cloudswimmer

Hi guys, Been a long time, finally burned out on the whole scene around 2016 with my last flight being the PMDG 737NG .. KSNA to KLAX .. Megascenery and all the other top addons of the time .. using a Dell 30” monitor and Saitek Cessna full kit. So fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I started watching 4k videos of both MSFS and X-Plane on my 12.9” iPad Pro .. I was blown away with the image quality and add-ons like the Fenix a320 and thought to myself ‘ok it’s time to build a new PC and start up again’. So I’m half way through a Z790/4090 build, and just took delivery of a Samsung QN90C 50” 4k TV. I’m a YouTube Red member and last night aiplayed some 4k MSFS/X-Plane vid’s to my new TV .. but the details in the landscape textures like trees, grass, mountains, etc. just look way over smoothed .. not crisp and sharp like I remember my FSX on my 30” Dell IPS 8 years ago, I tried messing with some of the TV settings but really only improved the color and brightness some, the smeary textures are still there. These vids look great on my little 12.9” iPad Pro screen .. but at 50 inches I’m pretty bummed. Is it going to be different when I actually hook my new computer up and fly for myself .. or are these 4k YouTube videos pretty representative of what I’m going to see? Also I’m thinking a 50” 16:9 TV/Monitor might just be too big unless only using it for outside visuals .. like if I drag my old Flight Deck Solutions A320 panels out from under the bed and actually build the dang cockpit which I never got around to back in the day, but I’ll probably just end up using the whole Fenix A320 and it’s native panels on screen .. which looks good on the 50” when viewing the whole capt side panel, but when the video guys zoom in on things like the CDU, center pedestal, overhead, EFB etc. the look ridiculously way to big on this 50” .. like for instance the cockpits iPad EFB (which it looks like is used a lot) is twice the size on this big 50” TV than my real life one .. kind of an immersion killer for me .. at least so far with just some cursory viewing last night. I’m thinking maybe return it and get a 43” or even 32” .. I’m not sure though .. got a long road ahead of experimenting like back in the day I guess. Anyway if any of you serious experienced flight sim addicts could chime in and give me your thoughts or ideas on all this I’d really appreciate it. Thanks, Chris Strobel, Irvine, CA USA www.flightdeck1.com

John 3:16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Tom, I've tagged along with Avsim from the start, and really my whole hobby that turned into a profession is due to what you did here. I'm very grateful to you. I know you must be very scared right now. This may be redundant, but put you faith and trust in ******* Christ and you will live forever my friend, no need to fear death. Again this may be redundant for you as you may already be a strong believer in Christ, but if not and you have been doubtful and skeptical, I would love to talk with you and show you from the scriptures, along with other proofs from history, archaeology, textual criticism, and science that back up the claims from the bible this stuff is real, and that God is real and can heal you or maybe not, but definitely forgives you for all your sins past present and future, and will give you eternal life with Him in His kingdom when you trust his Son having paid the full debt of your sin, and having lived the perfect life in place for you. I'm disabled now and home 24/7 here in California, and you can email me at cloudswimmer@aol.com or call me on the phone to talk anytime as you're going through this at 949-559-6639. Ok I'm going to let my wife know and we will keep you in our prayers. Chris Strobel Irvine, CA

And thats really my only pet peeve with not just the 182, but also their 172 and Chrokee. Also the edges of the 182's gauges aren't a smooth circle like Realair or Carenado's later AC and this bugs me too...ok make that two pet peeves.

I use Orbx KJAC , KWYS, and KBZN over MSE V2 no problems. Sounds like Orbx KPSP will work with MSE So Cal too, and thats great news!

