Losing faith

[Paraffin 2,197]

20 hours ago, JustanotherPilot said:

Fly for a purpose, use Airhauler2 or perhaps fly online. By aspiring to a goal you tend to overlook the shortcomings of the Sim and concentrate on achievement.

I'll second that. For me, it's FSEconomy.

Although I started with flight sims way back in the early days, I don't think I'd still be enjoying civilian flight simming as a hobby without the FSEconomy game. It gives me a reason to fly, and see parts of the simulated world I'd never experience otherwise. 

The central focus on light GA in FSEconomy (for the most part) is a good match for the sim I fly. So while I may gripe about weather and seasons, the basics I need are all there. And in some cases like night flying and helicopters, arguably better than the alternatives. 

I go through periods, months at a time, when I fly very little in FSEconomy. But it still keeps me focused on the kind of flying I like to do, and less interested in skipping around between different flight sims.

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

Also search on Premieronedriver (hope I got that right), same thing

Well, now, that's a great tip...! CaptainMoonBeam talks too much and shows too little flying but Premier 1 Driver (which is how you type it ) has some excellent video's! I am currently watching 'Landing Boston Logan and a shout out from Boston Center!' and I love it! Sharp graphics, awesome weather engine, extremely detailed systems, no stutters, good ATC, superb autogen as far as the eye can see, no popup... but seriouly, I like it! I never thought about watching video's like this! Nothing to be annoyed with, just having a great flight! Instead of trying to recreate this myself I can simpy watch it and I don't have to install and update anything! Thanks again for the tip!

Obviously this makes sims look even worse but well...

[John_Cillis 2,406]

There's no such thing as the perfect sim.  It's amazing what these companies can do when you think about it.  There are so many different rigs out there, some storebought, some custom, different OS's, different GPU tweaks and so on.  It took me a while to get my Nvidia GPU tweaked so it looked good in all applications, but once I got the settings there, they worked perfectly, especially AA, Vsync and aniso filtering.  I downloaded one of the tuners out there.  I don't overclock my gpu, only time I ever tried I bluescreened, the only bluescreen I ever had on my rig in eight years.  That was some six years ago when I upgraded my gpu.

 

I think back on the days of FSII on my Commodore 64 and Atari ST.  And Flight Assignment, ATP.  I was just wowed with what those sims could do.  I was able to hack the programs, to change scenery colors in Flight Assignment and I could increase the speed of the Piper to over 200KTAS in FSII by putting negative values for the flaps in the config screen.

 

Nowadays I am happy with my sims, just don't fly them as often as I have other hobbies and I took a long overseas flight this year which satisfied my appetite for flying.

 

John

[turnandbank 243]

My interest comes and goes too.  I don't have much free time for simming, so I mostly do short hops in GA, sometimes in familiar territory, sometimes to explore somewhere new. I have a hard time doing flights much over an hour without getting bored, something I'm sure must happen to career pilots too.

Now that we have four 64bit civilian flight sims in the market, there's at least some competition and I can only see that as being a good thing. It would be great if we could take the best features of each sim and combine them into one, but that will never happen, which is why I am willing to invest in both Xplane 11 and Prepar3d (still using v2.4 as I like to let the dust settle before making any big moves) and  I'm keeping an eye on FSW too. The variety of choices and new innovations are keeping me more interested at the moment.

Like some others have mentioned, I also enjoy watching many of the real world aviation videos on YouTube. The scenery and framerate are great and there are no stutters. The problem is, I keep grabbing my joystick and trying to take control, but it doesn't seem to work.  Anyone else having that issue? 

[Holdit 551]

5 minutes ago, turnandbank said:

Like some others have mentioned, I also enjoy watching many of the real world aviation videos on YouTube. The scenery and framerate are great and there are no stutters. The problem is, I keep grabbing my joystick and trying to take control, but it doesn't seem to work.  Anyone else having that issue? 

I have a habit of reaching for the hat switch to pan the view around...

[turnandbank 243]

55 minutes ago, Holdit said:

I have a habit of reaching for the hat switch to pan the view around...

Yeah, for some reason that doesn't work for me either - I guess my joystick drivers aren't compatible with YouTube.

