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Robert McDonald

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About Robert McDonald

  • Rank
    Hardware Reviewer
  • Birthday 05/25/1949

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    California
  • Interests
    Flying - Music - Computers - Literature - Motion Picture Production and Film Editing - Music Production - Golf - Comments are personal opinions, anecdotal in nature and made without warranty or conference of copyright.

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About Me

  • About Me
    Hello- PLEASE READ: I have long ago sold off my Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog. Thus, sadly, I can no longer provide any kind of SETTINGS or CONFIGURATION information for the Warthog, period. Please, do not ask me, as I will only have to repeat what you're reading here. Sorry all! Possibly someone ELSE who CURRENTLY flies the TM Hotas Warthog could kindly post config information here on Avsim for the benefit of the many people who have reached ouit to me. Thanks one and all.

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  1. I am a longtime fan of Orbx from FSX/P3D days, but their affiliation with 3rd party devs does appear to be a bit less than ideal - as your quality of upgraded airports is inconsistent imho. I purchased this but was unhappy with both the visuals as well as performance (frames) on a 16-core AMD with 3080 GPU.
  2. I can add my name to the list of people with this problem. I purchased the Xbox Game Pass trial month for $1, which includes 100 games, not least of which is MS Flight Simulator (base edition) a $59.95 value. I want to try it on my gaming laptop which I believe is too weak to meet even the lowest spec, but it runs many other games quite nicely. We will (at some point) see. DATA CAP with my ISP is a concern, an extra 125 GB for the basic game install is both a space issue on my nvMe M.2 drive, and a COMCAST/xFinity 1.2 TB Data Cap issue as well. Still, I'm intrigued. I believe MS will solve the problem with the game not installing/running on many systems in the next couple days, or Bob's my Uncle. I would NOT reinstall Windows! That's silly.
  3. MS says you will have the ability to upgrade, but it may not be for the actual cost difference between the levels - implication is buy the higher level up front to get the absolute best price. FYI there will be a lot of add-on upgrades available both from MS/Asobo as well as 3rd party developers.
  4. You have an outstanding system, and you will likely get the ideal results, only you can decide if they meet your expectations. The software is via download in the US, and the DVD set is in Europe only AFAIK. The Internet download saves you from having to store the entire world scenery packs on your home system - but your PC will still be tasked with doing the final render to your monitors. You can see a list of the included aircraft on the official MSFS website.
  5. It may behoove you to wait until after the official release date so you can read the real-world experiences of people who are actually flying this.
  6. Sorry all, but I no longer own the Warthog, and I have lost all my settings that referred to it in P3D. Thus I am unable to assist or fulfill requests for any settings regarding the Hotas Warthog :(. Possibly other members on this board may be able to provide assistance. The images that appeared orignially in any of my older posts here have apparently disappeared, and again, I have no way to replace them. They are lost. Best of luck to you Hotas pilots! It was a great add-on in my earliest days of simming! Happy New Year!
  7. Heard back from Mike Swannick he is apparently running WideView, even though he has the Pro license. I got to thinking maybe that was the case as his weather did not appear to be Active Sky 2016 or Rex...he confirmed he is in fact running WideView. Dunno what weather he is using.
  8. Hi Gerard, Yes, I'm aware that he has the Pro version- and I am aware of that version's network capability. I have read some chatter over on the LM Forums that performance of this new feature (networked views) is very poor, and thus I wondered if his PC vendor (JETLINE SYSTEMS) might have held on to ViewGroups or even the long-in-the-tooth WideView. I'm suspicious because the clouds in his video do NOT look like the typical ones you see in Active Sky 2016 or Active Sky Next, which is a symptom of WideView. I was unable to make WideView work satisfactorily back before ViewGroups was released. I've reached out to Mike and to Ken (over at Jetline) for a definitive answer - no word back yet. Thanks.
  9. Mike- Just saw your updated video from KSEA to KLAX - it is ASTOUNDING and drop-dead beautiful. I am subbed to your YouTube channel - congratulations, man! Question: Can you double-check or do you know if you are running add-on "Wide-View" for the Visuals or are they rendered using ViewGroups in P3D? Thanks and great job! Great filming too!
