Daube

The 8700k was indeed a very nice CPU ! Unfortunately, I happend to mount it on a motherboard called Asus ROG H370.... which is the ONLY "Republic of Gamers" Asus motherboard that doesn't allow overclocking... 🤣☠️

I was mostly trying to be funny 😅 My headset is a Pico 4. In the sim I'm forced to lower the render resolution (FSR3 on 'Balanced') and keep the LODs quite low as well. But the experience is immersive enough to enjoy it, until I can renew my old computer (more than 8 years old already :( )

Everybody struggles flying MSFS2024 on a flat screen with RTX video cards and 3-4 generations-old CPUs.... And I'm there, flying MSFS2024 in VR with my i7 8700k and my GTX1070ti... (and yes, OF COURSE my graphical settings are catastrophically low 😂)

Thanks for the video above, it illustrates quite well how much addons can improve the base sim. I wish he had shown the sim at night as well though, because flying an helicopter over a big city in XPlane at night (or dusk/dawn) is quite something. I'm especially a big fan of spotting and trying to follow the police cars (with their flashing lights) on the highways 😆

I understand the pain you describe quite well, since I had to go through it twice: once for XP11 and XP12, and once again for MSFS 😄 But you know, in reality, the "pain" is easilly masked by the excitement of discovering some new toy. And you can leave the payware aside for now (although the OrbX stuff might definitely be worth it). The freeware is rich enough for countless experiments. And keep in mind that a big part of the XP default airports and airfield are in fact 3rd party freeware sceneries that have been validated and integrated directly into the base sim package. I think you are already "aware-enough" of the various things to improve the base sim (SimHeaven etc...), but yeah, it's a big leap and not something I'd like to do every day 😓

Dave, I'm really surprised by your remark about the XPlane12 scenery there. I would really recommend you to give it another try and look closer at how the default scenery looks, and check how it can look like with appropriate addons (even without considering any payware). They really have some strong advantages over the old P3D scenery engine, especially when it comes to how cities are depicted, and ESPECIALLY when it comes to night lighting. Also, the few latest updates of XPlane12 have really drastically improved the depiction of the sky and weather (and lighting in general), which are all quite catastrophic in P3D. Considering MSFS2024, I was going to say that it might be the most "comfortable" sim to switch to from P3D, but XP12 is closer to P3D if we consider the "online" side of things, so I'm not sure which one would feel most familiar in the end. Concerning the constant updates, well you're not wrong there, but your mileage may vary a lot depending on what kind of addons you use and how you use them. Finally, the P3Dv7 which we all hoped for turned out to be a completely different product not aimed at general users, so I have personally stopped hoping for any new version of P3D. I still miss the TacPack (no, I don't CARE about DCS, which I own but uninstalled) though, and I'm still bitter about the fact that P3D nor TacPack never offered any realistic aircraft carrier ops or aerial refuelling. Now in MSFS2020, 2024, the naval ops are just as bad as in P3D, but at least I can get a much nicer refuelling experience.

So yesterday evening I went out to see the actual eclipse. I went to some rooftop restaurant located very near from the LFMN airport to try to get a similar shot as I posted from the sim earlier in this thread. Here is the picture I got, it's dated at 20:15 so pretty close from the time I has set in the sim for my screenshot (lucky). To be honest, I'm quite impressed by the accuracy of the sim to reproduce how the eclipse was supposed to look. You can probably recognize the hill/mountain near the sun in the screenshot and my picture. I was quite a bit more north from the helicopter parkings where I took the screenshot, which explains the sun position is different in the real picture compared to the hill top. But it's pretty close ! PS: on top of the picture, it's the inverted reflection of the masked sun on the lenses of the photocamera ;)

Stupid suggestion from my side: could it be that one of your controllers is forcefully setting your ignition or mixture to OFF, thus preventing the CTRL+E to do its job ? I mean, if the default planes (not carenado) don't start with CTRL+E, then it can only mean that some hardware is sending some conflicting command (for example the engine switches from the TM Airbus throttle quadrant...). Do your default planes start when you manipulate their virtual cockpit switches and levers by the mouse without touching any of your hardware joysticks/throttles ?

Hey John, thank you for posting that, I didn't remember such things could also be seen in the sim ! I couldn't resist trying in advance. After checking the eclipse schedule in my local town (LFMN) I found that the eclipse would happen between 19:30 and 21:15, so I have setup a free flight during that time window, and guess what ? Yes it is visible ! :)

SimCopter immediately came to my mind upon reading the initial message here 🥰

The A2A refueling is super cool (NB: it's a "Airshow Assistant" feature, not from this Rafale), but I wish there would be a way to make it work in multiplayer :/

Just bumping the topic to testify that I'm recently getting the same issue in MSFS2024 on Steam. In the VL-3 for example, each time I set some weight on the passenger side, I get a random passenger, not matching my copilot choice in the "customize identity" menu. And if I set the weight back to zero to make it disappear, then set it again to a weight like 150-170, a new random character appears. And right now, I'm even getting a bug in the EFB that only one seat appears.... I have emptied my community folder, but it had no effect.

You should probably ask your medic about that, not us :) More seriously, concerning the OrbX Terra Flora, I remember I tried to use it for a while, but in the end I was always coming back to the semi-transparent tree textures by A.Leclercq mentioned earlier, because they blended better with the ground textures (both generic or ortho). However, only the conifers were benefiting from this transparency, other tree types were still 100% opaque, leading to sometimes unpleasant results, depending on the quality of the orthos.... EDIT: actually some other types as well, but not as much as the conifers... I just checked some older screenshots. There were also some special sceneries from FranceVFR that brought high-resolution tree textures.... beautiful if you are in the covered area, but not really matching the textures of anywhere else...

To get the best VR experience, you need headsets that cost more than 2.000 $, with video card(s) that cost more than 2.000 $. And there I am, running my Pico4 on my GTX1070ti :')

Anybody knows how to make the copilot visible in the TBM in MSFS2024 ? The weight is set to 170 in the EFB, but the seat is still empty :/