sargentx

Everyone is different and everyone likes different add ons etc for fsx. That goes without saying. For some, certain mods work great, and others have problems with the same mods. I want to share my thoughts on ezdok/ezca and the enb mod. Both mods are awesome without doubt. If cameras are your thing, then ezca is the supreme program that will give you unlimited camera views, head shake and buffering effects, and a bunch of other things. However, from what I've read online, a lot of people simply like the head shake effect and buffering illusion. Also, if you've tinkered with ezdok, you know that it's quite complicated and can sometimes have issues. It's not idiot proof. Personally, I was having a lot of problems with ezdok (technical issues) and ended up uninstalling it. Luckily, I wasn't too obsessed with the camera views and am quite happy with the default cameras of fsx. I do however loved and missed the wiggling, undocked head effects. The other day I discovered AccuFeel. this:http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=49 This program is extremely simple compared to Ezdok, but will give you instant, accurate head shake, stall buffeting, and ground shake in all your aircraft including addon aircraft simply by installing the software. It detects the type of aircraft, reads and understands it's flight specs and creates a shake profile for it. It also adds a whole plethora of improved sounds which are really amazing. This program is not a camera program though, so you will use the fsx camera system. You install it and forget about it. It's customizable if you want to tweak it with a really easy to use slider menu that appears in your add-ons tab. Regarding the ENB series mod....once you use it, it's hard to tolerate the default, washed out values and tones of fsx. It really gives fsx a photographic look. But as many know, there can be some serious issues the mod including crashes, burned out skies, difficulty getting the mod to work in all types of time themes etc. For me, it was the single cause of CTD and fatal error messages. You can approximate most of the effects other than bloom by simply adjusting your desktop colour settings. Run fsx in it's own window and adjust your gamma, contrast, lightness etc until you get a richer, more contrasty look. Just playing with these sliders, you can exactly match the HDR effect of ENB....darker richer darks, brighter, more blown out lights etc. And at night, you can really get the high contrast, rich velvety blacks that are so much the prize of the ENB tweaks. On my LED tv, fsx looks awesome, and exactly matches the values of ENB minus the bloom softening. I liked the soap opera gauziness of enb, but got tired of the persistent crashes and problems. Maybe yours works great...I don't know. Aside from bloom, all the other effects can be had by changing your desktop colour settings....gamma, contrast, brightness, vibrance. Also play with your TV/monior settings as well. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you don't lose colour saturation or detail in blown out whites. It gives you a lot of customizability. I don't know, just my thoughts.

Everyone is different and everyone likes different add ons etc for fsx. That goes without saying. For some, certain mods work great, and others have problems with the same mods. I want to share my thoughts on ezdok/ezca and the enb mod. Both mods are awesome without doubt. If cameras are your thing, then ezca is the supreme program that will give you unlimited camera views, head shake and buffering effects, and a bunch of other things. However, from what I've read online, a lot of people simply like the head shake effect and buffering illusion. Also, if you've tinkered with ezdok, you know that it's quite complicated and can sometimes have issues. It's not idiot proof. Personally, I was having a lot of problems with ezdok (technical issues) and ended up uninstalling it. Luckily, I wasn't too obsessed with the camera views and am quite happy with the default cameras of fsx. I do however loved and missed the wiggling, undocked head effects. The other day I discovered AccuFeel. this:http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=49 This program is extremely simple compared to Ezdok, but will give you instant, accurate head shake, stall buffeting, and ground shake in all your aircraft including addon aircraft simply by installing the software. It detects the type of aircraft, reads and understands it's flight specs and creates a shake profile for it. It also adds a whole plethora of improved sounds which are really amazing. This program is not a camera program though, so you will use the fsx camera system. You install it and forget about it. It's customizable if you want to tweak it with a really easy to use slider menu that appears in your add-ons tab. Regarding the ENB series mod....once you use it, it's hard to tolerate the default, washed out values and tones of fsx. It really gives fsx a photographic look. But as many know, there can be some serious issues the mod including crashes, burned out skies, difficulty getting the mod to work in all types of time themes etc. For me, it was the single cause of CTD and fatal error messages. You can approximate most of the effects other than bloom by simply adjusting your desktop colour settings. Run fsx in it's own window and adjust your gamma, contrast, lightness etc until you get a richer, more contrasty look. Just playing with these sliders, you can exactly match the HDR effect of ENB....darker richer darks, brighter, more blown out lights etc. And at night, you can really get the high contrast, rich velvety blacks that are so much the prize of the ENB tweaks. On my LED tv, fsx looks awesome, and exactly matches the values of ENB minus the bloom softening. I liked the soap opera gauziness of enb, but got tired of the persistent crashes and problems. Maybe yours works great...I don't know. Aside from bloom, all the other effects can be had by changing your desktop colour settings....gamma, contrast, brightness, vibrance. Also play with your TV/monior settings as well. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you don't lose colour saturation or detail in blown out whites. It gives you a lot of customizability. I don't know, just my thoughts.