  10. Congratulations Mike. This looks STELLAR. I'm thrilled you got her running. I have heard P3D v 3.4.9 is having some memory VAS issues, not sure if that is true or not, but wanted to make you aware it MIGHT be causing your issues. Very very impressive setup! I know you have been going through some 'stuff' getting it up and flying. Glad to see you are about set! Scott
  11. There are settings within Orbx FTX Central that can improve frames rates. How many displays are you driving? Are you using an add on airplane from PMDG? Do you have other add ons as well? Are you P3D or FSX? What is your CPU? If the weather is bad, that can adversely impact frames as well... which weather prog are you using (if any)? Need to know more to speculate on the 'why' you ask about... Are you using Orbx PNW? FTX Global as well? Have you updated your Orbx libraries (do this from within FTX Central 2)
  12. Fly Elise-NG support corrected my misunderstanding. The ViewGroups.XML file you create within LCD Designer Pro needs to be copied from it's exported folder (that you created) to C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\ folder. Note that this is NOT the folder where your P3D installation lives! Before copying it, rename the 'current' ViewGroups.XML that is already in that folder to something like ViewGroups.OLD, so you can go back to Lockheed's version if you should desire to. Upon starting P3D v 3.4.x, you will then correctly see LCD Designer Pro if you right click on your desktop within P3d and choose ViewGroups from the flyout menu. Bonus: In version 3.4 if you use ViewGroups, it will start up with ViewGroups active so all 3 of your monitors will display an image. Remember too that Immersive Display Pro -must- be running (it can be minimized) so that your views will be geometrically correct. IDP is the only program you need to purchase from FlyElise. It is about $169 USD street.
  13. IMPORTANT UPDATE for FlyElise users! In version 3.4.9 of Prepar3D, LM has moved the ViewGroups.xml file from APPDATA (roaming) to the main Prepar3D folder, according to Fly Elise support. FE support says copy your specific (exported from LCD Designer Pro) ViewGroups.xml to your main P3d v3 folder and you should then see LCD Designer Pro as your choice when you right click your P3D desktop and choose ViewGroups. Remember also that Immersive Display Pro (also by Fly elise) must be running (it can be minimized) so your views are correct Geometrically. Information herein provided by Nikola at Fly Elise-ng.
  14. Pete Dowson, author of FSUIPC, has released a new FSUIPC.DLL to handle the latest Prepar3D release. The newest build is 4.957. If you have used FSUIPC to calibrate your controllers, or if you have other 3rd party products (example Sim-Avionics by FlightDeckSolutions) installed, you definitely will need to download the latest version, unzip it, and drop the NEW FSUIPC.DLL into your MODULES folder in Prepar3D, overwriting your old one. You CANNOT keep the old version in your modules folder, you CANNOT just rename it FSUIPC.OLD or something, it will conflict with the new DLL and cause problems!! I am not authorized to distribute his work, so you will need to hunt on the web for a link to the newest release, Until I updated mine, my plane would not fly as expected, and my throttles exhibited bizarre behavior. After updating, all was back to normal.
  15. Oh, I almost forgot. Why buy the Titan-X (Pascal) over the 1080? 1. Titan X has 12GB of VRAM, 1080 has only 8 2. Titan X is 40% faster than 1080. When you are at minimum frame rates, 40% better means: If you are getting 20 FPS on your 1080 then Titan X 140% = 28 fps If you are getting 30 FPS on your 1080 then Titan X 140% = 42 fps If you are getting 40 FPS on your 1080 then Titan X 140% = 56 fps So when you are in toughest conditions, the Titan X will render the same output 40% faster. HUGELY important 'sometimes'. Yes, it costs double. However, you can't buy the 1080, decide it's not adequate, then upgrade to TitanX later... there would be costs involved. Most GPUS are not returnable for refund warranty usually is REPLACEMENT ONLY. Assuming you have a fast CPU the GPU itself is critically important, especially in multi-monitor single-PC setups. All the other caveats about sliders, 3rd party virtual cockpits, heavy weather still apply. To date, I have not seen ANY setup that can run P3D with EVERYTHING MAXED, including AI, Weather, Scenery Sliders, etc, etc, etc. It's STILL a balancing act. In my videos, NO cars, boats or Ai aircraft. Sliders are NOT maxed. Orbx SoCal in use but all Orbx SoCal 'options' are UNTICKED. Orbx Palm Springs all airport 'options' are OFF. These caveats are multiplied (made more important) when you are driving triple monitors without NV Surround. FYI.
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