Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
 

Time to upgrade those machines Flight-Sim fans! :p

Flight Simulator 2004

Don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Screenshots seem to show little radical change.

Like the clouds though, they are the worst bit on 2002.

Flight Sim help
 

Hi there Folks,
I am interested in getting all the gear for my computer(a compaq laptop) so i can keep the old instrument skills up to speed.Can anyone give me any advice on programs,control yokes etc.Where are the best deals around town?Does anyone want to off load some gear?Any help will be really interested.
Cheers FM

Hi Flying Mechanic,

Not sure about best deals, but I use MS 2000 with a Microsoft Sidewinder force feedback joystick. Very good. Not 100% realistic by a long way, but if you want to practice instrument flying it should be fine.

FWyg.

PS. MS Flightsim 2004 has just come out.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/fligh...or/default.asp

How much did you get that Joystick for?

Anyone know if they've sorted out the stall and spin characteristics yet?

Anyone tried Train Simulator yet? Apparently you can ride as a passenger - or rather simulate riding as a passenger.

I wonder if it can simulate leaves on the track.

Wonder if the new version still has Meigs in it?

This link contains info on what's in FS2004:
http://205.252.89.42/fs2004press/HAN...ct%20Sheet.doc

Some things that look appealing to me:
* Better weather system
* Enhanced ATC
* Garmin GPS simulation

So I'll upgrade... alternatively I could buy GTA3 Vice City :D

I am an avid Flight Sim user, have been for ages. I always upgrade to the newest version. I get excited about a new one coming out, use it for a year, learn everythying, downlaod everything, fly everything, do the lessons up to ATPL, create videos, do long hauls when im bored and then, when I hear about the next one, get all excited, buy it, and explore all the new thigns. Be happy, and enjoy using it, and wait for the NEXT one. Its a logical pattern you see :)

I cant wait for this one to come out. Take a step back in history, n fly around much more complex scenery and use more advanced features. I thkink Flight Sim is great personally. (note: I do have a life too).

Flying online can be fun too! I wonder why MS FS never ever have Airbus as default aircraft. Do they not want to advertise their craft through flight sim? Its always boeing, cessna and a couple others. Fortunately tho, I can downlaod anything I want from simviation and fs20002.com so thats good.

Smooth skies all :)

Dan :O

Nvidia drivers and MS Flight Sim.
 

Owners of Nvidia based graphic cards might like to update to the latest set of detonator drivers. My old drivers were dated January, but the new ones are giving a 15 to 20% increase in fp/s on my P4 system.

Get them here.

Tim

Thats very handy. Thanks very much :)

Dan

NB: Its an 18.4 MB download just so people know...

Tim,

The latest DetonatorFX Drivers do give a boost in performance, but they sacrifice a little quality in doing so. The best looking drivers I have seen lately are the 41.09s. If your system needs the boot in performance, get the 44.03s, if you have more than enough power try the 41.09s.

Take Care,

Capt. Richard J. Gentil, Pres.
Naples Air Center, Inc.
Custom Computers of Naples, Inc.

Richard (Naples...). Thanks for your comments.

My system is a P4 2.53, 512mb ram, but with a pretty basic 64mb MX420 card. I was running the 41.09 set prior to this upgrade, and overwrote them in the normal way as I always think it's pretty good practice. You are right, on my reasonably quick system, I did'nt really need the frame rate increase, my very minimum being 30, normal around 60 -80, and max well into three figures.

Do you suggest I roll back to the previous set? I havent noticed any 'quality' difference, but perhaps not too sure what to look for.

Cheers

Tim

Tim,

It comes down to how you set up your Drivers.

Set your desktop resolution to 16Bit and remove any files you have on your desktop.

No need for you to keep rendering your desktop in the background while playing a game.

If you want to be able to have the hidden functions, create a file with notepad and put this in it.

Save it as agpsetting.reg to your desktop or anywhere you like. Then run it and it will give you all the hidden options from nVidia which include extra Resolution settings for your desktop and overclocking for both the memory and core.


When after Max Performance I use these tweaks:

Performance & Quality Settings
Performance - Aggressive
Antiailiacing - Off
Anisotropic Filters - Off

Direct3D Settings
Enable Fog Table Emulation - On
Mipmap Detail Level - Best Performance

More Direct3D
Vertical Sync Mode - Always Off
Render no more than - 5 Frames Ahead

OpenGL Settings
Default Color Depth - Use Desktop Color Depth
Buffer-Flipping Mode - Auto-Select
Vertical Sync - Off by Default

When looking for Quality over Performance I use these tweaks:

Performance & Quality Settings
Performance - Aggressive
Antiailiacing - Off
Anisotropic Filters - 8X
Texture Sharpening - On

Direct3D Settings
Enable Fog Table Emulation - On
Mipmap Detail Level - Best Image Quality

More Direct3D
Vertical Sync Mode - Always Off
Render no more than - 5 Frames Ahead

OpenGL Settings
Default Color Depth - Use Desktop Color Depth
Buffer-Flipping Mode - Auto-Select
Vertical Sync - Off by Default

The Registry Hack above does open the overclocking section, you can use it at your own risk. (Note: They performance gains are greater overclocking the RAM vs the Core.)

Take Care,

Capt. Richard J. Gentil, Pres.
Naples Air Center, Inc.
Custom Computers of Naples, Inc.

Flight sim' questions of B757/767
 

Hi,

I have a couple of things that I feel need clarifying on B757 / B767 operations. There are quite a many of these, but any help & additional information is really appreciated!

1. VNAV

After engaging VNAV passing 1500, how quickly does the AFDS command lower pitch attitude for acceleration (ie. passing acceleration altitude) ? Is it sharp or does it take time after the acceleration altitude for the horizontal F/D bar to move down ?