Cool, thanks for that! So i guess fsx is incredibly watered down. Almost like a cartoon of reality.

THank you! So convoluted...sheesh. I'll look at it tomorrow.

I know this is not the right place to ask this, but I can't find an answer anywhere. I own REX essential Plus. I want to updrage to Overdrive. How do I do this? On the REX site, there appears to only be the option to buy REX essential with Overdrive as a package. I'm under the impression that he overdrive portion is free? Where can I download the upgrade if there is one? I can't see it anywhere. Thank you so much

First of all, I'm definitely not one of these guys who flies published approaches with VOXatc in my 10 monitor garage setup. So yes, I understand that fsx can be much much more real in terms of ATC than it is. I've read a fair amount of real and fsx atc phrasology and have a general idea as to what the real world is sort of like. That said, my question is this: When you create an IFR flight in fsx and you use the default atc, it more or less tells you what to do. "Climb to.....descend to.....expect vectors for....yadda yadda. It's very procedural and if you know how to fly an ILS approach you're pretty much set. Is that what it would be like for a small airplane/private pilot type person in real life? When do yo use all those STAR approaches and published approaches etc? I can't seem to get a straight-for-idiots explanation for any of that stuff. Anyway, The question is: If I use the ATC for a little vfr flight in a small aiplane; is that a somewhat real process? And...when do real world small aircraft pilots use approach charts of any kind? Why would you need them when the ATC simply tells you what to do every step of the way. This is totally Noobish I realize. Just curious.

Question: Why can't people tinker with fsx and make it better short of changing config settings and code values etc? For example, horizon blending. It sucks in fsx, so why can't a tech savvy person change it so it's better? Is the code encrypted? Somehow unchangeable?

$1,000,000.00 of what?...man-hours, computers, office space rental, publishing, advertising...... I guess hey? I guess it would take someone like us, but who has millions doing nothing and a passion for the hobby to make it happen. : ( I must say though, I'm pretty happy with the fsx setup I have. I tell ya, all the orbx NA sceneries and all their little airports, combined with this great little Calgary addon (my home town)....and an upcoming cyyc airport for Cal from SimAddons; with REX and tweaks and ENB, geeze, sometimes I'm floored by how real and photographic it all seems. I'm happy with fsx for conceivable years (I HAVE TO BE considering the shameful thousands I've spent on this little hobby over the years!) I was there on my Apple 2E in the 80's trying to figure out what all those green lines were! lol

My questions is this: With so many brilliant scenery designers, aircraft modellers, and computer fs nerds out there; how come nobody has created a new flight simulator like fsx? Pardon my igorance, but why would a company like Orbx make awesome scenery for fsx, and not be focusing their energy on making New Flight Sim awesomeness 2015 or something of their own ....think $$$$$$? Is it hard to build something like flight simulator x? I guess that's a rhetorical quesion...interface design, art design, marketing, scenery design and programming, simulation physics, aircraft modelling, access to huge photo-based resources like satellite imagery, and an army of creatives trepsing around the world taking tens of thousands of reference photographs and video, 80 underpaid recent computer design grads on 50 computers doing blend masking of shorelines.... yadayadayada I guess you needed Microsoft and Aces for something that big. Or no? Everyone cries for a new base fs engine, but is anyone building one? It seems that there is ample talent out there to do it...what's missing? Hell, I'd pay to start up a company to get something like that going! I think there would be huge bucks to be made from it...and a continuation of the hobby. I don't know. Motts Clamato Caesar is doing the typing tonight ; )

