Flightsim 2004 Eye Candy

[Beirut]

Flightsim threads as about as popular as porn spam around here, but there are at least four of us who fly amongst the Org.'s 19,000 members.

So this is for you, guys.

These are the best flightsim graphics I've ever had.

It's FS2004 + Ground Environment Pro + Flight Environment + Ultimate Terrain Canada + FS Genesis 38m terrain mesh. There are still a few ways to bring the graphics. Looking into those.

This is top notch flying fun!









Because it's fun!

[Lemur]

Wow. Just wow. What kinds of frame rates do you get when you turn on that level of glitter and gloss?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Who minds pr0n spam?

I really liked the terrain in the second to last biplane shot. Not too crazy about the city shots - although they probably look better when flying past than a still shot where you can look at the pixellated baseball field.

Gah to flight simulators in general, though. Anything more complicated than Freespace means I'm crashing and dying multiple times. Much simpler to blow things up.

[Beirut]

Wow. Just wow. What kinds of frame rates do you get when you turn on that level of glitter and gloss?

Usually 25 or better. Rarely under twenty even coming in to a busy airport. This why I spend more time with FS9 than FSX. In FS9 I can pretty much do anything and go anywhere. IN FSX, there are definite limits to the flying because of its huge hit on the CPU/GPU.

I lock the FS9 FPS in-game at 30. That balances the effort the CPU puts on the textures and the auto-gen.

Gah to flight simulators in general, though.

Yep, there a lot of that around here.

[Husar]

I agree with the Lemur.
It looks very nice. Tried to talk my dad into getting me FSX Professional on Saturday but looks like I have to buy it myself somewhen.
If you have FSX, maybe you can put up some screens to show how that looks on your rig in comparison. I wonder how much of a performance indicator the demo is with that carribean setting. I particularly wonder how it would run in some heavily forested areas because it seems the trees really drag my 7950GT down even on some of the carribean islands.

[drone]

It must be so easy to fly on sims these days. The first flight sim I had was for the Apple ][ (I think it was by Microsoft). Landing, or just getting any depth perception at all on the horrible vector graphics (green-screen, as well) was a pain.

Nowadays, you crazy kids have beautiful graphics, force-feedback sticks, pedals, multiple screens. Must be nice...

[Mikeus Caesar]

Are the crashes as spectacular as the landscape?

Honestly, what's a flight sim game without some spectacular crashes and explosions?

[UglyandHasty]

Nice pics Beirut, i'm almost tempted to try one FS this winter. Ultimate terrain Canada, it add more realism to the ground ? Can you fly everywhere ? Even over Sept-Iles ?

[Beirut]

Nice pics Beirut, i'm almost tempted to try one FS this winter. Ultimate terrain Canada, it add more realism to the ground ? Can you fly everywhere ? Even over Sept-Iles ?

Well, if it's any indicator as to terrain detail, look at the the fourth street up from the bottom in the U outlined by the train tracks just above the wing. I lived there as a kid. I played in the park just to the left every day.


The terrain is made up of two payware programs. Ground Environment replaces the default textures with better looking one and lines up the auto-gen houses, buildings, and trees along the roads. Ultimate Terrain re-arranges those textures into more appropriate and accurate form. It also much improves the shape of towns and coastlines and, as you can see in the pic, places all the roads correctly.

Add a mesh program, and then the terrain elevation is very much improved. The bottom shots show improved terrain elevation. makes the flying incredible.

You have to layer the programs together in the scenery files but that's a point and click affair. No big deal.

Sept Isles? I'll get you a pic.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Gah to flight simulators in general, though.

Yep, there a lot of that around here.

I honestly don't understand why people think that way. With a halfway decent joystick, a flight sim is one of the most fun things you can do on a computer.

But you do need a joystick. I learned that one the hard way, but right now I have a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro sitting next to my computer, and I absoloutly love it.

[Beirut]

My Lord, ten posts in a flightsim thread. I may faint.

UglyandHasty,


Sept Isles, la belle province!




