Any Flight Simulator afficionados out there?

TerryL

TerryL

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Years ago, when computers were just starting to be used at home I bought a simple "flight simulator" programme that really was just drawings of various flight instruments - but it gave the illusion you were "flying" an aircraft. As computers improved so did the programme offerings, Microsoft's Flight Simulator" being the bees knees, although none could replace "the real thing" which I took up shortly after moving to the North East, so "simming" got forgotten about.

Move forward, having given up my licence quite a few years ago although I still maintain an interest, a chance encounter caught my attention when I got hold of an intro (therefore free) copy of Microsofts Flight Simulator X, which was the latest version, albeit 10 years old. Quite honestly the difference was amazing and with a couple of basic upgrades my home computer did a good job of keeping me off the forum all the time - although still got it in the neck from TOH for spending hours at the keyboard.

But then a few weeks ago Microsoft announced it's latest version, Flight Simulator 2020. Now this has moved flight simulation to a completely new level with the ability to "fly" a range of aircraft literally all over the world with real scenery from satellite photos, real-time weather and, incredibly, real-time live air traffic, by introducing a form of AI to seamlessly integrate it all together using the internet. You can even fly with friends in their own "aircraft" - talk about a meet! Absolutely mind-blowing, there's plenty of clips on Utube about it. Of course, I must have it so pre-ordered a copy and meanwhile checked out the minmum specs.

If you've got a good gaming machine and a medium to fast internet connection there should be no problem, it works straight out of the box - apparently. But of course I got a warning that my system wouldn't run it as it "didn't meet the minimum specifications". Now I'm no computer geek so spent a lot of time learning about my computers innards and finally worked out that my graphics card was the problem - a good trawl around found what I hope will be okay so invested another £130 (haven't told her yet!). I've also bought a decent joystick/throttle combo and, on recommendation, an X-box 360 controller which I'm told will give me some additional options, if ever I can work out how to operate the damned thing. The card should be delivered tomorrow and looks to be simple to install (says he with fingers crossed).

The official release date is today, although it was available to download in different parts of the world on a rolling basis yesterday - I really should have stayed up last night to start the download 'cos there's A LOT of it! I started it off at 8-53 this morning and it's still only 3/4 downloaded even though my connection has been running flat out since (but the accompanying music is so, so monotonous..........................................) No doubt the rest of the day will be taken up trying to set it up although because of the graphics card I'm not expecting it to do much for now.

So if I appear to have gone missing over the next few days, it's because I'm visiting different parts of the world! Meanwhile, as the title asks, are there any other flight simulator people out there?
 
Please keep up the commentary. I had a FS some years ago and loved it. I no longer have a joystick but if your thread interests me I will go for one and the App. Never know, I just might have to land a plane if the pilot gets ill. :giggle:
 
Wilco! It's the only flying I'll ever get to do now - the wife flatly refuses to go near an aeroplane so holidays in "exotic" locations are out. So the motorhome suits us best all-round.
 
It does seem to be getting some positive press. Depends on what sort of gaming you like (my forum name gives you a clue as to my own preference, and lack of ability).

By all accounts you do need a good if not high spec gaming PC. I note one gamer review suggested it took 4 minutes just for one of the major airports to load properly, and yet they would have have a good PC. It's as if Microsoft have designed in expectations of future hardware, hoping this will be around for a few years yet, whereas most games are built for average spec machines of today. Graphics are only a part of the equation. I'd be taking their recommended computer spec with a pinch of salt and treating that as minimum.
 
I loved going up to Bacup for an hour on the Vulcan bomber simulator, which was a Christmas present from my partner. Sitting as a pilot with a copilot (instructor) next to me in what appeared to be a genuine cockpit with all the Vulcan instruments was brilliant and I can't imagine it would be anything like as good using computer simulation.

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Viennese said:
I can't imagine it would be anything like as good using computer simulation.
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You're quite right of course but it comes quite close. I was lucky enough to be part of a very small group from my local club who got all-night access to a 737-800 simulator at BA's Heathrow facility, now that was really something, doing visual circuits at Heathrow on a 737!

Just idly doing some "surfing" you can actually join a virtual flight school and "learn" how to fly with a proper structured programme including instructors! I've also found several "virtual" airlines with everything from the operations department down to the rookiest pilots! The dedication is astounding - a bit like motorhoming I guess!!!! :nerd:

I'm still sitting here, waiting for it to finish (about 10Gb to go) trying not to fall asleep with the soporific music....................... Beats doing the gardening - anyway it's chucking it down.
 
On a slight tangent, many years ago our company had the Xmas party at Williams F1 HQ and we all had a go in their mega expensive F1 simulator. Was amazing.

Carry on ;)
 
Kannon Fodda said:
It does seem to be getting some positive press. Depends on what sort of gaming you like (my forum name gives you a clue as to my own preference, and lack of ability).
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One of the best ever computer games, can still remember the theme tunes etc.
Also:
Dune 2
Monkey Island

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Okay, progress report. It finally finished downloading after 8 3/4 hours but did go straight to the game with just a few settings to confirm. Set up an aircraft and an airport but, as expected, the graphics card just can't cope with it so everything very slow, certainly unflyable so will have to wait for the new graphics card. I've got a performance monitor going which shows the CPU is coping okay, likewise the RAM but the frame rate is of course hopeless. Will report back when the new card is in and working.

