Drew_Melia

Ha Ha!!!! Waleed! You are SO right! I'm in Doha and routinely do the OTHH-OMDB run in various air frames but mostly the T7 - either QA or EK livery. I thought about buying a fancy weather add-on like Active Sky or REX, but whats the point??? We haven't seen a cloud since March... much less rain - but we do get a LOT of dust and some ridiculous humidity levels and air temperatures. We should have a GCC fly-in sometime! Anyway, thanks for the SP Skipper.... keep up the good work!

I just bought it too. I've never worked with one of these all glass G1000 cockpits and I'm struggling to get on terms with the logic. Also.... even with the GPU connected, my batteries discharge. So by the time I'm ready for start, I don't have enough volts.

What does it do and how do I use it?

What does it do and how do I use it?

Hi All As is well documented, running FSX under WIN8.1 requires me to have the direct X 10 preview button selected in graphics options. FSX will not run at all without this selected. This is fine - except of course some add ons wont work properly with DX10 preview selected and night textures at add on airports are dreadful, which is somewhat limiting. Has anyone managed to work around or fix this issue yet?

Cheers Wes! So... I made sure all my hardware and OS were fully up to date, and from a clean build, installed FSX to C:\FSX from the FSX deluxe original disc set. I had some issues with install shield, but I resolved those. Re-booted and I ran FSX and did a flight in the micro light... then patched it to SP1 - did another re-boot and flight: patched it to SP2, and rebooted and flew the flight again... so far so good!!! Installed the NGX base pack , then the 600/700 extension, then the 777, then the QW146, then the real air turbine duke, Aerosofts Airbus X extended then finally Fly Tampa Dubai rebooted - following the same-reboot, fly, install, reboot fly install routine. The Airbus worried me, but it went in OK. I have done absolutely NO modifications to the FSX.cfg file. I have not had to download or install dodgy retro DLL files or anything. The ONLY concession made is to use the direct X 10 Preview checked as "yes" not ideal, I know. some of the night textures do not work, and its not a good idea to switch views or use the menu's - but I don't do that anyway. I flew the 777 tutorial in real time with no issues. Of course, I might not always work, but for now, I am a happy camper... flyer... bunny.... whatever!!!

OK, thank you... so... P3D.... how does that fair with W8.1 - and the PMDG fleet, of course? Anyway... I persevered, and I now have FSX SP2, and the Real Air Turbine Duke, and the QW RJ/146 working - or at least I can open them, start them, and taxi around the default KSEA airfield..... do I dare try and install the NGX????? Maybe I better sleep on it!!!

yes... and preferable in many ways... but what a nightmare!!! and it would void the warranty. So wouldn't be my first choice. Someone MUST have FSX and PMDG working in windows 8.1, surely? But thank you anyway, if I have to go that way, I guess I will.

Hi all, I have been out of the flight sim community for a while. I moved from the UK to Doha, Qatar last year, I just bought a new laptop. On paper it should run FSX like a dream, but... it came with Win 8 pre-installed. Still, FSX and the 737NGX and the 777 installed - and worked a treat... until I upgraded to 8.1 then it all went the way of the pear! So after days - literally - of fiddling and fannying about, I finally got FSX installed, and working - or at least, I can get it to load, free flight works with the default flight loaded, and it shuts down. I have it running in Vista SP2 compatibility mode and with the Direct X 10 preview checked - it will not run any other way. I also have to reduce the screen size from the default 1366 x 768 to the standard 1024 mode - but I think that's a choke point on the graphics card - an AMD Radeon 8670M with 2 gig dedicated. - the drawn back is its got this poxy graphic switching thing from the standard on board Intel chip to the Radeon when demand requires it... but I'm not convinced. So... before I attempt to install the NGX and 777.... what advice would you guys give? Or should I give up on FSX and get Prepar3D instead? Best Regards, Drew Melia

Yeah... hmm.... I've thought about this often.... firstly, I won't buy an iPad on principle... as a former iPhone owner I was thoroughly disgusted with the rip-off iPhone 5... have a samsung SIII now...anyway I digress... even "ordinary" 7 or 10 in touch screen monitors are around 300GBP/500USD... wait a minute... I can get a "real" FMC for that!!!! VR Insight or one of the others.

I tried kostas. Almost immediately got oom messages but then my rig is rather low end. So I'm back with *******. One thing none of you mention is disabling the w7. Aero theme. I go to control panel, performance settings, visual settings and clear all the check boxes. This provides the single biggest improvement of all the tweaks I use ~ probably better than 30%

Well it works for me. Kostas has a great forum post going which gives fantastic explanations of why this or, why that.... but what I've found... and no disrespect to those who write them... is that many of the tweaks are about getting better visuals without compromising the performance on systems that should (and clearly could) produce better. Whereas what I'm looking for is finding a compromise between "OK" visuals, and acceptable FPS and smoothness so I can enjoy the experience of flying a high end add on aircraft, on what is admittedly a mediocre system. For that reason... I stick with *******... its quick, its easy, it works, and without it, the likes of the PMDG NGX or J41 would be unflyable.

I've flown about 50 hours in the RJ (because they've not released the earlier 146 models yet). It's one of my favourites, and FPS wise performs really well too. At the moment I'm flying the RJ, the NGX and the J41 almost exclusively, and they all stack up pretty well together. My system ain't great, and needs replacing so I can't enjoy very high res graphics, but I'm happy with it - except night flying. I have to fly with the dome light on nearly all the time because some gauges aren't very well lit - as has been posted, but they'll fix it eventually. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I get that too. It appeared in a service pack. I've always assumed it was a "taxi view". I use CTRL-space to change it to "normal" view, and if I want it back, use the hat switch to flick right or left then back again and the view returns to the "taxi" view again. To be honest, I quite like it.

OK, Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try it today. Best Regards Drew