[Asheroo 22]

14 hours ago, vgbaron said:

At the extreme risk of repeating myself -

Some folks see the glass half full and some see it half empty.

There is NO SUCH THING as a perfect sim and NEVER will be. There will always be some who want more than is available - that's the nature of the thing.

Best solution in the meanwhile? Change your attitude, not the sim - if you start up by looking for every stutter or graphic glitch you will find SOMETHING.

Attitude makes a world of difference.

Vic

I've been following this thread and this is THE comment. More so I want to add that third-party developers are vital for the success of a flight sim because no development team will be able to bring you such consistent high-quality in every single feature of a flight sim without taking a thousand years. A flight sim isn't a game, in fact I consider it a different hobby to gaming. If you want high quality you will need to invest. If you're more casual than you'll have to accept the casual default quality.

I have P3Dv4, XP11, AFS2 and recently picked up FSW for a super cheap on-sale $18USD. I barely earn much but flight simming is my top hobby. I barely game anymore because of it. I have uninstalled XP11 as although the default sim was really great and some of the free addons and ortho are great, I'm very invested in P3D and it satisfies my flight sim desires. AFS2 I use a fair bit as I really like what's currently there and am excited at what the future, though gradual, will have. Approaching LOWI with the Orbx scenery and the new default Q400 plane is quite an experience. As for FSW, coming from P3D obviously it isn't going to satisfy my desires. I'm still within Steam refund limits but I'm impressed with the development direction and am optimistic. And seriously, $18USD, that's crazy. Admittedly if it was towards $50 I probably would have waited until there's more features and third-party support.

It does get annoying that AFS2 and FSW are in such an early development stage. It's a shame things didn't start earlier in the decade, but it's better than nothing, and both of them are quite something for a flight sim in early development. New developments have to start somewhere. X-Plane and the MSFS ESP engine started long ago.

[scotth6 74]

I was also getting a bit bored with flight simming a while ago, but I find with a mix of simulators, and even variety within those simulators I moved past that boredom very quickly.

I use P3D mainly, and that can be flying anything from helicopters around scenic addons through to airliner flights based on real world routes, trying to match real world specs as much as possible.  I will always try and mix up what type of flying I am doing.

I also spend time in DCS World, Aerofly FS2 and Rise of Flight, and apart from the latter the VR experience of these is a great draw on top of the simulators themselves.

Finally, these days I have finally gone back to playing other PC games, which is something I stopped doing for years, which probably led to my losing a bit of interest in flight sims for a while.

Then there is also much more in the real world which can provide a healthy distraction from any boredom with flight sims.

 

Cheers,

[Holdit 551]

Another option might be to "go back to school".

I'm not saying the OP falls into the category, but I reckon a lot of people are flying around flight sims in big commercial jets without even having mastered the skills required to get a PPL. Of course, it's not necessary to do so, but if a new challenge is required, this might fit the bill...

Take the (preferably A2A) 172 up and do some circuits, turns round a point, S-turns, emergency procedures, soft and short-field landings etc. Practice maintaining altitude, speed and heading by hand. Then give yourself a check ride and be honest with yourself about your performance. Was it good enough? Not just the flying, but use of checklists observation, etc. The contents of PPL lessons and the requirements for a check ride can easily be found on the web. That done, stick with the Cessna and do basic instrument manœuvres, then some instrument approaches. Then switch to a good GA twin and do all that again with one engine out.

Another challenge might be to try some navigation without the aid of beacons or GPS, using just map and compass.

Like Lego, your flight sim can be "a new toy every day".  

Having said that, if a break is what you need then take it. I'm always shuffling between hobbies, focusing on one until I get sick of it and then moving onto something else. Eventually they all come back round again.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

One of the causes of my boredom is, I think, my focus on one sim. It could well be that whenever I go flying again it will be in another sim. What I miss most in Aerofly FS 2 is weather. Weather makes things interesting. It changes circumstances and it can keep you busy. And hence entertained. Besides, flying with a blue sky all the time gets boring. But anyway, IPACS just posted on their forum that weather won't be here anytime soon. Considering how long they have been working on ATC already (from which we still haven't seen anything) I get the idea that what I want won't be here within a year. Or two. When you focus on one sim and you see that what you want is still years away, you tend to lose faith.  So maybe, after my break, I will reinstall P3D (or buy v4) if only to enjoy some good AS weather. With a good A2A plane. That shouldn't be too much trouble. I also considered flying the Airbus with ProATC but then things are becoming very complicated already (setting up ProATC is a chore) and I don't think that will help to get back into things.