Ooooops sorry bout that, I was only working with 3 hours of sleep yesterday :(

Also you can probably get a much higher clock out of that 2600k if you have a good mobo and do some homework. I can run mine at 4.8ghz on air, and 5.2ghz on high end water. That will give you much better improvement than that tweek

Well good luck on finding a 980. I scoured the web the last few days looking for one from an online vendor (reputable) and nobody has them. I then googled 'Geforce GTX 980 shortage' and shure enough there is a supply shortage issue. If you find any let me know (USA or Canada here)

It's one of the best freeware GA aircraft I've seen in a long time.

I have 5 drives for FSX (3 SSD and 2 platter) All my scenery is on separate drives, except for the stock scenery that's installed when you install FSX. My ASN, REX, and FEX addons are also on the separate drives. Like Zoran above, I don't really notice a difference between the scenery that is on the SSD's or platter drives when in the sim. Where there IS a difference is transferring files around. Chris

Yeah those Marvell ports were a mistake for sure. When I reconnected everything it had been a couple years since I built this box, so I mixed up what colors go to which controller in my head. It was only after the system was all put back together and running funky that I checked the manual and realized I had the two most important SSD's of the system on the Marvell's (my OS and FSX) Still the Samsung 840 Pro on the Marvell controller was working fine, then just stopped accepting data being written to it. So what I did last night was completely uninstall FSX and all addons (except FS Build, REX, and FEX) and then cracked open the box and replaced the the old 840 with a new one, and took everything off the Marvell controllers. Now everything is running normal again. So thanks for your advice and the others too!

Yeah it can rock your whole flightsim world when this stuff starts acting up ehh. I suffered a catastrophic OS crash last week from a bad bios setting for my overclock, so pulled the system out from the cockpit and threw it up on the bench for a thorough cleaning before rebuilding the OS. I accidentally connected the OS SSD and FSX SSD to the Marvell controllers instead of the Intel Controllers and things have been a little weird ever since. So I guess its back out of the cockpit and up on the bench she goes arghh :( It would be real easy to just copy over FSX from the funk SSD to the new one since I'm only at 55gb so far on the FSX drive, but my gut instinct is telling me to start a new FSX install on it, but thats such a pain especially with having to get new reactivations for stuff from flight1 and PMDG, thats why I was thinking of copying over and wondering what others have done in similar situations. This Samsung 840 Pro SSD has worked really well this past year or so. Ive heard of problems with the 840 Evo's, and am not clear on the Pro's reliability right now. I set my computer up via Nick N's FSX bible, he does mention problems with Samsung SSD and Intel Rapid Storage Transport drivers (of which I use) but I've never had a problem with it up till last night. I need my drive NOW if you know what I mean (FSX addict here) Before I had an OCZ Vector SSD which was suppose to be tge bees knees, but it crapped out completely after only 1 month of use. My other SSD's which are older Crucial M4's (one of which my OS is on, and the other 3 which house my scenery files) have been solid as a rock. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed this new Samsung 840 Pro works outta the box without having to wait for some kind of firmware update.

Hi all, Ok I just reinstalled FSX onto my Samsung 840 Pro SSD (not evo) I've had this SSD well over a year running with an Asus P8P67 Pro and Intel I2700k @ 4.8ghz. OS is Windows 7 X64 home edition. I have installed FSX a couple times on this SSD iin that time. So this third install a couple days ago went fine. I also installed all my PMDG stuff, Captain Sim heavies, and a few Carenado AC. Also installed all my A2A planes and then my whole suite of Reality XP kit. Last night I went to copy over some repaint files and the drive quit working in the middle of writing to it. It then disappeared from my computer. I rebooted and the drive was there again. I tried a flight in the NGX from PHNL to PHOG and everything went smooth. I then tried copying files over to it and the same thing, it crashed in the middle of writing to it and disappeared again from my computer. So I reboot and repeat that same flight no problem, then try again to copy files to it and poof its gone again. So I ordered another Samsung 840 Pro SSD to replace it which should be here in a few hours. So can I copy over this FSX install from this old drive (it sends date no problem) to the new SSD, or am I better off just uninstalling FSX and all my addons and starting with a fresh install of FSX on this new drive? Chris

Does this only effect the 840 Evo? I just bought an 840 Pro last night as the current 840 Pro I've had for over a year just started having problems being written to.

