Flying with Bill

[nasaboy]

I recently bought Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 thought it might help with current PPL
here in the US. However I was really disappointed in graphics resolution of terrain etc NOTHING like indicated on
the package just a patch of blobs.
Im running it on a pretty hot laptop Sony Vaio 390 500 MHz so not sure whats up anyone
got any idea re hardware/ upgrades/ settings

Cheers

[OzmateBugsmasher]

Im unsure of the spec's required by FS2k, would would think that it needed at least a fast PC as you said buy with a 3D card (hardware accelerator) like a voodoo or TNT card.

Some laptops come with ATi Rage cards but these arn't super flash when it comes to 3d.

You may be running in software mode, and it has degraded the quality of the surface textures to give you a compromise and acceptable frame rates.

Can you run Quake3, half-life or any other 3d intensive games on your laptop?

[nasaboy]

thanks ozmate,
yeh even tho its real fast the sony vaio390 doesnt have a 3d card. also sim seems very slow with long gaps between updates very disappointing like an old 80s sim
not sure ! 60 bucks down the swannee !

[InFinRetirement]

I have been running FS2k for the past 6 weeks or so. It works very well with frame rates of 15-45. I fear your problem is your graphics card. Certainly 500mhz is fine but the GC must have the ability to cope with it.
I run a Celeron 400mhz, 128mb Ram and Matrox G400 card. This combination is very good and performs as well as any, and better than most. TNT has turned out to be difficult and Voodoo has problems too.

On a laptop? Not so sure about that. Don't think Microsoft considered that. It does work on a PC and the swoftware is good, with just a few bugs which are countered in a patch that is due out tomorrow from their download site.

You can e-mail me if I can be of any further help.

[nasaboy]

Thanks Infin,

I fear you are right just checked graphics card config on the Vaio and it doesnt support the 3D fast graphics type required,
its not that its not as great it truly is awful on this config others beware ! wonder if i could upgrade,
probably not on a laptop ? any ideas
thanks

[BoeingBoy]

Hi,

I cannot help you with MS Flight Sim 2000, but if it helps I run a Gateway 9150 laptop, 10GB hard drive, 128mb RAM, DVD and an ATI Pro rage 8mb graphics card.

I run MS Combat flight sim on this, but had the most terrible trouble at first until MS and Gateway discovered that by turning my SOUND accelerator down the game would run OK.
Up to this point it had crashed to 'Fatal exceptions' within 30 seconds of play.

Go control panel, multimedia,Audio, Advanced properties, and knock your sound accelerator down two notches. Worked for me.....?