Returning to FSX-help!

[Guest rmce]

Hi all,I have been aan Avsin member for many years, and FS 'nutter' since Bruce Artwick Days.In May 2007 I decided to have a MI, and departed this mortal coil for a few minutes. (Still think it was indigestion!)However, as I had the heart attack in the company of a Cardiologist and a Casualty Consultant, in a major heart hospital, they decided that the mortal coil was where I was staying at present!! (Strongly advise if anyone is having an MI to have it in this company!(lol))So, one year on to the day we celebrated my still being here by returning from JFK to HRW on a BA 747. (Yes they did lose a case at Terminal 5, but we got it back) I am now ready to return to the FSX world with my computer.I was one of the lucky ones in that my rig ran FXS without any problems.So, what have I missed? What is the latest and best downloads to get freeware or to buy. I am happy to spend say

[Virtualwombat 4]

Depends what kind of simming you want to do. You mentioned the airbus, so I guess you're into airliners? I guess the gold standard is the Level D 767. Some would prefer the 737-900ER from Ariane Studios. Both are extremely detailed and complex a/c, and some prefer smaller planes that can be landed at rural locations, away from the frame rate problems of cities. Here, the Aerosoft Twin Otter or the Cheyenne from the same company have good reputations. Then there are the Real Air Simulations planes, particularly the Spitfire 2008, which is simply beautiful. For scenery, the best is undoubtedly FTX for two regions in Australia. FTX brings scenery to a new level, even better than Horizon's (and Just Flight's) photo-realistic scenery for England and Wales. The advantage is you get realistic autogen and good frame rates, and the textures are pretty much perfect at very low altitude. There are also a whole bunch of freeware airports that can be added in to FTX, which allows you to land on rural runways that have realistic slopes and even curves, rather that the default straight and level airports. If you don't want to fly in Oz, there are GEX textures and Ultimate Terrain. For weather, ASX from HiFly are still the leaders, although for water and cloud textures some would prefer FEX (Flight Environment X). Another recent highlight for me has been the posting by NickN of some system recommendations that make FSX run better. Many of us have found these tweaks make a lot of difference to the FSX experience. They can be found on this and other forums if you search.I'm sure others have a different list. I'd like to hear from anyone who has found a detailed airliner that is easy on frame rates... Cheers,Noel.

[byork 2,258]

Acceleration/SP2?Not sure if they were release before your little hiatus, but that was probably the biggest of them all.DX10 functionality turned out to be rather controversial.Cheers,Bryan

[Guest rmce]

Thanks!!No, SP2 and whatever was NOT out.I thought that Vista made DX 10 happen. I stayed with XP, and I shall probably continue to stay with XP.Is the acceleration a different thing from SP 2?Thius is the kind of advice I am looking for.Thanks again.

[PhilTaylor 45]

Acceleration is payware, SP2 is a free download. SP2 also contains goodness for DX9 users, see my blog post from Oct 2 last year.

[Guest jshyluk]

Feel free to go the the Reviews section of AVSIM. All of our Reviews are there in alphabetical order with dates, so you can go back to any time you like. Read, learn, and enjoy!Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Guest rmce]

What a good idea!Kinda obvious now you have suggested it!(lol)

[Guest rmce]

There have been two aircraft that have had me hooked.The first one was a while back a 737 from I think Dream something? (Senior moment happening, 60 an hour on average)The other was also a 737 my Eric Cantu. Both these 737 had a level of complexity that allowed a cold and dark start, and a fair understanding of cockpit switches etc.I also loved the cabin views. There is a guy a dead ringer for me on Eric Cantus aircraft sitting in the passenger compartment!That is about my level. I suppose I am a regioanl short 1 to 4 hour type of simmer, as I set myself destinations from the current news.Before I had my wee 'haitus' there was talk about real world ATC, and virtual postioning of your FS aircraft in the real world skies.Did that ever happen?Thanks again for your help, its great!

[Guest jshyluk]

There's still a lot of material to discuss here. I can start to address ATC for you, though.Basically, FSX ATC hasn't had much improvement over FS9, but there are some significant work-arounds.Multiplayer connectivity is "sort of" improved for FSX, which means that you can have several people flying in a virtual area at once. Groups such as VATSIM will provide on-line ATC services which can be extremely realistic. However, it's usually a love-in for the big heavies, so you might expect to be placed into a holding pattern with a lot of 747s and the like. Also, some groups have put a moratorium on in-flight emergencies, for fairly obvious reasons.Then you can get something like Radar Contact or VoxATC2, which both improve on the default single-player ATC, but also have some shortcomings. Unfortunately, FSX ATC has pretty much hit a wall in terms of what can be developed without a large overhaul of the system. Again, there are hopes that the future will bring some new breakthroughs in voice and AI technology, so we will have to wait and see!Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM