Newbie (ish) - best tweaks and tips

[Guest]

Hi all - not really a newbie, I guess (previously I posted the report on Fly! 2 on Jaguar), I've just been out of the loop for a long while. I've been hooked on X-Plane 6, which I love (the ability to easily design planes and fly on Mars is really cool), but I've also been longing to get back into Fly! 2 lately. I'm installing it again (ever so slowly) and will be installing the final patch. So...what are the recommended tweaks & tips for best performance? I'm running a Power Mac G4 "Digital Audio" single-processor 533 mhz w/ 133 mhz system bus, 384 MB RAM, GeForce 2 MX, Saitek Cyborg 3D Gold USB joystick, Mac OS X v. 10.2.3. Just looking for tips & tweaks to make Fly! 2 flyable and enjoyable on my Mac. Anything is much appreciated.Also, what are some of the recommended addons - planes, scenery, and so forth?

[Guest Allan Jones]

Welcome back, Kevin.Sounds like you're set up OK. I recommend not running FlyII until you add the patch (patch a clean install). Don't bother with 16-bit color--it looks bad and doesn't improve rates enought to endure the ugly scenery.Can you increase Fly's memory allocation in X? If so, you can up it a little to about 280MB in your case. I like to leave about 100MB free system memory for OpenGL and other system needs.To check frame rates, use the rate graph by doing control-F. Realize that checking rates will affect rates. You'll lose 1-5 fps during a check depending on your system and your selected view.Add-on Aircraft:The Socata TBM from ROTW is awesome. Make sure you d/l the Mac version. Also hit the K key to bring up the check list. Autostart ("E") doesn't work quite right so you have to do the drill to start the mill. Socata modules go in here:FlyII>Modulesnot here:FlyII>System>Modules(there are two "Modules" folders). Make sure that the modules are unzipped. Some Mac users have reported that they needed to unzip the modules separately. They must end up with a .dll extent to work.There are Rob Young flight model fixes for the FlyHawk and the Pilatus, maybe one more. Get them. The TWA 707 is Mac-friendly if you want a blast from the past. And to rid your life of the annoying and loud GPS start-up tone, read the recent posts. I posted a link to the fix.Add-on Scenery:The SOCAL (LAX and area) package is very nice and easy on rates. There are a huge number of scenery packages. That's why I'm now up to 80MB of hard drives!It's been a long day and my mind is the consistency of gopher snot right now. Maybe some others can jump in with other X-specific suggestions.See ya,

[Guest]

Hi Allan,Thanks for all the help. I appreciate your taking the time to reply - and with what's gone on recently, I totally understand your current state-of-mind. I'm there with you. It's really great of you to be here helping - thank you.Fly! 2 just surprised the heck out of me. I installed it, patched the clean install, and fired it up. Loaded fast, I set it for 32MB or less graphics, 1024x768, 32 bit. Load up the Flyhawk, head for some place interesting (I chose San Bernadino, as it's the default in X-Plane) and took off. First off, WOW - I didn't remember it ever running this nice. I didn't bother to check framerates, but it was quite fluid and enjoyable, even with multiple cloud layers. No speed demon, but actually quite good. This is in 10.2.3. Looks like the OpenGL stuff in the last update really made a difference.First issue - what's the word on joystick settings? I seem to have a problem with mine - the various axes seem to be a bit off-kilter. For instance, I loaded up the B200, and just flying along, it seems to want to pitch down and roll left somewhat markedly. Applying full right rudder & aileron and full back elevator, it just barely reversed direction. Seems that the calibration or something isn't quite right. In the axes screen, none of them really seemed to be moving to the ends of their range, and indeed looked a bit off-center or something. Is there a way to tweak this? In X-Plane, there's a calibration button in the joystick setup screen that works great - anything similar in Fly! 2? Or even a text file edit?So far I've downloaded a bunch of sky enhancers, and the ROTW Piper Warrior. Haven't tried any yet. Which of the sky enhancers seems to be the most realistic & nicest-looking? I'm heading off after this to get the ROTW Piper PA-19, and the 707 - where is the 707? Searching for it, I found a bunch of repaints but not the original. I'm planning to get the Socata and other stuff after that - the Socata download seems to be huge, have to wait for that last as I'm on 56k. Overall I'm pleased that almost all the cool addons I've found are cross-platform.Whew! So far, I'm very glad I dug out the Fly! 2 CDs. I'm glad to see there's still such a great community for Fly! 2. Even more glad to see that the Mac community is great. :)Well, heading off to download more - looking forward to more talk here on the forum! Thanks!

