mtrainer

Yes, it could be that Prepar3D and your ships program exercise certain heat-inducing elements that push it to the edge, causing your PC to crash. Or the chipset is overheating, or memory, or SIMD instructions heating the CPU, video card, or....any other weakest link in the chain. But by all means the symptoms point, in my opinion, to a cooling issue. Download Prime95 and try stress testing your system. And if it is overclocked, by all means go back to a standard clock. Prime95 will push a CPU pretty hard, and if you've got a cooling issue with the CPU, it's likely to expose it if you let it run for an hour or so. But, keep in mind running this program is Kyle's equivalent to doing burnouts in the grocery parking lot! I used to use this program, along with GIMPS, to find out what a reasonable overclock is. I don't bother overclocking anymore, there just isn't much peace of mind as every unexpected crash has one wondering if it was due to the overclock. Good luck, but I bet your virtual passengers would be happier knowing the captain was giving the cockpit instruments his full attention. Mark Trainer

It will be their own brand of beer. Specifically formulated to make low visibility landings even more challenging for those who think they've mastered it. Mark Trainer

I also purchased this scenery a few months ago, along with several other ORBX's Alaska offerings - and noticed that a couple of them were quite challenging. Flying the LDA/DME-H approach into Valdez Pioneer Field was rough the first couple of times I tried it, and although my ultimate technique only applies in meteorological conditions that allow visibility under 5K feet, it works: Use the HUD in conjunction with the terrain guidance and simply fly down (slowly) the mouth of the Valdez Arm which turns into Shoup Bay. The airport will appear on the left at the end of the bay and if you're configured properly you can grease it in. In real life, this isn't an airfield I would try landing in at night or in foggy conditions (at my current skill level). That mountain ridge at OLLEO isn't what usually gets me, it's the rapid decent required once clearing it. And as someone else mentioned, the approach doesn't exactly match the runway alignment. The only other ORBX airport to give me such a challenge is Telluride, but again if the conditions are right you can follow the river and let it guide you to the airport. Mark Trainer

I wrote a bit of a "wish-list" quite some time ago for LM regarding crash physics, indicating that in this day and age we're certainly past an "all or nothing" approach to crashes. It's either "bounce and survive" or "everything stops and resets". There should be a way of pulling off something that retains some tastefulness to it while providing more feedback. Mark Trainer

What would happen if..... OK, folks please don't jump all over me, yes I made an incredibly fundamental mistake here. I get it. But it got me to thinking what would happen in real life if such a travesty were to actually occur? I neglected to notice on the 737 NGX-900 overhead panel that all the external doors were still open, taxied out to the runway, and yep, took off! Around 11K feet the airbags dropped and I quickly realized what happened and got it down to 10K feet as quick as I could. There was no shutting the doors at that point. I started to bring it around to land but in my worsening state of depression I figured this was most likely a lethal mistake, and as such just shut the simulator down. The chances of this happening in real life are practically nil since some stewardesses or passengers would be beating the cockpit door down in a panic, but...let's armchair this thing for fun. It seems to me a 250Kt slip stream working on that door would do one of three things. In this instance I'll only address the possibilities of the forward cabin door on the pilot's side. A) The door would remain open and locked, and stay put due to the strength of its attachment to the fuselage and the fact it is locked in place (I assume). B) The door would eventually give way, swing shut, incredibly violently, and possibly damage the fuselage upon slamming so hard, perhaps even tearing a hole in the side of the aircraft. C) Dislodge completely, fall off, strike the leading section of the wing, and essentially bring the whole bird down. It would be nice to hear an occasional call out from the stewardesses when things like the cabin is brutally cold and you don't notice because you're not paying attention to the temperature controls, or if folks are getting asphyxiated on ascent but again, due to an oblivious sim pilot one wouldn't know (but yet in real life you'd likely be getting an intercom call), or in my case taxing away fat dumb and happy with all the doors open. Mark Trainer (Go easy on me please, it was the last flight of the day, and I had 5 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders crammed into the cockpit- and yeah! I got distracted!)

Yes, MFG Crosswinds for the pedals, they are adjustable to the n-th degree and it's hard to imagine anything better. I bought mine in the spring of 2017 and couldn't be happier. For joystick/throttle, I purchased the Thrustmaster Warthog- a bit pricey but feels really solid. Good Luck, Mark

Hi James, Just go get the current 737 offering. You'll be glad you did. Mark Trainer

*Mind Blown* This is incredible stuff. As someone who started on a Commodore 64 w/ Bruce Artwick's Flight Simulator II in 1984, this is in many respects literally history making. Good job PMDG team, keep up the excellent work! Mark Trainer

Oculus Rift V2 has to be right around the corner - anyone thinking about one should probably wait a few months. I read their website last year regarding applicants, and they are assembling a cracker-jack team (Phd level in multiple fields) and I'm feeling confident their next product will be high desirable. Give it a couple of months. Mark Trainer

Also welling up a bit, I am so sorry. At a loss for words. Mark Trainer

Active Sky 16 for Prepar3d P3Ev4 for me w/ REX Direct s/ w Soft Clouds seems to work perfectly- old enough to have all the bugs worked out and works just as expected / advertised. Mark

Well, there is an advantage to having it in digital form - the search function makes quick work searching for a particular term. Mark

And happy new year from the United States, where everything that could happen in 2017, did happen in 2017. Hoping for a much calmer and stable 2018. Mark Trainer

I have that same list of products, but I never run AI traffic over 5%. Guess I'm a bit of a loner. I'm on a NVIDIA 1050ti, 24 GB system RAM, an SSD, Windows 10....but....the main system (CPU 3.0 GHZ / Motherboard) is approaching 9 years old....so take my input with a grain of salt but when on approach to some airports I've seen the frame rate fall to 8 FPS. Yeah it bites, gonna build a new rig w/ the tax refund in a couple of months though. My guess is that the ORBX "Region" isn't going to hit you that hard - at least I never noticed they did but I've heard Southern California (which I also have) can be a bit tough. But your system seems to be doing all the heavy lifting as it is, adding a region shouldn't send your rates into the gutter. Wish I could give you more specifics, but all systems are different and everyone runs a different set of slider settings. Good Luck! Mark

Actually, Not a bad suggestion here so far. I hope they eventually get around to implementing all of these suggestions / fixes. Mark