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[crowebird]

Im sure that day will come quicker than 10 years, my guess is real soon, not only will we have even better compuing power, but we will also have better algorithms for drawing stuff like this on screen... optimizations with better fps and quality.

With all the said, have you given up on FSX?  Here is a good article on tweaking which could help you out quite a bit.  http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

[City Builder]

Not given up, my health took a turn for the worse earlier this week but the doctor is trying out some other medications for the pain, edema, spinal injury, and other things, along with while we wait for the blood tests to come back to see if I've finally come down with diabetes (as I'm long over due and now have like 5 of the 6 symptoms normally associated with diabetes) so I've just been absent from either, haven't had much oomph to play around but feeling more like it now.

Thanks for the article, I'll give it a read over and see if it can tweak my FSX.  I'm for flying either one that can produce the best visuals, best performance, and has the most addons to make a great community.  Fsx has the addons in spades, I'm not sure about visuals and performance just yet, I guess I'll know more after tweaking some more, maybe on Sunday.

Thanks for the link.

[City Builder]

Okay, while I read that I should take that post step by step and do everything and not skip anything in it to garner the performance, I couldn't do that, there are some things that I think does not apply to me or my computer.  However I did do some of the cfg changes and I don't know, seems okay for the most part, I've at least fixed the alt menu bug that would crash the game by using the alt or right click menus in FSX by using a dll from vista and putting it into the games installation folder since FSX looks there first for the files it needs and then in the system path so that's a positive thing since it was crashing on me about every 2 to 3rd click in the alt or right click menu and now it hasn't crashed once since.

In case somebody googles up this thread the file in question is UIAutomationCore.dll and needs to come from Vista if you are on Windows 7 and experiencing this alt and right click menu bug.  Where to get this file I couldn't tell you, I still had Vista installed in a second partition at the time that I added it to the install directory of fsx so I pulled it directly from Vista installation however I know that there are copies floating around on various websites, though I don't recommend downloading dll files from anyplace except the official distributor of those files as many dll files floating around are full of virus or malware.

Anyway, I've been looking around for a quality plane to fly that will cost me less than $25.00, I plan to buy no more than one plane so i've got to ensure that it's a really quality plane that I'm going to want to fly for a long time.  My pre-requisites would be

1. It must look fantastic
2. Have a virtual cockpit that is clear and correct (2d cockpit would obviously be a benefit) Some payware planes I've looked at have very fuzzy VC's and I'm not sure why that is.
3. Have all the normal animated bits and pieces.
4. MUST fly appropriately, (I bought a payware plane about a year ago, and it was a terrible buggy piece of tripe, it was so jittery that it was virtually unflyable)

I'm torn on whether it should be a jumbo or something like a cesna.  Obviously you know my skills from that time you tried to help me fly out of Palm Springs and land again in PSP, so logic tells me that I should be flying something like a cesna and taking baby steps to work my way up to learning to fly a jumbo jet, however, since at the moment, money is really tight (you think it's tight as a college student? trust me when I say it can get much worse), my desires are to buy only one plane, so Im not really sure if I should just go for a semi-quality (obviously I don't want or can't afford the Level D right now) jumbo jet and just struggle through trying to fly it or go with something more like a cesna or beechcraft and have an easier time.

Being that you are an accomplished real life pilot Crowebird (but I assume you don't fly jumbo jets in real life (not yet anyway)), where did you start with FS4 or whatever your first flight sim was?  Did you just dig right into the jumbo jets and struggle through them or did you take baby steps and start out in the single enging planes and work your way up?

Let me know what you think I should look for in a quality payware plane, jumbo or single engine, specific types if you have any recomendations etc.

Thanks for reading my disertations of a jumbled mind.

[crowebird]

Well first off I hope everything is all right over there.

As far as flying, i'd choose a smaller craft over a larger one.  It is fun to jump into a big jumbo-jet, but it is a massive learning curve if you get a quality payware craft, and for learning how to fly it would be better to start small.  I enjoy flying the smaller craft anyway becuase it is not as complicated, and in general you can have more fun with it (just can't get as far as fast).