See...? I am already thinking about what to do after my break from simming LOL 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I always fly FS9 or FSX with lite chop, it makes the flight seem more realistic, closer to what you would find in real GA or commercial flying.  Sometimes I will add a mild wind from 3-5 knots, just to make landing more of a challenge, usually a crosswind to my desired runway.  MSFS has good weather setting dialogs, especially when it comes to visibility, clouds and winds.  You can really tailor a flight to make it more interesting, which helps make every flight a unique experience.  When I took my GA lessons, crosswinds and chop were a real factor, especially here in Arizona where the chop picks up in late March and lasts until mid October.  Flying commercial into Sky Harbor is always interesting because the chop really picks up in the summer afternoons.  Pilots always come on the horn and warn the passengers so as what to expect.

My favorite commercial flight experience is taking off from Santa Ana, where they take off at full thrust then chop the thrust at 1000 ft. AGL for noise abatement.  You feel the deceleration and a bit weightless during that experience.  When I sim from there I always follow the same procedure, retracting the flaps and retarding the thrust when I hit 1000 ft. AGL.  I then climb over the Pacific before I turn around and head back to the coast, procedure there.

I have XP-10 but I don't use it much, mainly because the default keystrokes get me confused vs. MSFS.  I also don't have any aircraft add-ons for that sim.  A really old sim that I have is Flight Unlimited 2, anyone remember that?  It had photoreal scenery, albeit at low res, for the SF Bay Area.  Aircraft handling was kind of quirky, they did not seem balanced well in the atmosphere.  AI was fun, if you got too close behind a jet, wake turbulence would flip the aircraft, on the runway or in the air.  Sometimes I still fire it up, just to bring back memories.  It gets ridiculously high framerates, being an old DOS based sim.  It still runs on Vista and my Nvidia card works on it.

I used to keep FS2002 on my rig but finally removed it some years ago.  It was good though, the first sim that revealed mountain shadows in the twilight.  Clouds were odd, but fogged in conditions were just right and I used to practice a lot of ILS landings in that sim with my FSUIPC/Autoland add-on that I wrote.  A year or two after I wrote that a programmer in India asked for the source code as he wanted to create a real Autoland module for GA aircraft.  I don't know if he ever succeeded or not, but it was an interesting request.  I had a lot of AI built into the code that would measure the aircraft's weight and sink rate at various thrust settings, but don't ask me how it works today, it's been too long since I coded it.  I've never tried it with FSX as I generally hand-fly my approaches.

John

 

[GCBraun 2,392]

I could understand the negativity some years ago, where we just had a buggy, old and dead FSX to play with. Even though XP was also available, I did not really got into it until add-ons such as the IXEG and the AFLC172 got released. At the moment I have P3Dv4, XP11, AeroflyFS2 and DCS installed. I would even try FSW, but VR is a must for me.

Yesterday I was doing a dusk approach with the Aerobask Panthera in XP11 and I just took some seconds to appreciate the beauty of the virtual world around me. The sky colors, the photo scenery, the airport and city lights, the runway terrain contours, the online traffic, the panel and the airplane itself...when flying in VR, things can get really poetic! I would never believe what my eyes were seeing 25 years ago when I was starting with FS 5.1.

After experiencing XP11 in VR, I don't feel the need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a PP license. I really don't. And the best part of being platform agnostic is that I can enjoy the finest of which platform has to offer.

Yes, of course there are some hassles, but still...it is the best hobby I could've ever dream of. :)

[Guest]

Ok, well, I think I am back again. Pretty soon, isn't it? 

