Today it's 20 years since I first heard that FSX was in production, and the day I joined the Avsim Forums.

I was so excited by the news back in 2006 that I wanted to discuss it with you guys.

FSX is still perfectly flyable today! I've got a VR rig now, with FlyInside FSX, and it looks as good as new. The default Cessna 172 looks fantastic in VR, and it only gets better from there.

I'm particularly fond of Captain Sim's 727 in VR. Check out the cockpit at night, it's impressive in the VC, but wow, wait till you see it in VR.

Or, the Carenado P46T Malibu in VR, wow!

Are there many FlyInside FSX pilots here on Avsim?

I've not ventured into VR, but FSX is still my flight sim.  I did upgrade to the Steam Edition for my current computer.

I don't use VR either but still enjoy a very stable, nicely functional FSX as my go to flight sim. Although platforms like MSFS undoubtedly have amazing graphics, particularly in terms of scenery, the VCs of many FSX addon aircraft are really good, as demonstrated in your screenshots. Combine that with a good weather engine and weather graphics and an upgrade to the default scenery from either Orbx (Global + Open LC) or Flight1 ((Ultimate Terrain + Ground Environment) and the sense of immersion can be incredible. There's life in the old boy yet!

Bill

I have an Oculus Rift 2 and might give this a try, is Flyinside easy to set up?

 

I remember looking forward to the release date (October that year), and the fact I took 13 years until I fully adopted it. I have it installed, I need to give it some love in my rig.

FlyInside FSX was a bit difficult when I first set it up about six months ago because I was on Windows 10 and Microsoft was removing features of WMR which my Reverb G2 depended on. WMR is now useless in both Windows 10 and 11.

As far as I can tell your Rift 2 has it's own proprietary driver so you won't need the WMR replacement or SteamVR which my G2 needs.

The setup should be pretty easy for you with your Rift 2.

https://flyinside-fsx.com/AddOns.html

When you first load up FlyInside you'll need to put on your HMD and define a couple of buttons on your controller. First there's the centre view button, but there's also a Menu/Activate/Enter button used to navigate through the FlyInside menu system. There are a lot of options here which you'll have to experiment with because there is NO documentation. FlyInside FSX is free and largely unsupported.

After you are happy with your settings, take off your HMD, setup your flight, and load the flight to the VC. A large square window is displayed which mirrors the VR display in the HMD and which I can't resize.

In my case I open the ATC window and the GPS which I like to see during my flight.

Only after all of this can I then put the HMD back on and continue with the flight setup. I have to move the GPS and ATC window to where I like them.

I can do all of this in the cockpit with the mouse, but sometimes the mouse gets lost so keep track of it with everything you do. In the worst case just lift your HMD off, look for the mouse pointer on your monitor, and move it back to the mirror display.

It's not too complicated and the rewards make it worth while.

I keep FSX installed for a few oldies like a2a Stratocruiser. I didn’t get a computer and started simming until around 2006 after last daughter flew the nest so my sim hobby as well as computer knowledge has matured with the ESP sims. My go to sim today is P3DV5.4 which is just a maturation of FS9 and x. The streaming sims just aren’t for me and only recently I started using XPlane. But yea, the LM platforms are advanced versions of FSX and a plethora of addons from FSX days are still useful today.

I actually built a Mini ITX rig with a R7 5800X and RTX 4060 especially for a triple monitor display, and FSX and FS9 look great on it.

Aces Studio really had some foresight to make FS9 and FSX triple monitor compatible. I'm really enjoying FS9 with the triple display and it now really makes sense to fly it. In 2006 when FSX was announced I dropped FS9 like a hot brick because I was tired of the dim CRT and 4×3 display.

My monitors together are now 63 inches across, so it's the next best thing to VR.