Flight Sim hardware: Survey

[a2capt]

I'm curious on what folks are using for flight sims, and general feedback on smoothness, etc;

Flight sim. software examples are:

X-Plane 8 - http://www.x-plane.com - Mac OS X, Linux, Windows

Flight Gear - http://www.flightgear.org - Open source, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc, Windows.

Flight Simulator X
Flight Simulator 2004
Flight Simulator 2002

Whats your feedback on fluidity of the movements, reaction of the controls, stuttering/stalling of graphics for loading, etc.

Is the Real Thing easier to fly, that is, is the simulator software too quick, too jerky, etc?

Are you projecting on a wall, in a cockpit/box, table top PC, etc?

Software: X-Plane 8.61
Add ons:

Hard Drive size/speed/interface 160 gig 7200RPM ATA133
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600
Video Card: nVidia 7950 GS 512MB
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4.9

Input controls. CH Products USB rudder, yoke and quadrant.
                       TrackIR 4

[Mustang]

I use X-Plane exclusively.  Used it to great advantage during my instrument training.  I haven't seen Flight Simulator X yet, but the nice thing about X-Plane is that all the flight instruments are updated at the same rate as the outside scenery; if you're getting 60 fps out of your machine, every needle, every instrument is being updated at the same rate, resulting in perfectly fluid instrumentation.  The flight instruments in MS Flight Sim 2004 were still far too stuttery for me, so I gave up on it. 

I run it on an IBM ThinkPad T42, 1.7 GHz Pentium M processor, 1GB RAM, ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 video card, 128 MB.

I use just a Logitech Wingman wireless joystick, though I'm eyeing the forthcoming Saitek pro yoke setup--it looks phenomenal, even better than the CH Products yoke.

[♠SARKID♠]

Well, if you've got the hardware, go with Flight Simulator X.  Perfect physics, graphics, and every control you could ever need.  It takes a lot of hardware to run it, but if you can, its definitely worth it!

[Cadet Tillett]

Well, if you've got the hardware, go with Flight Simulator X.  Perfect physics, graphics, and every control you could ever need.  It takes a lot of hardware to run it, but if you can, its definitely worth it!

I agree with the above.  However, if you don't have the necessary system to run X, go with FlightSim 2004.  The flight dynamics are pretty good, and the scenery/graphics are decent.  I had to change some of the default controller settings - the trim was way too sensitive, and there were other minor adjustments I had to make, but overall I was pleased with 2004.

Comments?

[floridacyclist]

We run 2004 on our 1.6Ghz machines with 512megs and 32-meg graphics cards. You can't run all the bells and whistles, but you can run enough. We haven't tried it on the network yet to see how that affects performance as we're still in the middle of setting 10 of these up for a big Cub Scout Aviation camp weekend after next, so I don't know if that will affect performance (displaying multiple AC at once); if this is a problem, we might throw 2000 on for the air races.

I know it handles Combat Flightsim (we just have 1 now as I can't find my 2 and 3...time to hit Ebay again) just fine with 4 pilots....looking forward to our first LAN party.

[Cadet Tillett]

We run 2004 on our 1.6Ghz machines with 512megs and 32-meg graphics cards. You can't run all the bells and whistles, but you can run enough. We haven't tried it on the network yet to see how that affects performance as we're still in the middle of setting 10 of these up for a big Cub Scout Aviation camp weekend after next, so I don't know if that will affect performance (displaying multiple AC at once); if this is a problem, we might throw 2000 on for the air races.

I know it handles Combat Flightsim (we just have 1 now as I can't find my 2 and 3...time to hit Ebay again) just fine with 4 pilots....looking forward to our first LAN party.

Sounds like a similar system to what I have.
Running flightsim in multiplayer shouldn't affect its performance much if at all.
Can I come to the LAN party? 

[Mustang]

Well, if you've got the hardware, go with Flight Simulator X.  Perfect physics, graphics, and every control you could ever need.  It takes a lot of hardware to run it, but if you can, its definitely worth it!

MS Flight Simulator does NOT rely on flight physics at ALL.  It relys on look-up tables for all aircraft performance parameters.

X-Plane, on the other hand, calculates the aerodynamics in real time.

[floridacyclist]

Is that what happens when I change the square footage of wing area or the location of the thrust line in the .air file and it affects AC performance?

[Mustang]

Yup.

[Brad]

Hmmm, maybe I should invest in X-Plane after all.

I'm a FS2004 guy myself. Dual-core Intel Centrino 1.73 GHz, 128 Mb graphics card, 2 Gb RAM. Works well enough for me. FSX though, bleh. Only way you get your money's worth for that thing is if you have Vista and DirectX 10.

I will say this though, FS2004 doesn't skimp on the educational material. In fact it gave me a good basis for a VOR/ADF lecture the other night. The DCC was certainly impressed, and next week we're even planning an outing to the local VOR station.

I also do some virtual ATC work with VATSIM; Tower controller in Atlanta, pretty fun stuff. Most of the pilots use FS2004 or FSX, but we also offer support for X-Plane? Have I caught your interest? PM me for more info!

[KFreeman]

Homebuilt sim-pit: CH F-16 Combat Stick, CH Combat Throttle (all electronics from a Nostromo N-50 inside), CH Rudder Pedals with toe brakes. The panel is a homebrew KB emulator with (2) MFDs and a host of other features. 27" TFT monitor. Picture is on my website www.kfreeman.com .

Computer: homebrew 3.2Ghz P4, 1.5Gb ram, 256Mb video and 320Gb hdd.

Running FS9, FS10 and IL2 '46.

"Flying" with the same group of six Wednesday nights for almost five years: XC, racing and combat.

Regards,
Ken