But it's still possible to explore so I managed to work out the X-box controller and got it to give me a view of my house and have to say it was a pretty good rendition despite this being standard scenery. It even showed the motorhome parked on the drive! SWMBO was moderately impressed. Meanwhile it was still working in the background improving things as I went on.

So I'll probably be spending the next few hours setting up the various peripherals and working out what does what.
 
I appreciate that flight sims are no replacement for true flight simulators, but how realistic are they compared to Actually flying an aircraft, and is the MS one easy to pick up, albeit after some time.
My knowledge of flying stops at a A4 piece of paper suitably folded!
 
TerryL,
I love MS flight Simulator.
I started on FS2 in the mid 80s I think, running on an Apple IIE, I thought it was fantastic and wasted far too many hours on it.
Had every version since and just ordered the latest version today.
I would be interested in how your video card runs it though, recommended spec for an i7 is Nividia 2080. Cheapest I have found one is just
under £700.00, but I would also need a new PSU to supply it with the required watts!
Happy flying!
Lloyd
 
This thread made me curious about the history of what we know now as Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Wikipedia, as usual has all the info, amazing what was possible in the 80's.
Sorry, didnt mean to hijack the thread!

History of Microsoft Flight Simulator - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

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LPB said:
I would be interested in how your video card runs it though, recommended spec for an i7 is Nividia 2080.
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That's the ideal spec also based on a very modern i7 CPU. An upgrade to a £700+ GPU is steep unless you are really sure you are going to play a lot. And I'd be wanting quite a few other things to be balanced with that level of GPU cost including monitor running at a high 1440p or better resolution (when the 2080 could start to struggle especially at 4K). Even so compared to many games like shooters you won't need so high a frame refresh rate in a flight sim, and even 30FPS (frames per second) could be OK, when in a shooter you'd be upset with anything below 60, and ideally would want to be over 100.

Recommended Spec is only a GTX 970, which is somewhat more ancient and a lot less powerful. That is going to be a tad underpowered.

You may need to turn off some of the finest settings, but what you will want is affected by your screen resolution. If you are running 1080p you may well find the more realistic 2060 Super is about right, with the 2070 Super probably the sweet spot (still a lot of money).
 
Well known trait of MS that the minimum spec is enough to load a program and not much else.
Had FS in the late 80s on a 286 with twin controllers. My best flight was when I forgot that I had to pick up the wife from the station and came back to find i was 150 miles away. Kids and life got in the way eventually. Happy days.
 
Yes, ideal is the Nvidia 2080, recommended is the 970, apologies, but to be honest the best you can get is what you need, eventually the cost will come down and then its affordable. I tried to use my old card, which is an Nvidia GTS450, but it wont boot with UEFI, and I am not able to go back to legacy without a lot of hassle.
I am not about to spend £700 on a graphics card when the pc on its own cost £700. I have already upgraded the RAM
to 32GD, and put in a 2TB SSD which, after all the hassle of installing it, is amazing. The graphics card will be a compromise.
This is the MS info for computers specifactions required in case anyone is thinking of buying this simulator:-

1597788016236.png


I am already failing the bandwidth requirement!
I am waiting to hear how TerryL gets on with his graphics card, if its ok then great, we can learn from his experience, but at least
we have a new MS Flight Simulator, which I know will be great fun.
Lloyd.
 
The Dotties said:
I appreciate that flight sims are no replacement for true flight simulators, but how realistic are they compared to Actually flying an aircraft, and is the MS one easy to pick up, albeit after some time.
My knowledge of flying stops at a A4 piece of paper suitably folded!
Click to expand...

I learnt to fly on Microsoft Flight Simulator. When I took actual lessons, it was really easy. However, you have to be serious about it. You need to actually fly circuits and do real flying, not just scenic tours of cities from an F16.

It was particularly good for instrument flying. I used to spend hours planning flights between cities, switching between VORs, flying approaches with the random cloudbase turned on so I didn't know if I'd see the runway before decision height and either land or fly the missed approach.

When it came to the PPL instrument flying training, the instructor had a laugh. They're supposed to spend a minimum 4 hours on how to turn back if you hit cloud without losing control. However, we spent the four hours doing NDB backtracking and instrument approaches! Apparently, in one of the unusual attitude recoveries, he pointed it 45 degrees up with 90 degree bank. I was better recovering in instrument conditions than visual, due to the fact that the simulator teaches you to ignore the physical reactions as there are none and gets you completely focused on the visual (i.e. the instruments). So it is easier to do instrument flying from a background of simulation than it is from actual visual flying.

In the end, I passed my flight tests after 38.5 hours. At the time you needed 40 hours total, so I had to get straight back in the plane and do a 1.5 hour solo to make up the hours before I could get the licence! Microsoft Flight Simulator (guided by flight manuals, not just playing around) helped massively. Anyone who doesn't will need twice the hours of actual flight.
 