This is Ground Environment + Ultimate Terrain Canada. if you stuck some elevation mesh on this, it would look twice as good. Also, there are several free add-ons from local guys that improve the airport and small towns, things like that.

[Beirut]

I agree with the Lemur.
It looks very nice. Tried to talk my dad into getting me FSX Professional on Saturday but looks like I have to buy it myself somewhen.
If you have FSX, maybe you can put up some screens to show how that looks on your rig in comparison. I wonder how much of a performance indicator the demo is with that carribean setting. I particularly wonder how it would run in some heavily forested areas because it seems the trees really drag my 7950GT down even on some of the carribean islands.

FSX is a serious pig of a program. Even with a hot rig you'll need tweaks and fixes before you can get good FPS. And for the moment, don't even think about flying at busy high detail airports in big cities, not unless you've got a smoking hot PC.

Mind you, the FSX bush flights over the mountains give good FPS and great flights. The FSX planes have excellent cockpits as well.

[Husar]

Well, I like games that look good now and even better in the future.
I will buy it once I have some money left for it and a new joystick.
I need to recalibrate my Saitek Cyborg 3D everytime I start windows and even then it's not that accurate.

[Zenicetus]

My Lord, ten posts in a flightsim thread. I may faint.

Hey, I love flightsims! Thanks for the eye candy and topic bump. I don't get to talk about 'em much because that whole end of the market seems to have dried up, especially on the combat side where my main interest lies.

My first was Flight Simulator on an IBM PC, no hard drive, fugly aqua and magenta CGA "color" graphics. Anyone remember the black stick-figure biplane combat in that one, and the checkerboard ground with solid black 2D mountain cut-outs at the edges?

In pre-Web days I was one of the Sysops in the Compuserve flight sim forum. We used to organize "fly ins" where you'd hook up a modem connection (1200 baud was hot stuff back then) and one person would be on the chat channel, typing to everyone else and describing your landing. I did some end-user custom scenery work in the first version of FS where that was possible... really primitive stuff by today's standards.... just a hack, really. But it was fun.

But my heart is in the combat sims, especially helo combat, which is a really dead area now. My HOTAS rig (CH Fighterstick, Pro throttle and pedals) only gets hauled out these days for the occasional space sim, and even most of those are designed to work more smoothly with a mouse these days. I think people are forgetting how to program for a joystick. The last combat flight sim I tried was Pacific Fighters, and it was kinda... meh, really nice graphics but boring and repetitive missions ("Quick, Scramble! The Japanese are coming to bomb your airfield again, for the 100th time in a row! Scramble!").

Every few months I think about picking up FS 2004 to brush up on realistic landings and takeoffs, heavy weather flying, etc. But something else always comes up (like M2TW). I don't think I can run FSX smoothly on my current rig, and I'd wait to get that when the next full computer upgrade rolls around. I think I probably need a good combat sim to really get me back in the mood again, but maybe I'll give FS 2004 a shot.

[Beirut]

Hey there Zenicetus,

The new all-in-on DVD of Il2-Pacific fighters is just out. It has the original series up to Pacific Fighters, plus three full expansion packs. All kinds of new planes, weapons, maps, and some kind of fancy new flight modelling.

This is the Grand Enchilada of prophead combat flightsims. I'm getting it for sure.

http://pacific-fighters.com/en/home.php

By the by, if you're not using that lovely CH HOTAS...

[UglyandHasty]

Hey thanks for the pics Beirut, you're the man ! I'm really impress by the details shown. You even see the railways infrastructure of the Iron Ore company. Add a few cargo ship in the bay, and you could almost pass it for a real picture. How do you ask for bringing me there for Christmas ??

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Can anyone recommend a decent flight sim with more modern aircraft then in Combat Flight Simulator 3. I've heard of Lock On and that sort of thing, but what's worth it?

I'm also looking to get a civilian sim, but I think I know what I'm getting there, thanks to Beirut.

