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AstroEd

New to Forum and mostly new to Flight Sims

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I am a 53 year old Disabled Veteran hoping that between my new Woodshop, Pickleball, Metal Detecting and Learning FLight Sims I can ease some of my PTSD issues. I know it will take time to put this together as I can only buy a few things at a time as I save for them so whats needed first, second, etc. At this time I have a very old CH Products Flight Yoke and Throttle quadrant, (Lost the rudder pedals in a move), Saitek X-56 that I am trying to learn to setup and use in Elite Dangerous, and not related but also have a Logitech 920 racing wheel. looking to go all Saitek Yoke Throttles, trim  wheel (If I can find one) rudder pedals and the instrument panels in the near future.

My current System on Parts Picker

My immediate desires are to buy a Volair Sims Cockpit with Avionics panel and Logitech Yoke System (Prefer a Saitek Pro Flight Cessna Yoke System as I read it was a bit better but not sure I trust used items), Throttle maybe x2 for future proofing though I mainly desire to fly General Aviation not airliners. At first I might use my Ipad and air manager for dials until I can afford the $1,014 for 6 Logitech Flight Instrument Panels 1  Flight Mutli Panel, 2 x Flight Radio Panel, and other items I am sure.

I am trying to decide if my system is enough for Prepar3d if it can run that in 64 bit it should be fine for FSX in 32bit yes? 
Should I have the fastest Graphics card? Can my 800W power supply handle it?
I know FSX is more CPU intensive what is the fast single core performance on a Socket 1151 CPU
What is the fastest Single core CPU PERIOD? what type of Motherboard do I need if I want to upgrade?
Is my 16GB of ADATA XPG DDR4 3000 (PC4 2400) memory too slow? what is best memory?
Hard drives I plan to get m.2 512GB Samsung 960 Pro just for the Sims and addons and upgrade my OS drive from 240 to fastest 512 SSD I can.

 

It is my hope to stop just hoping in a plane willy nilly and punching the throttle till I lift off, I wish to learn real world procedures and build a physical cockpit to get as close as I can (Afford) to the tasks needed to fly for real, I am to be honest a eyecandy lover so I also want o balance performance with as real a outside view as possible as well.

Any tips for a confused newbie will be appreciated. without making a $12,000 system what would be the best you can make PC for Prepared, FSX-SE. Racing sims etc.?

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Welcome Ed, two things I noticed, you mention FSX and P3D.    If your going with P3D4, why would you want FSX?   And the monitor you listed, $699 for a 34" screen.   I just bought a 43" LED HDTV, looks great to me and only cost $197.  Happy flying.


  John  Hubbard   MSFS2020 - Win10                    

          

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AstroEd,

As a Disabled Vet myself (RAAF Australia) I know all about the financial constraints you may well be addressing now. I have a little bit of advice re simming and Saitek.  Also, like you, I am a self trained Sim pilot but I qualify this with the fact that my instructor was probably a poor choice and my techniques are suspect to say the least.  If you can find some one near you who shares your passion for flight and is a real world pilot or at least reasonably experienced, please take advantage of that experience if you can find it. 

First, however, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you and hope your tenure here will be a happy and fruitful one.

Regarding Saitek.  I have and am relatively happy with a full Saitek (now Logitech of course) set up with trim wheel ,Yoke, extra quadrant and rudder pedals.  They work very well and have given me a lot of years trouble free service.  However, recently there has been some airplay given to  a Honeycomb yoke and throttle quadrant set. Google them as I think they will be a very viable alternative to the Saitek ones. Due for release, I believe in the early new year and may well be worth the wait.

I also very much concur with Hubinwa regarding the monitor.  I am running 6 displays and all except two, second hand 22 and 24 inch monitors are LED 1080p TVs. The only difference I can see is the price difference between the LED and monitors and that is considerable to say the least.

Regarding your system there are a couple of preset Hardware upgrading rules that I follow. The first, always buy the very best you can afford and second, always buy the fastest CPU you can afford. For most purposes, a good quality 800w power supply will do the job. I am also going to assume that you will be flying the little fellas given you cholice of the Saitek/Logitech flight panels etc. I looked at these very seriously a long time ago before opting for Monitors instead. I did this because I felt that it gives me a wider choice of aircraft to fly. That is NOT to say that the panels you have selected are a poor choice. I am quite sure that you will be very happy with them. 