Once you get ENB series ini. file into the fsx main folder, it's really a matter of tweaking it. I've spent hours fiddling with these setting and think I've got it down pretty good. This is a 'bloomy' setting, so if you don't like your fsx to look all soft and atmospheric, adjust it yourself. This is a great starting point for fsx. For fsx, the most critical settings are: under [bloom] Bloompowerday= The brightness and power of the fuzziness/70's porn look of fsx. Higher values look very atmospheric and real...too high and it might look schmaltzy to some. I love the effect at moderate levels. Hyper real space and light. Also controls brightness of the effect Bloompowernight= same as above. Really brings the guage lighting to life. BloomAdaptationScreenLevel= This value increase the effect that your eye is adapting to darks and lights. At dusk, you look down at the ground and it's very dark, then after a few seconds you adapt and it gets brighter. While this is neat in theory, in fsx and ENB the effect isn't smoothed and happens in a flash. Really jarring and not realistic. 20 seems to solve this as a value. [colorcorrection] darkening effect= This is basically the level of contrast between the brights and the darks. The higher the value, the more real it looks...until the difference is too great and you loose detail. Set a dusk scene and adjust from there. This number is pretty realistic I think. Instant download and installer of an already tweaked ENB series: http://www.fs2000.or...c_details/324243 VERY conservative settings. My settings after 3 days of fiddling and experimenting in all conditions: EnvBumpAmount=100 EnvBumpOffset=100 ReflectionFlip=0 [bLOOM] BloomPowerDay=45 BloomFadeTime=1000000 BloomConstantDay=1 BloomQuality=0 BloomScreenLevelDay=1 BloomCurveDay=7 BloomPowerNight=30 BloomConstantNight=5 BloomCurveNight=9 BloomScreenLevelNight=12 BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=20 BloomAdaptationMultiplier=45 BloomAllowOversaturation=1 BloomMaxLimit=57 [sSAO] UseFilter=1 OcclusionQuality=2 FilterQuality=1 DarkeningLevel=10l BrighteningLevel=100 IlluminationLevel=100 AdditiveIlluminationLevel=18 UseAmbientOcclusion=1 UseIndirectLighting=1 FadeDistance=50 UseForAlphaTest=0 UseForAlphaBlend=0 [colorCORRECTION] DarkeningAmountDay=35 ScreenLevelDay=8 ScreenLevelNight=14 DarkeningAmountNight=-20 GammaCurveDay=-2p GammaCurveNight=6 ColorSaturationDay=1p ColorSaturationNight=-1 UsePaletteTexture=0 [WATER] UseWaterDeep=0 WaterDeepness=20 WaterQuality=0 [sHADOW] ShadowFadeStart=40 ShadowFadeEnd=80 ShadowAmountDay=50 ShadowAmountNight=40 ShadowScreenLevelDay=40 ShadowScreenLevelNight=30 ShadowQuality=1 UseShadowFilter=0 FilterQuality=2 ShadowBlurRange=30 [ENGINE] ForceAnisotropicFiltering=1 MaxAnisotropy=16 ForceDisplayRefreshRate=0 DisplayRefreshRateHz=60 [MOTIonblur] MotionblurQuality=0 MotionblurVelocity=0 MotionblurRotation=0 [PERPIXELLIGHTING] SpecularColorMin=0 SpecularColorMax=100 SpecularColorMultiplier=100 SpecularGlossinessMin=0 SpecularGlossinessMax=100 SpecularGlossinessMultiplier=100 [DEPTHOFFIELD] DOFQuality=2 DOFNumberOfPasses=1 DOFFocusRange=50 DOFBlurinessRange=10

