Hah, yeah. Flight simmers are the “You kids get out of my yard”-iest gamers around.
As for performance, I would expect no improvements over patched FSX. The problem is that the original developers expected CPU’s to continue to scale, while modern games leverage the GPU for much of the heavy lifting. If you’ve got a decent CPU it’s certainly flyable and tolerable, though often requires some fiddling with obscure config variables. Even then, the scenery (trees and houses) pop-in is pretty distracting, and complex add-ons will drag down the frame rate.
It’ll probably run great when we have 6ghz CPU’s.
Prepar3d is really the future of FSX. Performance is scaling with GPU’s, it looks prettier, and they are apparently working on a 64-bit version.
The majority of the breakages seems to be connected to the Dovetail distro, which doesn’t include all of the simconnect.dll & support file releases. In MS FSX, you had three SDK releases - stock, SR1, and SR2 (Acceleration Pack). Without all three installed, things break, including TrackIR!
Fortunately, some kind souls out there have dumped these files to their dropboxes (check the Steam forums). With these files installed, my TrackIR and Orbix Pacific Northwest add-ons work flawlessly.
Prepar3d is really the future of FSX.
Sure. But FSX is $5 on Steam. I’ll deal with the constant 25-30 fps regardless of rig and the absence of pure shiny, especially in a flight sim where fools do not capped.
Finally installed and played this and find myself disappointed. I played Flight Sim 2004 extensively, to the point that I felt I could actually fly a 737.
In FSX the graphics are bad, basically the same as Flight Sim 2004. The 3d views are weak, with limited mouse interaction and poor visibility of gauges. Weird popups such as the kneepad (shift-f10?), compass. Setting up flights, using the GPS, everything. It all feels pre-flight sim 2004 to me, as in “I don’t remember it being this bad”. The key bindings are atrocious, as are the default gamepad button maps. Tutorial missions are either incredibly slow-paced, or don’t provide enough information to a new player.
Maybe it’s lame to complain that an old game is old, maybe I needed to spend $60 on it so that I’m more self-motivated to learn and/or re-map all the keys and buttons and go through the tutorials and put up with my internal complaints, then find the good stuff that’s hidden in there. But from 2004 I remember several real-time flights of 90mins or more in the dusk, over Seattle or Mt St Helens, and loving the King Air (probably my favorite plane) and being astounded by the graphcis. Can’t reconnect though.
All the above said, I don’t mind putting in that 5 dollars mostly to show support and get the next one going.
Is there really any hope that another Microsoft Flight Simulator will ever be made? I was a fan of the series from like version 2.0 or something, and still fondly remember reserving time on the computers at the local library so I could fly around with those awful graphics and swap 5.25" floppies every time I flew into a new area :P I also had some really amazing multiplayer experiences with FSX, flying with other pilots and real people playing ATC using real radio calls, etc.
But, the series is dead and I don’t expect it to ever return. I haven’t really gone back to a hardcore civilian flight sim in a really long time, though. Doesn’t X-Plane and others fill the void and do a much better job nowadays?
I just picked this up. It is quite amazing that this is the last generally played civilian flight sim. By modern standards the graphics are hilarious. Can’t someone just take the far cry or just cause games and build a dedicated civilian flight sim using that engine? I’d be a day-one buyer. Or even just revamp FSX with better graphics and support for modern shaders blah blah
Most people still flying FSX are using extensive mods and payware, the game has a huge modding and 3rd party addon scene. The graphics can be improved a ton, if you’re willing to invest the time and money required to do so.
I just VFR around the Pacific Northwest, because that’s the ORBX payware I have. Along with another payware that generally improves everything in NA. (Something something X).
So, I haven’t played this since it was just the ‘basic’ X edition. So my questions about that video…
Is that the Steam Edition of X?
Are there addons needed for the ground activity (carts, pushback, jetways, etc), or is that in the Steam Edition?
If it’s not Steam X, what simulator is that?
I played the hell out of X when it came out. If all I need to upgrade is get the Steam edition, I’m in for probably a hell of a lot of cash (given all the DLC that seems available for it).
FSX and Prepar3d also still suffer from poor performance. Out of the box you might get 90+ fps, but add in some airplanes or scenery like what you see in that video, and you’re happy to get 25 or 30. It’s fine, considering that the languid pace of the game means you aren’t trying to dodge SAMs or some such, but it’s all a bit disappointing for such an old game.
IMHO, the place for Civi flight sims these these days is Aerofly 2. Development is a bit slow, but it’s such as a solid platform and so awesome in VR. Orbx scenery at 100+fps? Yes, please.
Ohhhhh … and it looks like Orbx has released their first “TrueEarth” product for Aerofly. I’ll be snapping that up this weekend.
Here’s what I loved about MFSX: It was easy enough to modify the game to add in ‘real world’ airlines so I could pretend to work my way up the ladder flying actual flights on actual airlines. And have ATC respond with the airline name and all that. If the Steam Edition offers any sort of upgrade over the original, I may look at it again because I do miss the game.
