FENIX A320 RELEASED!

[CFIJose 5,485]

1 minute ago, Bdub22 said:

Good point!! Hopefully AVSIM adds a dedicated forum for FENIX, like they've done for others. 

A special airplane deserves its own forum. 😀

@Ray Proudfoot Can we please make this happen?

Edited May 20, 2022 by DJJose

[Bobsk8 12,703]

9 minutes ago, DJJose said:

Are you getting it?

Probably, waiting on Paypal now. 

[Cyrex1984 176]

7 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Little heavy on fps but doable 🙂

 

I turned my screens on performance mode and gained 7 fps

[Farlis 2,287]

6 minutes ago, DJJose said:

Keep in mind that the PMDG cut a lot of corners when it came to quality texturing. The Fenix looks like high quality textures throughout the entire aircraft.

I would rather say it has to do with the fact that Fenix has an integrated virtual cabin with full functioning lighting and that the Airbus has more displays than the 737.

[sd_flyer 6,041]

9 minutes ago, Cyrex1984 said:

I turned my screens on performance mode and gained 7 fps

Thank I should try that

[B777ER 2,486]

7 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I would rather say it has to do with the fact that Fenix has an integrated virtual cabin with full functioning lighting and that the Airbus has more displays than the 737.

The cabin can be shut off. 

[simon747 185]

44 minutes ago, DaWu said:

So after playing around with settings etc I am thinking about a refund. Performance is abnormal in VR. Unflyable. And I am talking about small airports with zero ai. Pmdg and fbw are fine. 

I have been using VR for a year for flight sim only and have reasonable perf with the PMDG 737 and FBW; need to optimise things, but can use the 737 at KLAX without issue for example.  If the Fenix is awkward in VR; I may hold off for a bit then.  Thanks for posting.

[sd_flyer 6,041]

Is there anyway to turn on AI assistance to handle ATC?

[JYW 2,980]

Initial PIREP:

I firstly want to say a huge congratulations to Fenix on the release of this high quality Airbus!  Most of my initial findings are personalized to my own system and my own personal preferences within the sim, and are thus very subjective.

Performance

For me, with a modest i7-4790k 4.0Ghz and 1080Ti, performance is tough.  Very tough.  After much experimentation, I've found that the tough performance is not related to MSFS and it's settings, nor the core Fenix A320 model within the sim.  It is all about the displays (PFD, ND, ECAM, etc); and thus the external Fenix module.   I can look (I'm a TrackIR user) at the overhead, and any detailed part of the interior and have 34 FPS, with MSFS on medium settings (I normally run high, so reduced them in advance for this bird). However as soon as I am looking straight ahead in the cockpit, at the displays, bam.... I'm down to 22 FPS.  I have experimented a lot with the display settings in the Fenix app.   The issue I have is that when I set these to CPU run, I get really jerky refresh, especially on the numerical altitude.  The 'quality', 'balanced' and 'performance' settings make almost no difference to performance for me.   Setting the displays to 'CPU' gives more frames but the stuttering (it's stuttering, not low refresh rate) makes it very unenjoyable.  With the displays set to be run by my GPU, all the stuttering is gone and the displays are butter-smooth (even in performance mode), but I lose 10 FPS and get around 21 FPS, in the skies or on the ground at non-complex, default airports.   Everyone has their own benchmark for performance.   "Easyjet Sim Pilot" streamed where he was getting around 22 FPS on the ground and was pretty happy with that.  For me personally; 30 FPS is my minimum 'non-negotiable'.  I cannot enjoy the experience with less than 30 FPS, and my average FPS in MSFS is around 45-50.   I don't blame Fenix whatsoever for this - there were plenty of reports of tough performance, and I bought the plane knowing that I have a lesser rig.  It was a gamble.  On hindsight I should have held out. I hope Fenix can do more to optimize the displays and interface between their external app and the core MSFS platform.

The other thing that greatly affects my enjoyment of this aircraft is that no default key commands for the FCU, other than AP engage and disengage are currently assigned.    The single most thing I'm personally adverse to in any flight sim, is having to turn the heading bug with a mouse.... I've not needed to do it in years and it's a showstopper for me.   I could go with having to use mouse clicks for everything else; but not turning the heading bug;  it's just so unbelievably fiddly (to me).   The clickspots in general I found pretty awkward to use.   I only found the clickspot to change the altitude knob between 100' and 1000' once - and could not find it again.   On approach to EGGD, I needed to set a ILS capture altitude of 3,100 and with my alt knob "stuck" in the 1000s, I just couldn't do it.    I think the point here being that, I found the click spots for the FCU so fiddly to work with because I'm not used to having to use them.    I assign the keys '[' and ']' for the heading bug in all of my aircraft, since FSX, P3D, XP11 and all other aircraft in MSFS.  