Well, this is nothing new, but figured I'd share my ENB series settings. It took me hours to get it to this point; so maybe for someone out there it will be a freebie. I spent a few nights experimenting with and researching all the ENB series file settings and have got it to a point where it seems, at least to my eyes, to be very real, with a touch of atmospheric bloom, and working in all conditions (desert, night, day etc.). I found this handy download that installs ENB into your fsx directly. It's been tweaked by the maker, but I find it to be quite conservative and not using the enb potential to the fullest Imho. Thanks for making the installer though! : http://www.fs2000.org/downloads/doc_details/32424 USE AT OWN RISK! From what I've read, you need a decent graphics card. This setting is specific to a high end card. (gtx 560ti at the time of this posting) Just open up fsx and look for the enbseries.ini Open it in word pad and play (if you can call it that). By the way, if you open fsx in windowed mode and make your wordpad adjustments in another,...all you have to do is change the size of the fsx window and it will reload the textures and graphics settings so you can see the changes you made without reloading fsx. Just save enb each time you make a change, then grab and change the fsx window in some way. Tada. I think this is pretty decent. I personally like a bit of shmalzy bloom. If you don't, just lower the value of Bloompower day or night. After all is said and done, the main ones you want to play with in the ENB settings are: [bloom] Bloompower day (Produces the atmospheric haze around light objects. High values looks like cheap porn from the 70's....but there is a sweetspot where it feels like light and space. ]bloom] Bloompower night, (I like bloom at night at airports...really brings your landing lights to life and all the lighting. [bloom] Bloomfadetime....(basically how fast in milliseconds the 'eye' would adjust from moving from dark to light) Darkening effect. Basically the level of contrast intensity. Higher values = darker darks and lighter lights. I sat in my car on a bright day and approximated the contrast difference facing the sun. These alone will give you lots to fiddle with. Here are my complete FSX settings: EnvBumpAmount=100 EnvBumpOffset=100 ReflectionFlip=0 [bLOOM] BloomPowerDay=45 BloomFadeTime=1000000 BloomConstantDay=1 BloomQuality=0 BloomScreenLevelDay=1 BloomCurveDay=7 BloomPowerNight=30 BloomConstantNight=5 BloomCurveNight=9 BloomScreenLevelNight=12 BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=80 BloomAdaptationMultiplier=45 BloomAllowOversaturation=1 BloomMaxLimit=57 [sSAO] UseFilter=1 OcclusionQuality=2 FilterQuality=1 DarkeningLevel=10l BrighteningLevel=100 IlluminationLevel=100 AdditiveIlluminationLevel=18 UseAmbientOcclusion=1 UseIndirectLighting=1 FadeDistance=50 UseForAlphaTest=0 UseForAlphaBlend=0 [colorCORRECTION] DarkeningAmountDay=35 ScreenLevelDay=8 ScreenLevelNight=14 DarkeningAmountNight=-20 GammaCurveDay=-2p GammaCurveNight=6 ColorSaturationDay=1p ColorSaturationNight=-1 UsePaletteTexture=0 [WATER] UseWaterDeep=0 WaterDeepness=20 WaterQuality=0 [sHADOW] ShadowFadeStart=40 ShadowFadeEnd=80 ShadowAmountDay=50 ShadowAmountNight=40 ShadowScreenLevelDay=40 ShadowScreenLevelNight=30 ShadowQuality=1 UseShadowFilter=0 FilterQuality=2 ShadowBlurRange=30 [ENGINE] ForceAnisotropicFiltering=1 MaxAnisotropy=16 ForceDisplayRefreshRate=0 DisplayRefreshRateHz=60 [MOTIonblur] MotionblurQuality=0 MotionblurVelocity=0 MotionblurRotation=0 [PERPIXELLIGHTING] SpecularColorMin=0 SpecularColorMax=100 SpecularColorMultiplier=100 SpecularGlossinessMin=0 SpecularGlossinessMax=100 SpecularGlossinessMultiplier=100 [DEPTHOFFIELD] DOFQuality=2 DOFNumberOfPasses=1 DOFFocusRange=50 DOFBlurinessRange=10 If you use REX, I tweaked this ENB series using "tropical new" sky texture. I find with ENB, sky textures that have little to no blend work better as the dynamic range washes out the sky. Any sky in REX that has a single Blue to it as apposed to a blend looks more realistic and less washed out.

sorry...not "affinity"....it's "priority". It's in task manager/processes/ right click fsx.exe/ choose real time or High. Real time can produce some glitches (for me it's sound issues. I've never had a crash or instability though). Unpark your cores and see if that, combined with High priority gives you 80% use on all threads. It did for me....with great results, but not everyone seems to benefit the same. I"m running win 7

It's interesting that the "spot view" from the views drop down in-game menu has a fluid, bouncy action to it when using the hatswitch. There must be a way to have this same logic to the VC view. I dunno, moving out of my range of knowledge. Thanks all. c

NoahBryant.... Ya that works...but it would be nice to have that same fluid motion and be able to just look around with the hat switch. I guess that's the question I'm wondering about.

No easier way in the config files hunh : (