Ok that's kinda what I thought. From doing preliminary research FSX is CPU bound, P3D GPU bound. So for FSX alone, the price to performance ratio going from a 670 to 980 would not be worth it another words as you say. I appreciate the confirmation. Chris

Hey guys, So I'm reading up on the GTX980 and checking reviews and benchmarks. Clearly in the benches for the modern games the 980 pushes way ahead of the older 670. I have an EVGA GTX670 with 4gb of ram. I'm wonder how much of a difference I would see in FSX if I upgraded to a GTX980. Anyone with with real world experience doing this? My Mobo is an Asus P8P67 Pro, CPU is an I7 2700k @ 4.8ghz, and my ram is 8gb of Corsair Vengence 9-9-9-25. I don't have much interest in P3Dv2 at this point, though that will probably change in the future. Thanks for your input, Chris Strobel Irvine, CA www.flightdeck1.com

Hmmm...ok tried the registry tool and it definitely did something, but now when coming down the localizer on 111.75 into KSNA 20R its puting me to the left between 20L and 20R where as before it was putting me to the right of 20R. I'm wondering if a re-install of the MD-11 is in order?

Ok thanks for the heads up. Gotta obey the law of the land so no linky guys sorry. Ok back to trying to get this thing to actually follow a localizer, I'm doing something wrong here, the MD-11 auto tunes the ILS and follows the glide slope perfectly, but is always off about 50 to 100ft to the right of where the localiser should be. The PMDG 737 and 777 follow it right down the runway as should be. Any ideas? I use to have this thing wired, but its been a long time no fly. C

Hmmm....well with the PMDG 737 and 777 the ILS works perfect for 20R at Shez's KSNA, but with the MD-11 its like the localizer is 50 feet to the right of the runway, and it tracks it and the glideslope perfectly right onto the tarmac in front of the tower lol. So any thoughts again what I might be doing wrong with the MD-11?

I'd land at El Toro but its closed, and LAX ......... well I don't do the 405 to Irvine so SNA it is No that texture set isn't on Avsim, is it allowed for me to post the link here?

Well it went good, just completed the flight, just enough runway left to turn off What threw me for a loop is runway 19R is no longer runway 19R, its now 20R. I thought something was wrong in my AIRAC database, then I checked online and sure enough they changed it. Musta been that last earthquake we had I'll tell ya I still get a kick flying this MD-11, just as much as the 777 and NGX. I found the virtual cockpit repaint online that adds all the lettering in high resolution on the overhead and pedestal, and corrects some of the other graphics, and its breathed new life into this ol gal.

Thanks guys. Yeah I just needed to adust runway lengths in the options. I shoulda known better, long day. And yes KSNA is a challenge with big jets Chris

Hi, I haven't flown her in a while, so today I planned a flight from Phoenix Sky Harbor KPHX to John Wayne Orange County KSNA. In the star page there are no entries for stars or runways. In the 777 they are all there. I'm using the latest Navigraph 1410. What am I missing here? Can someone with the MD-11 and the latest Navigraph cycle check and see if you have any entries on the star page for KSNA. Thanks Chris

Hi Ron, Somewhere over New Mexico, not sure exactly where in New Mexico though. Its Megascenery Earth V2 with Active Sky Next and Mogwaisoft Shade. C

Only thing that bothered me in the NGX was the vinyl glare shield. When flying I like to be zoomed in fairly close, and the glare texture was not the sharpest. So I re did the glare with a hidef texture and for me it really brought the whole VC into focus on my Dell 30" monitor. I'd be glad to share the texture, but am not sure if thats ok with PMDG and Avsim. I certainly dont want to be banned from this great resource or do anything to get PMDG upset. Can someone clarify the policies with sharing such a texture? (click pic to zoom in)