The way to use a flightsim... IMO...

[jcomm 5,887]

I was commenting with Alexis about how low my expections and enthusiam / interest in flight simulation have dropped, in good part due to the MFS Fiasco...

I am totally away from it, no sim installed for months... but if I was to invest in flight simulation it would be in a rather focused way.

Airbus is nowadays my reference, just as many moons ago the 747 and the L-1011 were. 

If  had the money and the mood I would go for something like what this girl presents so well in the video linked bellow:

Easy Steps: How to Build Your Own Home Cockpit! A320/G1000 | Student Pilot TV ep.15 - YouTube

[jarmstro 2,402]

I actually very much like MSFS. However, today I flew a short hop from St Mary's to Bristol VFR in the Torque Sim Islander in X-Plane and it was sublime. OrbX, Traffic Global, x-Vision and Active Sky. The sounds are superb and in fact the whole plane is sensational. Really enjoyable. I do not need a virtual cockpit or VR personally.

[CFIJose 5,485]

I'm very lucky to have X-Plane 11 (V) loaded with some excellent add-ons that include ORBX TE FL, my home airport beautifully modded, a realistic c172 by AL, xEnviro driving the weather, XPRealistic driving the effects and sounds, a computer that can run it all, and the required controllers that give me a fully realistic sim experience every time I fire it up.

[SmokeDiddy 262]

I'll just say that I continue to enjoy XP11 very much.  Yeah, I have add-ons that make it more immersive, and that's ok too.  I'm not one to look out the window whilst flying to and fro to seek out my house and if it is placed properly and looks like my house.  I'm busy in the cockpit monitoring, adjusting and anticipating what I should do in case something should fail.  XP11 runs great on my dated hardware and I don't have to worry about my limited bandwidth causing pauses and stutters and waiting on forced multi Gig updates to take away precious time I could be flying...just saying.  I concur with the previous posts as well.

EDIT:  I forgot about the OP.  I'd love to build out a home cockpit, but mama has say in that - even in my man cave.  But like someone wrote, I don't need that to have an enjoyable experience.

Edited April 23, 2021 by SmokeDiddy

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, jarmstro said:

I do not need a virtual cockpit or VR personally.

Actually, with the OP in mind, this is probably the biggest thing to happen in flight sim ever.

If you have read me talk about VR you've probably heard me say "I can never go back to 2D", thinking of what I would recommend made me realise - XP11.5x is the first VR I would actually recommend, Up until then Ace Combat 7 was as good as you could get - but I wouldn't recommend it since there is so little VR content.

XP11.50, on this years GPU and CPU is absolutely sublime, the stutters of last gen completely spoilt any chance of enjoying it much, while at the same time VR completely spoilt 2D.

Now, with butter smooth as you look around its an absolute pleasure to jump in the virtual cockpit with the headset on, almost hard to believe you are not in the actual cockpit (which, tbh, can be pretty terrifying)

[jarmstro 2,402]

4 hours ago, mSparks said:

Actually, with the OP in mind, this is probably the biggest thing to happen in flight sim ever.

If you have read me talk about VR you've probably heard me say "I can never go back to 2D", thinking of what I would recommend made me realise - XP11.5x is the first VR I would actually recommend, Up until then Ace Combat 7 was as good as you could get - but I wouldn't recommend it since there is so little VR content.

XP11.50, on this years GPU and CPU is absolutely sublime, the stutters of last gen completely spoilt any chance of enjoying it much, while at the same time VR completely spoilt 2D.

Now, with butter smooth as you look around its an absolute pleasure to jump in the virtual cockpit with the headset on, almost hard to believe you are not in the actual cockpit (which, tbh, can be pretty terrifying)

I'm tempted by VR. But only after I upgrade my system which at the moment seems pretty much impossible. No GPUs available for love nor money from my supplier and when they are I expect at ridiculous prices.

[Humpty 751]

some years ago , had planned on doing a pit for the AS350 but never got down to it.

But as Rob has mentioned Arduino's , all my controls are using an Arduino, like the collective (this is also used as a gaming wheel for AC / DR ) , cylic and anti-torque. on the collective i have stuck small joysticks for accel / brake (this is temp until I get a gaming wheel) 

The cyclic is using Uno R3 with a MPU 6050 for the pitch / roll axis , the collective is on a mega with a 100k pot and the Anti-torque is using the Pro Micro with a hall sensor,  ofc they are not perfect as have not got down to finishing them but they still do the job.

[mSparks 2,086]

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

No GPUs available for love nor money from my supplier and when they are I expect at ridiculous prices.

I wouldn't recommend VR without the rest of the hardware to back it up, it makes a really nice proof of concept, but is more frustration than fun. When supply finally catches up with demand however....

TLDW: People are willing to spend a couple thousand $$$ to upgrade from 30fps to 300fps in XP11, not so much to upgrade from 100fps to 105fps in Shadow of the Tome Raider.

But it will come now, the hardware has finally moved forward (after being stagnant for 10+ years while all the R&D went on mobile and less and less power consumption).

Ubiquity wont come until at least mid range systems have sufficient performance (this gen consoles fill that gap for now), which will be another few years. But VR crossed the threshold from exciting tech demo to mainstream demand in late 2020 (so no longer a question of if people get VR, but when they get VR).

Suddenly, with a few generic knobs and switches you have a solid, believable representation of every cockpit ever made (and quite a few that never were, still annoys me somewhat how bad the cockpits of the 5th gen fighters are pan simulator).

 

[jarmstro 2,402]

8 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I wouldn't recommend VR without the rest of the hardware to back it up, it makes a really nice proof of concept, but is more frustration than fun. When supply finally catches up with demand however....

No I know. When I upgrade I'll do everything at once.