kickin_chicken

Linux Mint user here, love it. You can dowload it, burn to USB flash and try it out, see if you like it. I use MATE desktop but XFCE and KDE versions are available from Linux Mint.

Another advantage of additional RAM is that you can make a RAM-disk. Essentially you can specify a portion of your RAM to be allocated to a "drive letter" and after boot up, you have a new drive (drive X for example). Then you can install X-Plane on the "X" drive and it essentially runs from RAM. Naturally when you reboot you lose the RAM drive, and it's rebuilt using the data from your hard drive on the next boot. Sacraficing boot time for faster program access might be worth it. I'd investigate making a portion of your RAM a RAM-drive. I know ASRock motherboards support this feature. Something to consider at least. You can allocate 8 GB to RAM and 8 GB to RAM-disk maybe, or even more if you had 32 GB of RAM.

I bought mine on Amazon.com you can probably find it there.

Remember having to build a new kernal to add a sound card or ethernet card? Bad old days for sure

Xtremme makes a good point. I can see that happening to some users. My point was that using a USB flash disk is much faster and a better overall experience. There are clearly pro's and con's to VM or dual boot. Luckily you have choices!

Cool, I'm glad I wasn't missing something then. In my (very short) experience with the C172 in X-Plane, the autopilot operates in the manner I described, at least for me. I'm sure other aircraft have better autopilots but I haven't even flown them yet. I'm using Air Hauler as my introduction to X-Plane. So the only plane I'm flying is the C172 for now.

Oracle427, is there a verticle speed setting for the Cessna 172 default airplane in X-Plane? Maybe I missed that.. I don't recall seeing a button or dial for it. You are correct however, but I believe the Cessna doesn't have a V/S setting for the autopilot - other aircraft do and do function as you described.

Here's my want: Radar Contact for X-Plane.

The "On" for the flight director is sort of like "arming" the autopilot - it shows the needed corrections on your attitude indicatior (the yellow chevron) so if you follow the chevron, you're following the "autopilot's" directions - but you're actually controlling the aircraft. When set to "Auto" the autopilot is actually flying. Regarding the "ALT" button: After smashing my aircraft (and my head on the keyboard) a few times, I figured it out. It's not "armable" and doesn't actually level off at the pre-set altimeter setting - it flies the current altitude. Sorta. Let me explain: The ALT button "reads" the current altitude and "sets" the autopilot altitude hold to that altitude - despite what you might have set the pre-set altimeter setting to. I found this out by setting the pre-set altitude to say 3500 ft, and climbing though 2500 feet, I hit the "ALT" button, which should have armed it - but instead put my aircraft into a dive to its original altitude setting of 300 or whatever. Sooo.. This is how I use the ALT hold on the Cessna 172: I fly by hand and put myself on the right course, and hit HDG (after dialing my desired heading). I fly to my desired heading and altitude, then HIT ALT button - this sets my current desired altitude to the autopilot. Note that the flight director is still on "ON" not "auto" --- this is important. After hitting the ALT button at my desired altitude, I then hit "AUTO" on the flight director and then the plane holds my altitude and heading. It does not "fly" to an altitude despite what the manual says. Maybe in more advanced aircraft it does in fact do this - not in the Cessna 172. Not in my experience with it at least. Hope this helps.

Long time Linux user here. Thought I'd chime in with my $0.02. I use Linux on my desktop and laptop daily. I use Windows 7 for flight simming and Civ 4 and other video games. I use Linux Mint with the MATE desktop - looks and works awesome. You can "burn" a linux .iso to a USB flash drive and boot off it - much better than using a live CD which can be slow (since, naturally, the "hard drive" is actually your CD-ROM). I suggest making a live USB flash install and use it - play with it for a few weeks, not just 10 minutes. If you like it, you can easily install it next to Windows and dual boot - which is what I do. I use linux all the time and Windows when I want to play a game. As for X-Plane on linux, I've tried it, it works nice. However, as others have mentioned, some of my add-ons don't work in X-Plane for Linux, so I stay with X-Plane on WIndows 7. With my laptop, running Linux Mint, I've installed dozens of free software to do the things I need to do. When I plugged into the work HP laserjet printer, Linux found the drivers and "it just worked". Scanner? Just worked. Network card? Just worked. That doesn't mean linux has no driver problems, just that in my example it "just works". I don't even download drivers, they just install and work. My laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad (known to have excellent linux hardware support). Take my suggestion, try linux on a USB drive. It's much faster than a live CD, and it's absolutely not permanent. You can just remove the USB drive and you're back to booting Windows. No sweat. Try linux for a week - not 10 minutes. If after a week you cannot get it to do what you need it to do (graphic editing, email, web, printing, etc) then you're only out the hour it took to download the .iso.

Wow. Good job Lars, great read, well laid out and educational. Thank you!

Ok, I cannot find a decent article or any useful information on this topic. I have an Athlon X2 and GTX 550TI and I run Flight Sim 2004. I get great performance with this setup. However, I am considering a "silent" and power efficient PC and would like to make my computer as quiet as possible. Therefore I am considering an integrated graphics CPU and a silent PC case with as little fans as possible. I would like to know if anyone, anywhere, runs an AMD A8 series APU and uses the integrated graphics with Flight Sim 2004 or FSX. I cannot find any article or information! I am hoping (and assuming) that an AMD A8-3800 series APU (with integrated graphics) would give me a similar performance compared to my 2007 AMD Athlon X2 5200 and Nvidia GTX 550 TI. I am willing to sacrifice some performance in order to have a silent PC. The Nvidia card is loud with its high spinning fans, as is the CPU cooler and the three case fans I have installed. I want a simple, one CPU, no gfx card setup for low power consumption and quietness. Can anyone suggest or recommend my theoritical setup of an AMD A-series APU? Does anyone run a "basic" gaming system and play flight sim using an APU? I want low power and silence. Any suggestions? Thanks!

I guess its a personal opinion for you to decide. If you get a much noticeable improvement in frame rates or performance then you will have to balance that against flickering popups. I my opinion, you won't see popups that often, so maybe you could tolerate the occasional flickering popup in exchange for better performance. As an aside, you shouldn't really have flickering popups. Maybe you need to change resolutions, or tweak another graphics parameter to get popups that don't flicker. Maybe you need a newer or older driver version. IMO, if you get a driver/resolution/graphics setting that works, KEEP IT. Do not upgrade your drivers or change anything! I have learned though experience that if it works don't break it.

I don't think copying the files will work at all. You will likely need to reinstall FS2004 and all your addons that have install programs. You could prolly copy the Aircraft folder from the old drive to the new drive but you might run into some add ons that won't work without reinstall. I had to do this myself. Copying the Aircraft folder allowed me to keep my planes that I downloaded but some aircraft (Abacus, ESDG, FSD-International to name a few) didn't work right - panels didn't have gauges, textures were missing, etc. So I reinstalled those payware aircraft. Also, I had to reinstall my mesh, FSPassengers, Radar Contact and FSUIPC and Squwakbox. Good luck with your new drive!

Hello, I've been a RC4 user for years and today on a flight from Boston to BWI ATC told me to navigate "direct after 16,000ft". I thought that was pretty cool. I've been using RC for a while and this was the first time I've heard this. Nice touch!!