[Husar]

I could suggest Wings over Europe from Tsuyoshi Kawahito, the man who made European Air War, it's a follow-up of Strike Fighters:Project One.
I only have Strike fighters so far but the engine is the same. It's a light sim though so if you prefer lots of realism and buttons, look for something else, though people say the flightmodels are really good and there are tons of free addons to be found, ioncluding many cold war aircraft.

[Zenicetus]

Hey there Zenicetus,

The new all-in-on DVD of Il2-Pacific fighters is just out. It has the original series up to Pacific Fighters, plus three full expansion packs. All kinds of new planes, weapons, maps, and some kind of fancy new flight modelling.

This is the Grand Enchilada of prophead combat flightsims. I'm getting it for sure.

http://pacific-fighters.com/en/home.php

Thanks for the heads-up, I might get that! I thought it was a very good simulation/game engine, but the Pacific Fighters version just suffered from crappy mission design. Maybe the expansions for IL2 and whatever else is in there, is better.

By the by, if you're not using that lovely CH HOTAS...

Yeah, over my cold dead body.

Can anyone recommend a decent flight sim with more modern aircraft then in Combat Flight Simulator 3. I've heard of Lock On and that sort of thing, but what's worth it?

I haven't kept track lately, but the recent gold standard (I think?) used to be Falcon 4.0 - Allied Force:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/falco...ce/review.html

I haven't flown it... I was one of the beta testers for the bugfarm that was Falcon 3.0, and that experience scarred me for life. Also, I prefer prop sims or helicopters to the fast movers. But this looks like the combat equivalent of FS, if you want something super complex and realistic (the PDF manual is 700+ pages). This has been out long enough that the major bugs have probably been squashed, but I have no direct experience with it. Has anyone here flown Falcon 4.0?

[Beirut]

You tested Falcon3? very cool. I still have my F3 maps lying around somewhere. Also had the expansion packs. Really great stuff.

I flew Falcon 3 on a 286/16Mhz with no video card, no sound, no joystick and a B&W screen. Loved it. Flew it last on a 486/DX100 with 4 megs of RAM, and sound, colour, and a joystick. Loved it even more.

I've had Falcon4 since it came out. Also have Falcon4:Allied Force, which is Falcon4 with all the bugs out an even higher level of realism. The graphics engine is ancient. Falcon 4 is for the ultra-hardcore crowd. You'll never see this depth of realism in a flightsim anywhere else. But the cost is huge complexity, not very user friendly, and the aforementioned 1998 graphics. But, if you can handle all that, it's amazing. Also, it flies well on older hardware.

Lock On, on the other hand, is a CPU/GPU pig, but is ice cream for the eyes. Gorgeous graphics, some good scraps, and it has the best A-10 action you'll find. I bought it just for that reason. Not nearly as realistic as Falcon4. Feels a bit... cold as a flightsim. Never held my interest, really, much more into props.

Nw X-52 HOTAS. Looks nice. Not force feedback, though, bummer.
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/review/x52.htm

[Csargo]

I like to play flight sims every once in a while. Haven't played one in a while though.

[Zenicetus]

Nw X-52 HOTAS. Looks nice. Not force feedback, though, bummer.
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/review/x52.htm

Yeah, but I don't think any of the "serious" HOTAS rigs have ever included FF, unfortunately. Maybe because it's a moving target, in terms of game support.

I've been through most of the HOTAS rigs over the years, starting with CH, then Thrustmaster, then Saitek for a while. I bailed out on my Saitek setup a couple years ago, because their Windows driver didn't like my system for some reason. It loaded as a background process and kept pinging the CPU constantly, interfering with other stuff (like disk defrag) when I wasn't flying. Maybe their drivers are better now.

I went back to CH for the current rig because they make very solid, if somewhat boring hardware (compared to Saitek's flashy, sci-fi design look). CH also has the flight yoke, and the very cool twin engine and multi-engine throttle quadrants, if you ever want to get deeper into civilian hardware simulation.

About the only complaint I have with the CH Fighterstick/throttle/pedals is that the stick is pretty big, and it's designed for a wide range of motion. That works fine for civilian and prop fighter sims, but it's not so good for many space combat games that seem designed for more of a short-throw "twitch" joystick input. They all seem to be moving towards mouse input though, so it's not a big deal.

