Wobbie

Indeed! Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink!!🤐

I've had FS9 since it was released. I've tried FSX (not for long) P3Dv4.5, which I still have, & even FS2020 & have always gone back to FS9. So many reasons, especially that you can have multiple installs, I have a so-called normal version, and 2 retro versions, each with appropriate scenery & aircraft. Over the years, I've done the usual point-to-point flying, got bored with that, and ended up going the retro route, such as the scenery & aircraft from 'The Ford Tri-Motor Project'. Simming, as a wise developer once said, is all about Fun, Facts & Fiction.. hence my ongoing FS9 journey!

A problem if your PC/laptop has no media drive!

Well said.. Just as 'Vista' was the 'dog' of operating systems, FSX was the 'Vista' of sims. ☠️

I would not!

Hullo, from Cape Town as well! I've been involved with the Air Force Museum at Ysterplaat (FAYP) with the Shackleton Restoration, as well as helping to build a Shackleton Simulator. Nowdays, I'm flying P3Dv4.5, but my favourite is FS2004, doing a bit of Retro scenery & flying the low's 'n slows. Over the many years that I've been simming, I got a bit bored with the 'bus's & Boeings, & basically gave up simming, until I somehow found Garry Smith's Ford Tri-Motor Project site, so my simming has become all about Fun, Facts & Fiction, flying & driving a wide range of planes, boats & even trains in the sim. I'm running an ASUS A15 laptop, Windows 11, Ryzen 7, 500GB SSD, 16GB RAM & my sims running off a 2TB portable USB drive.

If it is a USB controller, it should be picked up by Windows, without the use of any additional drivers. Knowing what PC would help, but anyway, once plugged into the PC, with the sim running, if I remember in the Key assignments section, there could be a Calibration setting where you can check if the thing is being seen. Once that is done, each button/function can then be assigned. I'm not at my sim, so I cannot say where the joystick calibration setting is, I'm sure it is in the Joystick settings. Good luck.

Best of luck & a Happy New Year!

Dassault Rafale for FS2004 - DOWNLOAD Google is your FS2004 friend. Just do a search for whatever you would like & pick & choose. The bonus of freeware, is that you can try until you find what you prefer, A good tip is that the better the aircraft is, the more downloads there are for them (basically). All of us have gone through the 'search' learning curve.

Sticking to the 'great' fighter jets,,, Do not forget the great F-16 Viper from Kirk Olsen, & the may paints & versions.. AVSIM Library - usviper.zip & FS2004 ViperDen Pack - FS2004 Modern Military - FlightSim.Com For other Mil aircraft, here we go... FS2004 Modern Military - FlightSim.Com For the older warbirds, have a look here.. FS 2004 Aircraft | SOH Forums There are plenty to be found in our library here, & also in the other sim libraries. Have fun, & just make sure that your number of landings is equal to the number of your take-offs!

Happy that you like it, the Crusader is great as well.

A better reason is possibly selling to gamers/consumers, is to make a bit of money from it, otherwise people would probably download cracked versions.

Remembering that P3D is (theoretically) not for entertainment purposes, and is used as a professional training tool, procedures are more important than eye candy, so I think that the chances of Lockheed Martin releasing a sim that is using (their own) satellite imagery would be very slim. I could be wrong. Why on earth would they do something like that when MS is doing it? Certainly not for the number of uses they have, compared to MS. LM has developed in a totally different way to MS, I'm sure that LM is not short of users.

I'm not sure how to use SweetFX. Could you possibly help & explain?

Yes, it looks great, do let us know how you got that detail.