As far as recommendations go for a smaller airplane under $25, I am stuck.  Eaglesoft has some good models (full glass cockpit) of the Sirrus SR22-G2 (one of my favorite RW small aircraft) but at $30.  I owned it for FS9 and liked it alot, but they don't offer a discount to upgrade to FSX so I have chose to not get it yet... they also have a fleet of general aviation you could check out: http://www.eaglesoftdg.com/General_Aviation.htm (the libery aerospace for example goes for $22).  I only know about the SR22-G2 in fs9 so I can't get a full recommendation... either search online for reviews or directly search the www.avsim.com aircraft review library (I usually refer to them before buying any aircraft) - but you can usually find reviews for any aircraft if you just google '<aircraft name> review'

[If you want to not fly the jumbos but want a jet, they also do corporate jets, which will be a little of a step, but possibly more managable than a full jumbo: http://www.eaglesoftdg.com/Premier1.htm for example is $27... again search reviews, I can't give any specific feedback about this aircraft]

I own the Twin Otter: http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/iboshop.cgi?showd,5421784000,10709 which I like a lot (not sure it is worth the full $32 asking price [I had a $5 discount becuase I owned the scenery] - but everything is animated and only has a VC cockpit which is well done), if you want a rugged aircraft that can handle quite a bit that you throw at it, this is a good choice (it also has float/skii options for water/snow landing flights). [Review: http://www.avsim.com/pages/0408/Lukla-Twotter/Lukla-Twotter.htm (note, joint review with LuklaX Scenery)].

lol, so I think I only showed one aircraft that met the $25 dollar budget, but I hope that helps to put you on the right track (The thing that sucks about FS, is if you want quality, realisitc aircraft, your gonna have to shell out a little bit of money).

One more aircraft I really like: http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=fsxpc12, which is a another that I owned for Fs9 but have not yet upgraded... this plane is awesome, and Pilatus actually uses it to give to potential customers of their actual aircraft so they can see what they are getting.

[City Builder]

Thanks a huge amount.  I found some "free" money in the dryer this morning so I can step it all the way up to 35.00 so it's all good and I'm off to check out some of those planes.

Much appreciated.

One more question... Do payware planes (the quality ones) fly harder than the planes that ship with FSX?  I would imagine they try to make them less arcadey and more simulation so they might actually be more accurate, is there any truth to this that you've seen?

Thanks,

[crowebird]

I don't have first hand experience in any payware aircraft compared to what I have actually flown to know how acurate the planes in fs are (would have to have modeled a c152/172 or a diamond star, which I have never flown payware for any of these aircraft in fs to compare, the default c172 does some of what I would expect, but there are things that I want to do that the aircraft does not respond how I remember it should).  But a lot of the quality payware have real pilots of the respective aircraft fly and help model the system/fligh dynamics, so they should be pretty close to accurate (other than certain things like one of the articles I showed you - like proper stall / rudder control).

Not to many planes fly 'arcadey' perse (atleast that I have come across - they handle in the basic, how I would expect them to)...  Just before buying anything, make sure you find a review on it first (preferably avsim).  They usually point out how the aircraft handles.

[City Builder]

Wow, so many payware plane options and so little money   I've seen some great looking planes for both FSX and Xplane now, and I'm just so indecisive it just about kills me.  But heck I'm indecisive in real life too so it's a good thing I don't actually fly a plane.  On the way to the market last night I was coming to a stop light and I could turn left to go to Vons, or go straight to go to Pavillions and couldn't make up my dang mind so I sat there at the edge of the turn lane trying to decide whether I should get in the left turn lane or go straight.  Fortunately there was nobody behind or in front of me.  But this just transfers to my gaming life too.

So many options and not enough credit cards, which is probably a good thing or I'd be in certain trouble for buying too many addons and planes.

Still looking.  I think I want to find a plane with one of those glass cockpits (i dont know what it's really called) but it's the cockpits with the VC that have the glass instrument display instead of the analog guages, for some reason I feel more comfortable in that. So... Still on the lookout, with a couple prospects I think.

[crowebird]

lol, being indecisive seems to affect everybody, it can affect me just as much sometimes.

And yea, you got the term correct 'glass cockpit' is the terminology.  That sirrus is great if you want the glass cockpit, it just has two displays, one massive one for airspeed, direction, pitch, altitude... all that good stuff, and the other for engine information/gps - but I have also seen some other great glass planes.  (My only gripe in fs9 with the sirrus, was sometimes the glass cockpit was just a little difficult to play with in the VC, but they did make it so you could click on it and a 2d one would popup for you... not sure how much has improved with FSX, or if they are just greedy and did a simple port and want another $30).

Let me know what you decide to finally go with,   I'm always on the edge about getting more aircraft.  The next one I really want next is this: http://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/js4100.html (but I might just go with the pilatus instead... two different aircraft but sorta the same idea.... pilatus will just be easier (and cheaper since I get a 15 discount for upgrade).