[Guest ftessler]

Kevin,Even with the patch, I still can't program all the buttons on my yoke, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was before. I don't have any tips for OS X other than to minimize competing processes. Run Process Viewer to see what apps and processes are sucking up CPU cycles. Also, although there's no way that I know of to turn off virtual memory in OS X, you can minimize paging by quitting other apps.As I noted in another post, though, you'll get the best performance by running Fly! under OS 9. It's a pain, but it's also sort of a privilege. There are already a few Macs out there that can't run OS 9, and Apple's new display won't work under anything but Jaguar (or, as Steve Jobs says, "Jag Wire.")-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator

[Guest Allan Jones]

Kevin,This should get you the original TWA 707:http://library.avsim.com/sendfile.php?DLID=20882I'm still in OS9 so I defer to Franklin on control stick issues. (insert sound of clucking chicken here). There is a Fly file called control.txt that might help you figure out the cal issue.Sky EnhancersI think we, as a group, have decided that no two of us has the same perception of what constitutes a realistic sky. I use "Blue Sky" because God put the sky in the Northwest just a little closer to us mortals :D. Another guy in an urban area thought the default sky was more like where he lived (pollution?). Try several and see which one fits your idea of a great sky.Bedtime already--time for an eyelid check!See ya,

[Guest]

>Kevin, >>Even with the patch, I still can't program all the buttons >on my yoke, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was >before. I don't have any tips for OS X other than to >minimize competing processes. Run >Process Viewer to see what apps and processes are sucking up >CPU cycles. Also, although there's no way that I know of to >turn off virtual memory in OS X, you can minimize paging by >quitting other apps. >Fly! II runs dandy under 10.2.3 for me. The whole VM thing doesn't seem to be an issue. I even had Safari open at one point downloading something, but F2 didn't seem to be adversely affected.>As I noted in another post, though, you'll get the best >performance by running Fly! under OS 9. It's a pain, but >it's also sort of a privilege. There are already a few Macs >out there that can't run OS 9, and Apple's new display won't >work under anything but Jaguar (or, as Steve Jobs says, "Jag >Wire.") >I'm OS 9 free on both my Macs. I've run OS X for so long, I really can't stand going back to OS 9. Perhaps it's because of one of my projects - I write software for OS X. Call me biased if you want, but there's nothing that'll get me back in 9 on my personal Macs. :)My only issue is the joystick axis thing - don't know what's up with that. I see I'm not the only one with it, though. Hope it gets resolved. Like I told the other fellow with the problem, Fly! 2 seems to ignore what is entered in controls.txt. Wonder where it's storing that info, then? I know it's not just something weird about my joystick - it works fine in X-Plane 6 under X. As the saying goes, curiouser and curiouser! :)Thanks for the assistance!

[Guest ftessler]

"I'm OS 9 free on both my Macs. I've run OS X for so long, I really can't stand going back to OS 9. Perhaps it's because of one of my projects - I write software for OS X. Call me biased if you want, but there's nothing that'll get me back in 9 on my personal Macs."I don't think you're biased, or at least I agree with your biased point of view. :)I run OS X exclusively on all my Macs, and it feels weird when I boot OS 9. I'm not quite at the point where I can remove OS 9 completely, but I'm getting there. (Of course, people who use Quark will have to wait a bit longer.)-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator