mantis.  So I get to play with the big Flight Sims at work

 

-Gavenger

Welcome to Avsim!

 

FSX is a good platform to work with - lots of nice addons, both aircraft and scenery are available!  ..and it is stable which some will say means it has been abandoned.. I prefer to think of it as not needing a constant stream of updates and hotfixes to be "current".

 

I'm sure some P3D and XPlane fans will add their views as well  :wink:

 

Personally, I would pick the airliner you would like to fly, and carefully add some scenery that appeals to you.  Orbx Global might be a good place to start - it will make the entire world look better and not add performance issues.  (Careful with Vector though..)

https://orbxdirect.com/product/ftxglobal

Orbx NA landclass might be next..

 

VAS issues can be controlled by not going overboard with FSX settings. Start by freezing the LOD radius at 4.5 and resist the temptation to go above that..  Also beware of addon airports that can gobble up VAS very quickly.

 

I'll yield the floor to other FS fans - there are many opinions out there, as you know as a long time lurker..

 

 

Orbx Global might be a good place to start - it will make the entire world look better and not add performance issues.

 

Hi Bert: What would you recommend for sky textures for FSX?

Hi Bert: What would you recommend for sky textures for FSX?

 

I am the wrong guy to ask, since I use default FSX sky textures..