Flight Sims

[CudaMan]

The level of detail in the world looks pretty amazing. This might be fun to mess around with sometime. Is there any way to spend well under $100 on controls that don't suck? I know little about flight (my sister took me up in her Luscombe once!) but I imagine I'd need a joystick, throttle, and rudder pedals at the very least. I imagine I could use my racing pedals for rudders even though the feel wouldn't be the same left and right (I'd guess to use the clutch and throttle).

Do MS flight simulators ever go on sale after a while?

Triple screen support?

[Freude am Fahren]

You can find some cheapo joysticks with a small built in throttle/slider for well under $100. I had a Microsoft branded one that I got in probably 1997 that I used for years. I think I actually still have it They often have twist for rudder. If you want actual rudders, there will probably be a jump in price over $100 for the whole setup.

Don't know about sales, but it's on game pass.

Triple screen isn't officially supported I think, but people have been using it anyway. Maybe need to use like Nvidia Surround or similar to create a single virtual monitor, like you used to have to do for everything.

[Jason]

I hate that I'm contemplating buying a PC for this.

[Blerpa]

Don't buy it now: wait for the new AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs to come out and new Nvidia 3000 GPU series to be available as well.

[Tom Servo]

The level of detail in the world looks pretty amazing. This might be fun to mess around with sometime. Is there any way to spend well under $100 on controls that don't suck? I know little about flight (my sister took me up in her Luscombe once!) but I imagine I'd need a joystick, throttle, and rudder pedals at the very least. I imagine I could use my racing pedals for rudders even though the feel wouldn't be the same left and right (I'd guess to use the clutch and throttle).

Do MS flight simulators ever go on sale after a while?

Triple screen support?

It actually controls really well with a game controller, that was part of their schtick for it. A flight stick is better of course, but if you're like me and a lot of it is just sight-seeing/relaxing, the controller works really nicely. I've seen people saying they have made it work with XBox, PS4, and Switch Pro controllers, I've only tried the XBox.

For my flight stick, I have a Saitek X-52 which you twist to use the rudder. It works well for me, but it's well over $100 (around $150). I've thought about trying to use my Fanatec Clubsport pedals for the rudder but haven't actually done that yet. There's also an option to have it automatically handle the rudder for you in the interim.

Like others mentioned, it's on gamepass which is $1 for the first month and $5 every month thereafter. That gets you about 12 months of it for the price of the base game if you don't want to commit, but it does keep you stuck to the base game without the extra planes/modeled airports that you get with the higher end ones. Still, $1 for a month to see if you like it seems reasonable.

It's been 14 years since Microsoft put out a flight simulator, so not sure what their sale schedule looks like. I know other MS games go on sale somewhat regularly, but I wouldn't expect it for a number of months for this one.

Also, as Freude said, triple screen doesn't appear to be officially supported but there are plenty of examples on /r/flightsim of people flying with triple monitors.

[Freude am Fahren]

I think I tried using my Fanatec for rudders as well once before, and I don't think it worked because you need it to be one axis with a center, not two axes.

But that was probably X-Plane or FSX, so it may be possible still.

[Rare White Ape]

It is definitely possible to use racing pedals as rudders. And you can use the brake as… a brake! But depending on your setup it might mean you have to have a wheel base plugged in as well just to pass through the commands.

I use an Xbox game pad. If you’re into that my biggest tip is to reduce stick axis sensitivity down to -70 or -80% because it’s twitchy as hell.

The game pad gives me everything I need for the immediate flight controls - if you’ve ever played GTA or Ace Combat then you’ll pick it up pretty easily. But you will still need the mouse and keyboard for the more technical stuff.

[Tom Servo]

Heh, I tried setting the brake pedal to work as the brake, because for some reason the button it's supposed to be on my flight stick doesn't seem to actually do much of anything (the game controller settings app in Windows shows the button working fine, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware thing).

I started up the sim at Santa Monica, took off the parking brake, throttled up a bit to get to about 20 knots and then hit the brake pedal. It worked, the plane bucked forward a bit and stopped quickly! Woot! Flew to another airport, landed, then cruised along at about 30 knots unable to slow down, mashing on the brake pedal until I crashed off the end of the runway.

I'm clearly doing something very wrong with the brakes, but hell if I know what.

[Freude am Fahren]

Hmm, gotta figure out how to take screenshots when playing in HDR.

[Yobbo NZ]

I'm wondering how old the maps are outside of major centres.
I took off from Mangalore airport (country Victoria) which is about 10mins from my place. Flew to Nagambie, where I live and found our house. It hasn't had a shed out the back for around 4 years. Nagambie "airport" was a skydiving centre which moved around 5 years ago as well.
Still pretty cool though.