P3Dv4 or XPlane11 are the way to go .. both 64 bit. FSX, FSX-SE and P3D v 1,2,3 are now gradually losing Third Party Developer support and whilst these are still very viable, I would recommend the 64bit sims. 

Personally, I am running (or own) all of the sim platforms and I find that I have a 256GB SSD for each of the platforms and a 1TB HDD for each of them for sceneries and or accessories, The exception is XP11 and I have a 2tb HDD for that as I am looking at getting into Orthoxp scenery. 

Whichever choices you make now and in the future, I am sure that you will thoroughly your flying time.

I do, and I am very sure that all of us here wish you well with this venture and this forum is a great place to come for any advice you may need.

Regards

Tony


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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Hubinwa Thanks for the swift reply.

As far as why go from Prepar3d v4.1 to FSX, or other.. NO Idea  (Though X-Plane 11 is REAL cheap on Steam right now and I am fighting not to order it and save for which ever Prepar3d I should be getting) LOL but it seems the more I read several folks fly multiple versions of Sims.. Maybe due to money spent on older systems add-ons I don't know. I only have 3 add-on disks and that's Terrain meshes from FSGenesis for US East, US West, and Canada and Mexico sadly they are old and I forgot my lifetime membership info so I can not upgrade them. If I read correctly though ORBX knocks FSGenesis out of the Skies.

The Monitor I WISH I paid that much for it LOL I got it on Amazon as a refurbished and still paid almost $1,000 for it.

I am researching Possible affordable 3 screen solutions for a realistic "Cockpit" feel but I was under the impression that Monitors were better than TV's due to response time and higher refresh rates

I been looking for the fastest Refresh rates on TV's but they are expensive or risk burn in which Monitors do not. I also have a 1080P 58" Plasma (Burnin fears), and a new LG OLED 55" (Also Burn in potential)

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Himmelhorse (Heavens or Heavenly Horse)?

Thank you for the welcome but thank you more for your Service to your Country. I hope they took less than you Gave.

 

The Honeycomb setup looks wonderful, It would prevent me from getting the Volair Sims Aviation panel, I guess I could try to make my own custom panel in the woodshop to accommodate them. 

I am sad to say this computer system was an impulse buy to run VR I THOUGHT I was getting a normal ibuypower Snowblind which has a Z270 Motherboard with nice specs and overclock ability Sadly it being from Bestbuy to meet the lower price point it has a H270 with less PCIe pathways no overclocking and no options for Dual Video, and decent functional components but none that are stellar. I am already thinking complete upgrades when the next gen Video card come out IF I pay down my Debt from building a new woodshop.

the Power supply worries me as it is a barely know brand and lower quality not even listed on Parts Picker.

I am only considering the Saitek panels for the "Realism of reaching out pulling real knobs, pusing real buttons, flipping real switches, etc. On the budget side I guess I could get by with Air Manager and touch screen monitors.

 

Outside of goofing around I have no desire or the patience to learn to fly big Commercial jets or fighter planes, My main desire is to learn to Fly General Aviation planes in as real a way as I can afford.

I am torn between saving for Prepar3d V4.1 or spending my current savings on X-Plane 11 Steam version as it is under $40 right this moment. But leaning toward Prepar3d.

I have a 250gb SSD for the OS and I think I accidently put a game or two on it that I will have to rectify. I am thinking I will replace it with as fast a SATA  based SSD as I can in the 512GB - 1TB range, a couple 4-6 TB drives partitioned for different games and save for a 512GB - 2TB m.2  Samsung 960 Pro for the Flight Sims as I read the load times were faster.

Still researching how far I can push this limited system as in fastest RAM, VIDEO card, and CPU until I can afford a new build. OR since it can not be overclocked is it even worth them extra money.

 

 

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Before you lock into hardware for general aviation, be sure you're not interested in flying airliners - you'll have paid a lot of money for things you likely won't use once you get a taste of the heavy iron.

