mspellman

Unlike MSFS XPLANE does updates that sometimes break aircraft. How are you going to handle this?

Thanks Dan and Alex. Will continue in the video card section as suggested.In closing I went to youtube and found quite a few amazing home cockpit videos.Cannot imagine what this one cost M.Spellman

Ok turbine777. That's a pretty impressive view but now I am confused again. ( Us old folks get like that ) It appears by the width to be 3 monitors but I don't see that in the picture. Is that an actual photo of the setup or a stitched picture just to show the actual field of view?And since there seem to be many of you who have the knowledge and experience may I ask?On the video card issue if I was to have 3 video cards (not crossfire ) driving 3 separate monitors I would get the same cpu performance I get with 1 card and 1 monitor with a whole lot more screen real estate?The articles I have read seem to indicate that if an addon is coded with a 2d cockpit,a virtual cockpit,cabin and wing views and a high definition exterior etc. there is a performance hit because even though you have only one view on the screen all are rendered in the background irregardless, I notice that one vendor,CLS I think,makes a provision to turn off the functions that you are not going to use with cockpit icons. They seem to indicate that will improve performance. Is that fact or hype?And lastly for now. All the reviews seem to indicate that PMDG is the quality leader for Boeing addons. In your opinion, would that be correct and who would hold that position for Airbus addons? The Wilco reviews lead me to believe they are just O.K.Again,thanks to all of you for all the information.M.Spellman

Thanks Turbine777 and Tabs. So if I understand this correctly then if I wanted to add a matrox triple header with 3, 24" screens then crossfire technology would help considerably? Or would it be better to use 3 separate machines with something like wide view? I am somewhat familiar with X-Plane but have not tinkered much with MSFS yet, and of course Microsoft has left the building so that leaves the only X-Plane and the open source Flightgear in current development. I am not a programmer but the way a lot of the promotional material for the addons is written some would have you believe that their code makes major improvements to the Microsoft product. Again,thanks for the reply's M.Spellman

This is not a PMDG specific question but a question for a PMDG programmer. As they seem to be leaders in MSFS programming.A developer at X-Plane had a comment about dual video cards ( IE crossfire etc. ) and stated that as X-Plane was not currently coded to utilize dual video cards ( X-Plane9) it would be a waste of money to use 2 cards and in some instances there would actually be a performance hit.Where does FS9 andf FSX stand on this issue?Is there a way for PMDG to code their product to use crossfire technology even if MSFS does not and if so do they?