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Thread: Flight Sims

  1. #1
    Director Freude am Fahren's Avatar
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    Flight Sims

    Once again, I thought we had a thread already, but I guess not. I've been reading up on Prepar3d (I know there was a thread at our last stop), and it looks really promising. So I just bought it, it's downloading at home as I sit here at work.

    With Flight being a complete flop, it looks like this is the star right now. Surely not the same following as FSX, but with it being almost completely compatible, many developers are releasing simultaneously for both. And even FSX dedicated items work in many cases. So why not take advantage of P3D's advantages in performance?

    I've also been wanting to get back into DCS: Warthog. The biggest reason I got away from that was not the complexity, but the dexterity, you could say. With my joystick, one screen, it was dificult to find all the buttons, and keep track of keyboard hotkeys, not to metnion see where you want to look while mainting good flight control. I hope all of that will improve, as I've finally ordered TrackIR. And I also pre-ordered the new Seitek X55. I think that will make it much more enjoyable. Also still need to figure out how I want to set up my desk for triple monitors.

    As for War Thunder, I think I need to read into it a bit more. It can be fun and the ease of joining into a multiplayer session certainly is appealing, but I haven't figured out the way you progress in this game, so I'm woefully undermachined in most battles.

  2. #2
    Consultant KillerB's Avatar
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    Well, Prepa3d *IS* FSX with updates - Lockheed Martin bought all the IP from Microsoft.

    I don't have it but then that's because I don't have my desktop PC set up out here in CA and probably won't anytime soon. Plus, I'd rather spend my time and money flying for real.

  3. #3
    反重力 Rikadyn's Avatar
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    Warthunder, you are pretty underpowered to begin with, especially if you play certain countries early on, because as it is now your plan is an old used model when you get it, and you have to upgrade it to get it performing properly. Kinda a balance mechanic to keep the player from rushing too quickly through the game.

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    I'm really digging on Prepare3d 2.0, it's nice to see the technology in the game finally catching up to like early 2000s levels (seriously, I remember buying 3D graphics cards back in the late 90s and we have to wait until 2014 to get ~FSX to support them?) What I really need more than anything else to mess around with that more is a significantly less shitty computer desk. Got no room for anything, I can't even have the joystick, throttle, and keyboard on the desk at the same time.

  5. #5
    Director Freude am Fahren's Avatar
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    I only tried p3d briefly last night, but I got bunch of crashes, and freezes. It was saying my computer was out of memory, but it wasn't even close. I'm guessing it's bc it's 32-bit and can only utilize 4gb? But i wasn't even on max settings or near a city. I'm going to have to look into that. Surely the game doesn't constantly try to use more memory than it's programmed to use?

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    That's surprising, I have had no problems at all with crashes or freezes.

  7. #7
    Director Freude am Fahren's Avatar
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    I tuned the settings a bit and haven't had any problems. Mem usage hovers around 2gb. I need to keep messing with some setting, as I know p3d now utilizes the GPU much more than FSX and even v1.x.

    By the way, while trying to install a scenery add-on for FSX (ORBX PNW demo), my registry apparently points to the wrong place (an old FSX install) and thus I can't install it. I tried FSX Registy fix but that didn't seem to work.

    [edit] Went through my registry and manually changed every reference to the old location to the new one, ugh. But it worked.
    Last edited by Freude am Fahren; March 24th, 2014 at 09:02 AM.

  8. #8
    Supreme Member lostnight's Avatar
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    I went to the Prepar3d site, and it confused me, looks like it is marketed more as actually flight simulator lessons for pilots rather than a flight sim for gamers who want something realistic but don't plan on getting an actual license.

  9. #9
    Director Freude am Fahren's Avatar
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    It is a bit odd. Best I can figure, it's all just legalese in order to get around some kind of rights agreement they have in order to continue the platform. I got an academic license. It says in small letters in the corner "Academic License." Other than that, it's the same as the other main version.

  10. #10
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    Yeah, short version:

    Microsoft decided to abandon the Flight Simulator franchise and instead start the Microsoft Flight project. It was a free-to-play simulator that was dumbed down a bit (though still not terrible), and then everything but the first part of the world and a couple of planes were pay add-ons. It didn't take off at all - too simmy for your average gamer, not simmy enough for people into sims, and after 6 months or so, Microsoft abandoned it.

    Around that same time, Lockheed bought up the code and almost all of the actual Flight Simulator team and brought them in house. Part of the agreement with Microsoft was that Lockheed would not try to compete in the entertainment market against Microsoft Flight, so they market it as an educational tool and only the professional, $300 or so license was available. After Flight was abandoned, Lockheed came out with the "Academic License". However, I think Lockheed hasn't bothered to spend the time and money to get Microsoft to change the original agreement, so if you look in the EULA for Flight Simulator, it actually says you cannot use it for entertainment purposes.

    Extremely silly, but at this point everyone pretty much knows that Lockheed are winking everytime they mention something like that. It is FSX updated to work with modern, dual-core processors and use DirectX 11.

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