You a submariner?  Boomer sailor by the photo you posted.  I toured a boomer once just to see how the skirts had it.... fast boat sailor here x 3.

 

 


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

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Dave TY for the reply, I am 75% sure I am not a Heavy iron pilot, but that could change as I learn. At this time however with my Memory issues they look way to complex for me to learn. They are not ruled out just not in the forefront.

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AstroEd,

The horse is rough but I am heavenly (of course). Thanks for your kind words too.

I can only dream of my set up with touch screen monitors and I see that as a very viable alternative to a complete mock up airliner cockpit. 

DaveCT2003 is right on the money.  I would hazard a guess that most simmers "graduate" to the tube liners. To be honest, I mentioned my multi screen set up for that very reason.  On a grander scale if one was to invest in a full mock up 737 cockpit that then becomes basically the ONLY aircraft you can fly on your system. By investing in the panels you are doing much the same thing and limiting the number of aircraft you can fly semi realistically. 

Anyway for the time being, enjoy what you have and fly what you enjoy.

Regardss

Tony

 

  • Upvote 1

Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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Ignoring that this is a DIY MOTION racing sim,

This is cool  and clever (Provided your in a dark room) he has 3 small portable projectors mounted behind and above his head projecting onto three white PVC boards this might be an affordable answer to larger screens on a budget and on a stationary system might be even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=snATg_9Z8dM

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AstroEd,

I tried a projector (720p) and I hate to rain on your parade but....

A couple of things to note.

1. graphics (particularly 720p) were woeful. You would need at least a 1080p projector ... it would have to be short throw unless you are flying in a barn ...  and then the graphics quality(I think) would still be dubious.

2. I believe, and this is certainly the case in Australia, the cost is far and away more expensive than equivalent monitors. (you also mentioned touch screen ... not possible with a projector.

3. if you are in a relatively small room there is a heat factor to be considered.

4. the cost of running the projectors, (electricity) I found at least, was far more excessive than LED monitors, and

5 Projector globes (which have to be periodically replaced) are effin expensive. They will however, be a little cheaper than equivalent touch screens.

Having said all of that, there are obviously people who are incredibly happy with a projector or projectors. I was not one of them.

Again, sorry to dampen things for you but I do feel you should be aware of the percieved pitfalls.

Cheers

Tony


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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Not at all thats why I ask things, dream, adjust dream, give up and kick the cat, return try again...

I will be starting out with the 55" OLED TV until I save for a real setup. My dreams are always larger than my wallet.

I wonder if I can find someone to buy my $10,000 Digital piano for $9,000 I shold be able to make a dandy sim with that LOL.

I am also researching Oculus rift combined with a leap motion and Flyinside software, big down side of VR is not seeing the physical controllers.

I like the idea of the Volair sim avionics panel but as you said if I use the saitek instruments it limits me to one type of flying. IF I use 2 ipads running Air Manager or the like I might have the touch control, and the ability to go from normal instrument look to all glass cockpit and more so that too is an option.

I will go crazy triyng to decide and never use a sim LOL.

 

*No Cats were harmed in the creation of this message*

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Are there any LIVE Chat rooms or VOIP like Teamspeak to talk with folks live and learn?

 

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If you are at all technical, you might also look at the possibility of making your own control panels, which is in danger of becoming a hobby in itself of course, but it does offer the advantage of having something which will entirely suit your specific requirements for a lot less money in terms of what can be controlled. And of course there is no reason you couldn't fashion more than one switch panel to operate with the same connecting interface, effectively making a switchable system, for example to suit both an airliner overhead panel and a GA main panel.

Places such as this are worth a look if that idea appeals, in particular the USB interface boards: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/

 

 


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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Welcome to the forums, I can see lots of good advices already for you.

Feel free to ask me any questions in the future and welcome to the community.

Best Wishes 

Simbol 

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Sad to say I am only Technical in building PCs NOT circuits LOL I know nothing about Electronis. and I am JUST learning Wood working so the skills for building my own cockpit from scratch is a ways off.

 

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