I totally agree.
After more hours on FS than I care to remember, and real hours where you follow the rules of flying, it really helps when you do it for real.

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It will be interesting to see how it runs in virtual reality when they add it later this year, but you would need a top-spec computer to run it in VR.
 
sid1234 said:
It will be interesting to see how it runs in virtual reality when they add it later this year, but you would need a top-spec computer to run it in VR.
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I would guess that it would be mostly helpful for flying visual circuits, where it is very useful to keep the airfield in sight! Most other things you're looking forward or at the instruments.
 
I peaked with FS 2002 but not used it since then. I remember my surprise when seeing another aircraft at 36000ft which crossed my flight path. Clever bit of kit.
 
Played around with it last night and managed to do a real (read poor) weather circuit of Newcastle without crashing but the card made everything very slow to react. It also showed up that my peripherals need remapping - I bought a Thrustmaster Hotas 4 which worked "out of the box" with FSX but, although the game recognised it, it's mapped quite differently in FS2020, (but the joystick/throttle still works in the right directions!) Also bought an Xbox 360 controller which seems to be useful for the camera work. Have to say that changing the mappings are not particularly intuitive but I found a series of Utube vids (by "Squirrel", search on that in Utube) that have helped. There doesn't appear to be any sort of manual apart from the suggestions it puts up. Going to take some learning I guess.

As for realism, it all depends on what you're looking for. There is enough "assistance" available to allow anyone to just go fly and look around, with a few very basic instruction exercises. Or you can go the whole hog and fly a 747 from Heathrow to JFK, from doing the flight plan, aircraft walkround, full checklists and then (almost - it's americanised) accurate ATC communications, navigation etc. to landing, unloading baggage and passengers, using everything the real life aircraft is equipped with; very very sophisticated!

But you will need a decent computer, or at least some upgrading. The specs showed that my problem was the grahics card, but I'd already upgraded to a 1TB SSD, which made a big difference overall, plus doubling the RAM to 16GB. Whilst messing about the processor did occasionally touch 100% but only whilst setting up the flight - incidentally it does seem to take a while to load.

The new graphics card has just been delivered so I'll probably be spending the afternoon trying to set it up - messing about inside the box isn't really my thing but it looks easy enough.

But if you don't hear from me for a day or two, you can guess what's happened! Fingers crossed!
 
Top Tip when installing once you power up the new card, make sure you download the nvidia (or AMD) drivers from their website - don't use the ones on the disk in the box they'll be out of date). If swapping between AMD and Nvidia make sure you have fully uninstalled the old drivers before you install the new card. If upgrading in same brand Nvidia I still recommend you do a custom install of drivers - the nvidia routine will give you option to uninstall during the upgrade, always a good idea - and you don't need their Geforce experience stuff.

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Thanks very much Kannon Fodda info like that is very useful.

BUT - disaster, the graphics card wouldn't fit in the case, two big cooling fans on the card! My current system fits into a slimline case and though you can get smaller cards they're not up to scratch.

So went back to Currys where I got it from, very helpful but after a discussion with a couple of guys who really knew their stuff, including a youngster who obviously knew all about FS2020, we realised that without extensive upgrading it wasn't going to be realistic to do anything with my existing kit. But they did quite happily refund the graphics card without any problem.

After a further discussion, with all the expected system requirements to hand, they found a good gaming machine which would do the job - not the "ideal" but certainly fit the recommended specs at a price that wouldn't reduce me to a pauper. In addition they told me how I could "upgrade" even that machine with the relatively new bits from my old system.

Conclusion - you need a well-specced machine, preferably to good gaming specification, to run the new MS Flight Simulator despite reading various advice that an upgraded old machine will work - it will but it will be a waste of money as you won't be able to use all the bells and whistles. Worth pointing out that a moderate to fast internet connection, preferably with unlimited data, is also going to be needed, it is very data hungry although there are options to limit it but obviously with a degraded performance.

So the good old credit card got hit once again, all for the sake of a computer game! Must be absolutely mad (I did get "the look" from her) but since lockdown we've hardly spent anything on ourselves and even our current plans to go to Ireland next month are beginning to look dodgy, so what the hell? You can't take it with you.
 
Hope you enjoy the new computer. Gaming is an expensive pastime. And the computer itself can be a bit like Trigger's broom. Mine was born around 2000 and since then most things have been replaced, at different times, 4 or five times :)
 
Kannon Fodda said:
Hope you enjoy the new computer. Gaming is an expensive pastime. And the computer itself can be a bit like Trigger's broom. Mine was born around 2000 and since then most things have been replaced, at different times, 4 or five times :)
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Probably still cheaper than real flying lessons.

What is it now - £100p.h on a Cessna, or am I out of date?
 
nicholsong said:
Probably still cheaper than real flying lessons.

What is it now - £100p.h on a Cessna, or am I out of date?
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You'd be lucky. I spent £83/ph in 2000 and had to drive 50 mile round trip to get that. The local airfields were £140 per hour, hence the driving. A quick check shows the local airfield is now £215 per hour.
 
Well out of date, try £180 plus on a PA28

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