I bought P3D v4 (after not spending time with P3D for 10 months or so) and was happy to see the addons I own and wanted to use could all be upgraded for free: AS for weather, A2A C172 and Cherokee, FTX Norway and to my surprise even Plan-G now works perfectly fine with v4 (better than it did with v3 the last time I used it). Installing all this wasn't too much work: it was done within no time.

I fired it up and boy, was I happy to have a fully functioning plane again (that remembers its state etc. and has awesome sounds) which I could fly with through real weather. Great looking skies (HDEv2 clouds also work with v4). All in all this one flight I did gave me everything I had been missing for so long.

I think I now know where my crisis came from: a lot of people posted this already (not only in this topic) but my mistake was that I focused on ONE sim. For some reason I wanted one sim to be it all. Some ten months ago I bought XP11 and deleted P3D. A while later I bought Aerofly FS 2 and deleted XP11. Even though I had big fun with Aerofly FS 2, mainly thanks to VR, its limitations obviously were too big to keep me entertained. As I said, I missed real weather, great looking skies, planes with complete functionality: now I have all that with P3D v4. And if I ever want to enjoy a VR flight I will fire up Aerofly FS 2. I won't need to wait anymore for AFS2 to offer it ALL. Or for P3D to offer it ALL. Waiting sucks. P3D v4 is great (autogen as far as the eye can see: after flying above the empty AFS2 photoreal this is really great!) but yes, it has its problems (textures loading nearby, performance that struggles, no real sense of light, etc.) but what it does offer I can enjoy! And the same goes for AFS2. (And XP11.) 

Long story short: those who said you shouldn't limit yourself to one sim, hoping it would be ALL one day, were right. You have to enjoy whatever you can with all possible sims. And focus on the many positive sides of each of them.

Can't wait to get home and do another flight in my A2A Cherokee (missed it!) above Norway (missed it!) in great weather (missed it!). Sometimes life can be so simple... 

[jcomm 5,919]

4 minutes ago, J van E said:

Ok, well, I think I am back again. Pretty soon, isn't it? 

I bought P3D v4 (after not spending time with P3D for 10 months or so) and was happy to see the addons I own and wanted to use could all be upgraded for free: AS for weather, A2A C172 and Cherokee, FTX Norway and to my surprise even Plan-G now works perfectly fine with v4 (better than it did with v3 the last time I used it). Installing all this wasn't too much work: it was done within no time.

I fired it up and boy, was I happy to have a fully functioning plane again (that remembers its state etc. and has awesome sounds) which I could fly with through real weather. Great looking skies (HDEv2 clouds also work with v4). All in all this one flight I did gave me everything I had been missing for so long.

I think I now know where my crisis came from: a lot of people posted this already (not only in this topic) but my mistake was that I focused on ONE sim. For some reason I wanted one sim to be it all. Some ten months ago I bought XP11 and deleted P3D. A while later I bought Aerofly FS 2 and deleted XP11. Even though I had big fun with Aerofly FS 2, mainly thanks to VR, its limitations obviously were too big to keep me entertained. As I said, I missed real weather, great looking skies, planes with complete functionality: now I have all that with P3D v4. And if I ever want to enjoy a VR flight I will fire up Aerofly FS 2. I won't need to wait anymore for AFS2 to offer it ALL. Or for P3D to offer it ALL. Waiting sucks. P3D v4 is great (autogen as far as the eye can see: after flying above the empty AFS2 photoreal this is really great!) but yes, it has its problems (textures loading nearby, performance that struggles, no real sense of light, etc.) but what it does offer I can enjoy! And the same goes for AFS2. (And XP11.) 

Long story short: those who said you shouldn't limit yourself to one sim, hoping it would be ALL one day, were right. You have to enjoy whatever you can with all possible sims. And focus on the many positive sides of each of them.

Can't wait to get home and do another flight in my A2A Cherokee (missed it!) above Norway (missed it!) in great weather (missed it!). Sometimes life can be so simple... 

I honestly can't understand people that keeps uninstalling stuff ???? 

How come it be ?

 

Glad you sorted your "crisis" out Jeroen :-)

I know of at least two other simmers who are fine with P3Dv4 too ....

Well, not me.... I'm on DCS and IL2, for good ;-)

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, jcomm said:

I honestly can't understand people that keeps uninstalling stuff ????