[lars573]

Are the crashes as spectacular as the landscape?

According the Sim columist in PC gamer M$ removed/neutered crashes in the next version after 9/11.

On the general topic of a flight sim. Complex control schemes make Lars I even have a joy stick. Must be too cheap. I couldn't get flying right with it in Star Wars battlefront 2 or Battlefeild 2.

[Kekvit Irae]

Needs less biplane and more C130.

[Zenicetus]

According the Sim columist in PC gamer M$ removed/neutered crashes in the next version after 9/11.

I remember reading that too, but wasn't it just "flying into building" type crashes? Did they nerf sloppy-but-normal landing crashes too? That would be a shame

On the general topic of a flight sim. Complex control schemes make Lars I even have a joy stick. Must be too cheap. I couldn't get flying right with it in Star Wars battlefront 2 or Battlefeild 2.

Complex controls are only needed with the multi-engine civilian flight sims, and modern jet-era combat sims. The basic single engine prop planes and prop fighter sims can be easily flown with just a joystick... although I have to say that a set of pedals are really neat if you have a sim that models the rudder properly, especially with weather effects like crosswinds. There's a technique called a sideslip with the rudder and stick, which is the only way (in a realistic flight sim) to keep pointed down the runway when the wind is blowing hard at a 90 degree angle to your approach. Pedals are also a big help in fine-tuning your gunfire aim in a prop fighter sim. You can "walk" the bullets across the target with your feet, while remaining in a tight banked turn while chasing the target. It's possible to control the rudder with finger controls like a roller wheel, or a "twist" joystick for rudder but it really doesn't feel the same.

OTOH, once you get into the full HOTAS stuff, it's hard to explain to non-fanatics what the pedals under your desk are for. I usually just give up and say "yeah, they're great for car racing games."

[Beirut]

OTOH, once you get into the full HOTAS stuff, it's hard to explain to non-fanatics what the pedals under your desk are for. I usually just give up and say "yeah, they're great for car racing games."

Ha!

I've been thinking of a new HOTAS, but not a chance before next summer. For now, I'm very happy with my MS FFB2 for a main stick and a Saitek Cyborg Evo as the throttle. Works very well. There are enough buttons on both sticks to keep me off the keyboard 90% of the time and I like the way the Saitek works as a throttle. Middle rest position is 50%, pull back for less and push forward for more. In Il2-Pacific Fighters it makes for very fast, interactive, and intuitive speed control. In FS9 and FSX, I use the big fat thumb switches on the Saitek for speed control.

I like a HOTAS with the rudder in the stick. Personal preference.

[Beirut]

Needs less biplane and more C130.

M' Lady.

Ever seen one of these?

[Mikeus Caesar]

According the Sim columist in PC gamer M$ removed/neutered crashes in the next version after 9/11.

Well that's rather...retarded. I find there to be a lot of entertainment value in cutting out your engines in mid-flight, setting into a dive and then seeing if you can recover before the ground gives you a big hug.

Particularly fun if done over a rather mountainess area. Clip your wing on a mountain peak, go into an uncontrollable spin and *smash*.

Very fun.

[lars573]

Well that's rather...retarded. I find there to be a lot of entertainment value in cutting out your engines in mid-flight, setting into a dive and then seeing if you can recover before the ground gives you a big hug.

Particularly fun if done over a rather mountainess area. Clip your wing on a mountain peak, go into an uncontrollable spin and *smash*.

Very fun.

Thinking about it what he said was that while you can still crash into things, there are no effects for it. They were all removed and the plane just goes pop.

[Kekvit Irae]

M' Lady.

Ever seen one of these?
[xIMG]https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/horsesass/cl130_2.jpg[/IMG]

Nope. I live (relatively) next door to a major Air Farce base with no major body of water around for miles, so all I see are normal C130s and C130s with sensors. Occasionally I get to see an F-22 or A-10 () fly overhead, but those are rare.