Newbie

homer simpson

The tread title speaks volumes really:o.....

Well i'm a real newbie, scraping the bottom of the barrel newbie, i know absolutely noting about Virtual flying, ive always had a slight interest in aircraft (or rather anything that goes fast) so i decided to download the demo version of Microsoft flight, although i find it dam hard when using the mouse and trying to figure out what buttons / controls have what effect on things its still very dam addictive! After about 30 attempts i just about managed to land the 700 i find it hard to know which view ect to use....

Now here the thing is it worth spending the cash (which is very limited ) on buying a flight sim game to spend my spare time on, and if so which one??? and i assume its pretty much imposable with the mouse so then which joystick? i had a look on amazon and could get FSX gold along with some training thingy-my-gig, or should i be looking elsewhere, and maybe a different software package...

Any help greatly appreciated, also if anyone is selling some gear gimmie a PM, but i am a tightarse


P.S. i also made the mistake of looking through the sticky on here, and had a look at and downloaded the ATC thingy and that just made me doubly confused as i hadn't a notion how it worked, well i did say bottom of the barrel newbie!

Mr Benevolent

Try the X-Plane demo as well - it's more realistic if a little less polished than FSX. It also has the advantage of allowing you to design your own aircraft from scratch.

What kind of aircraft do you like flying? What are your PC's specs? What you choose really depends on the answers to the above. Do you want to potter around or go ultra-realistic? There's no way of training except to get stuck into takeoffs and landings, then decide if you want to carry passengers, cargo or weapons!

Don't worry about ATC until you're confident enough to takeoff and land again without fumbling for every control.

homer simpson

Confab wrote: »

Try the X-Plane demo as well - it's more realistic if a little less polished than FSX. It also has the advantage of allowing you to design your own aircraft from scratch.

What kind of aircraft do you like flying? What are your PC's specs? What you choose really depends on the answers to the above. Do you want to potter around or go ultra-realistic? There's no way of training except to get stuck into takeoffs and landings, then decide if you want to carry passengers, cargo or weapons!

Don't worry about ATC until you're confident enough to takeoff and land again without fumbling for every control.

I'd prefer a commercial sim rather than a fighter type game, i've not got a gamer PC but i have a fairly new laptop, with pretty much full memory (external hardrive) i play the new football manager game and never had a problem with it, and the FSX demo works grand...

Should i be able to land / take off with using the mouse? cos i'm not that good with using the mouse, or will the joystick make a big difference?

P.S. i tried downloading the demo you linked to but it failed each time

dnme

Homer

Get this, it's the bargain of the year
http://www.asda-entertainment.co.uk/games/platforms/pc/flight-simulator-x-gold-edition/9994409.html

Mr Benevolent

dnme wrote: »

Get this, it's the bargain of the year
http://www.asda-entertainment.co.uk/games/platforms/pc/flight-simulator-x-gold-edition/9994409.html

That 's some bargain.

OP you really need a joystick. Something from Saitek or Logitech will do fine, and later on you can upgrade to the X52 Pro (I just got one, it's fantastic) or something similar. If the demo runs fine on your laptop you should be ok, just make sure you download the two Service Packs for FSX. And give X-Plane a go, it has a much higher fidelity flight model.

P.S. i tried downloading the demo you linked to but it failed each time

Keep trying, or download the 8.64 demo instead.

dnme

Hey Confab

I have the x52 Pro also. I have not used it properly yet, just keep using it straight out of the box without and thought to profiles.

I'm not so sure I like it. The ps2 cable connecting the two boxes is very annoying. The connectors protrude about two inches out from the boxes and they come undone very easily. I'm thinking about modding it to house the connectors inside each box.

I bought that FSX from ASDA 2 weeks ago and have started messing around with it. For now just flying a cessna. Do you use any particular profile for FSX? Do you use different profiles for different planes?

Nforce

Confab wrote: »

just make sure you download the two Service Packs for FSX.

Not needed if you've FSX Gold as this includes the Acceleration Addon pack and has the service packs applied "out of the box".

My mrs got me the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke and Throttle quadrant for xmas.Time to retire my trusty MS Sidewinder II FFB stick.

loldog

You can try Flightgear, it's free and open source. Play around with learning how to fly the Cessna 172p. Flightgear is free and open source and has a great community who make planes and contribute enhanced scenery and such.

I bought FSX and used it for a while but I went back to Flightgear in the end. FSX felt too much like a video game rather than a simulator.

The default scenery for Flightgear is butt ugly, due to licensing issues, but you can download add-ons and enhanced scenery to make it look a little better.

Here's a little video I made of a flight in the C172 from Donegal to Sligo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyMW3OtORoY

My second recommendation would be X-Plane, which is not free but good.

Here's another Flightgear video I made with the F16, you might like the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Zn2kAkcc4

Nforce

Best visuals/graphics with the greatest number of high quality addons is without a shadow of a doubt FSX. Granted , many of the default (and a lot of addon) aircraft have very poor flight dynamics. There are,however, many addon aircraft...usually payware...with very realistic handling/operating procedures. A2A Accusim and Dodosim come to mind.
The default scenery isn't bad, but the likes of ORBX FTX scenery brings FSX to a whole new level of immersion.


Xplane has always impressed with it's flight dynamics handling....but it still lags,by a huge margin, behind FSX.

homer simpson

Tried that flightgear site there, its ok... not overly keen on it if i'm honest i got some serious lag and had to restart a few times also 3 of the tutorials don't seem to work!

Still cant get the X-plane demo going yet, but looking forward to trying it


Hold on so you Buy FSX then you have to buy aircraft scenery and other things..... my god whats the point in that, if your paying for something then that should be it, bar a few add-on's!

Mr Benevolent

homer_simpson wrote: »

Hold on so you Buy FSX then you have to buy aircraft scenery and other things..... my god whats the point in that, if your paying for something then that should be it, bar a few add-on's!

Nope, the planes that come with FSX aren't great but plenty of people use them. The really good airline ones come from PMDG (737 & MD11), not sure about the smaller planes. You can get free planes from Avsim and some of them are quite good. There are other ways of getting them too.

Nforce

There's lot's of quality freeware available for FSX...

Try FTX free Tasmania demo and AussieX airports

For aircraft... seek out Tim "Piglet" Conrad's freeware at Flightsim.com/Avsim.com/Simviation.com, Ant's Aussie freeware Tiger Moth, Rollus' Mirage 2000,and some fantastic offerings here including a just released Fouga Zephyr!

All the above are just the tip of the iceberg of "payware quality" free offerings for FSX.

iPlop

Make sure you have a good graphics card and plenty of memory for FSX.It can't be stressed enough how vital it is to enjoy the game.An Nvidia 8800gtx will suffice and at least 3 gigs of memory