I would venture to say that the two above negatives - for me - may be insignificant to the majority of flight simmers...... in which case, IT'S ALL GOOD!   .....there is so much to like, so much of high quality.  It's just a bit of bad luck for me that two particular current issues (optimization and lack of key assignment support) happen to be showstoppers for me.   I'll be parking the Fenix for now but eagerly awaiting it's continued development and optimization.    I really hope the heading bug can be bound to the key assignments.  I've never used Prosim, but I used to use Project Magenta with a home cockpit, and that had it's own (external) key assignments.

Edited May 20, 2022 by JYW

[CFIJose 5,485]

23 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I would rather say it has to do with the fact that Fenix has an integrated virtual cabin with full functioning lighting and that the Airbus has more displays than the 737.

That too.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

35 minutes ago, Treetops45 said:

Thanks

My A320 loaded electrically dead & every Circuit Breaker was "out"

Some pushing to do!

T45

Lol i guess we have to start actually checking stuff when we get into the sim. Thats annoying though that all of your breakers were tripped.

[Kilo60 660]

word not allowed, I'll pass for now and see if they can get the FPS issues sorted in a future patch!

[bendead 1,085]

Really great addon, a lot of fun to fly and so much to learn, I would say that there are a couple of things I don't like :

- No documentation included, so we will have to wait for tuto or start reading some FCOM and books, coming from the FBW a couple of thing, symbol on ND, MCDU menu, etc... are new to me. They really missed the mark there.

- The font used on the screen and the display could be better, they are working on it, with terrain radar over the water, it's very hard to read the waypoints

- No forums...

That's it

 

[xender 459]

6 minutes ago, JYW said:

Initial PIREP:

I firstly want to say a huge congratulations to Fenix on the release of this high quality Airbus!  Most of my initial findings are personalized to my own system and my own personal preferences within the sim, and are thus very subjective.

Performance

For me, with a modest i7-4790k 4.0Ghz and 1080Ti, performance is tough.  Very tough.  After much experimentation, I've found that the tough performance is not related to MSFS and it's settings, nor the core Fenix A320 model within the sim.  It is all about the displays (PFD, ND, ECAM, etc); and thus the external Fenix module.   I can look (I'm a TrackIR user) at the overhead, and any detailed part of the interior and have 34 FPS, with MSFS on medium settings (I normally run high, so reduced them in advance for this bird). However as soon as I am looking straight ahead in the cockpit, at the displays, bam.... I'm down to 22 FPS.  I have experimented a lot with the display settings in the Fenix app.   The issue I have is that when I set these to CPU run, I get really jerky refresh, especially on the numerical altitude.  The 'quality', 'balanced' and 'performance' settings make almost no difference to performance for me.   Setting the displays to 'CPU' gives more frames but the stuttering (it's stuttering, not low refresh rate) makes it very unenjoyable.  With the displays set to be run by my GPU, all the stuttering is gone and the displays are butter-smooth (even in performance mode), but I lose 10 FPS and get around 21 FPS, in the skies or on the ground at non-complex, default airports.   Everyone has their own benchmark for performance.   "Easyjet Sim Pilot" streamed where he was getting around 22 FPS on the ground and was pretty happy with that.  For me personally; 30 FPS is my minimum 'non-negotiable'.  I cannot enjoy the experience with less than 30 FPS, and my average FPS in MSFS is around 45-50.   I don't blame Fenix whatsoever for this - there were plenty of reports of tough performance, and I bought the plane knowing that I have a lesser rig.  It was a gamble.  On hindsight I should have held out. I hope Fenix can do more to optimize the displays and interface between their external app and the core MSFS platform.

The other thing that greatly affects my enjoyment of this aircraft is that no default key commands for the FCU, other than AP engage and disengage are currently assigned.    The single most thing I'm personally adverse to in any flight sim, is having to turn the heading bug with a mouse.... I've not needed to do it in years and it's a showstopper for me.   I could go with having to use mouse clicks for everything else; but not turning the heading bug;  it's just so unbelievably fiddly (to me).   The clickspots in general I found pretty awkward to use.   I only found the clickspot to chance the altitude knob between 100' and 1000' once - and could not find it again.   On approach to EGGD, I needed to set a ILS capture altitude of 3,100 and with my alt knob "stuck" in the 1000s, I just couldn't do it. 

I would venture to say that the two above negatives - for me - may be insignificant to the majority of flight simmers...... in which case, IT'S ALL GOOD!   .....there is so much to like, so much of high quality.  It's just a bit of bad luck for me that two particular current issues (optimization and lack of key assignment support) happen to be showstoppers for me.   I'll be parking the Fenix for now but eagerly awaiting it's continued development and optimization.    I really hope the heading bug can be bound to the key assignments.  I've never used Prosim, but I used to use Project Magenta with a home cockpit, and that had it's own (external) key assignments.

I have the same cpu as you do and also the same gpu (but non TI). What you should do is enable the integrated intel gpu and select it in the fenix app to render the displays using it

[Bobsk8 12,703]

I am confused about this aircraft. Reading some posts on their Discord Channel, and some people love the Airbus, get good FPS, etc,  and others are posting that it is terrible, poor FPS, and it  has all kinds of bugs, and some even are asking for a refund. I think I will wait this one out for awhile, and see what happens.