2. Lights operation

I have failed to find any documentation on what is the correct procedure for operating the lights.

I know that the red anti-collision light is put on prior the engine start.

At what point are the position lights, white ac-lights and wing lights put on ? When are they turned off then ? My belief is that only the Position and Red Anti-Collision lights are kept on during the entire flight ?

What about Landing, Taxi lights and Runway Turnoff lights ? I suspect that different operators have different ways of handling the lights, but at least one example of the operation would be nice :).

3. EEC operation

Is CLB automatically set after takeoff, or does one need to engage clinb thrust manually on the TRP(TMSP) after takeoff ? I think I read somewhere that the older models need the manual engagement, is it so ? Is the automatic version more common today?

4. At what point is the landing gear lever turned to OFF position ?

5. manual MCP speed selections

Is the MCP speed bug always put to the maneuvering speed for the existing flap position in approach / landing, or are "intermittent" speed settings used often ? I know that the ATC often instructs to fly different speeds, and pilots may also need to use speed intervention / speed select in various phases of flight, but is it generally so, that when slowing down only the maneuvering speeds are used in approach, ie. no speeds like Vref+55 ? This may sound like a very dumb question, but a comment in a B767 FCTM raised my eyebrows, which basically said that only maneuvering speeds are set.

6. Flight directors

Are flight directors always turned off on both sides when conducting a visual approach ? If not, what are the cases when they remain on ?

7. Seat Belts sign

Is the AUTO position always used instead of OFF at the flight levels, when pax are allowed to move ? Is there any situation (except after arrival at the gate) when the OFF position is used ?

8. Hydraulic panel setup

Are the L&R primary pumps always left ON ? Are the L&R demand pumps and C primary & demand pumps turned ON not before than in preflight ?

9. Electrical panel setup

Are the utility buses left ON or OFF in parking ? Are the L&R GEN CONT swithces always kept ON ?

10. Trim Air & recirc fan

Are Trim Air & Recirculation Fan switches always ON ? What are the situations where they are turned OFF ?

11. Apu bleed

Is APU bleed ON all the time, or is it turned off after APU shutdown ?

12. APU shutdown

When is APU shutdown commenced. Immediately after engine start or during taxi ?

13. Yaw dampers

Are Y/Ds always ON in normal ops ? Are they also left ON in parking ?

14. IRS alignment

What is the procedure for checking the IRS position during turnaround ? Or are they always turned OFF and realigned before the next flight ?

15. Fuel system

The crossfeed switch. Does the fuel actually flow from one tank to other when crossfeeding, OR does it only mean that the engines draw fuel only from the tank that has more fuel than the other. The end result is the same, but is actual crossfeeding taking place ?

16. DH

Is the DH set only for CATIII operations, and the orange DA bug used for CATI/II ops (and DH turned to zero or negative) ?

17. Flap operation

Why is it that the Boeing-recommended standard procedure for extending/retracting flaps is such that the retracting should be done 20 kts prior to the NEXT flap setting maneuvering speed when accelerating ? Extending the flaps 20 kts prior to the PRESENT flap setting maneuvering speed makes sense, but retracting seems a bit funny. Is it because the actual selection & retraction takes that much time, that when the setting is actually achieved, the aircraft is already above the maneuvering speed ?Does any airline do this differently, ie. retract only AFTER the NEXT flap settings maneuvering speed ??



regards
Tero

Too difficult questions, eh ?

Just kidding :).

Tero

No shortage of 75/76 folks on the forums but your 'couple' of questions are far too tedious to answer when you give no reason for needing the questions answered.

Most will assume you are a flight simmer and the effort needed to answer so many questions is not worth the bother.

On the other hand there may be someone working on a future sainthood application....:} :} :}

Regards
Rob

Hi,

Oh, I forgot that one about us simmers... We're not "worthy" ?

Seriously, although I am a simmer, why can't I be interested to know some details that are unclear to me ? If no one cares to answer, that's fine, but the everlasting flightsimmer -stigma at PPrune is tiring.

Tero

ps. maybe not a simmer forever

Check your PM's teropa.


Application for sainthood in post.:cool:

It was a very long list of questions, think you scared people off. Might be worth breaking them down into little chunks next time. Or just buy a 767 from boeing I'm sure they will throw in a set of manuals.

Tero,

Cripes. Might i suggest a few less questions. You are lucky that I am

i) Bored
ii) in a good mood
iii) looking for something other to do than the washing....

you owe me !

1) VNAV. Almost straight away, althought is not sharp. Couple of degrees a second.

2) Red at engine start. White on rwy enter / off at exit. Wing - dunno never used it. Nav, when its dark likewise logo.

3) Our SOP is press CLB thrust then press VNAV - so dunno.

4) SOP is when the FLAPS are up.

5) Hmmm a very long question, and there could be loads of answers.

6) Normally off visual.

7)Yes, No.

8) Yes, others turned on before start.

9) Yes and Yes

10) Yes, off in non normal sits

11) Yes. Can turn it off if you like when shutdown, but dont need to. Dont normally in flight.

12)AFter start

13)Yes, Yes

14) They are realigned, or you can do a fast align.

15) Crossfeed is to allow engines to draw fuel from the other tank. The procedure you describe is available on the ground by using defuel switches in the fuelling panel on the wing.

16) DH is set for CAT11 or 111A or B with decision. Normally still bug cat one with orange for reversion (failures).

17) You answered the question yourself.

teropa,

With over 3000 hours in the 757/767, my own personal reluctance has no relation to the amount of questions, but more to do with the events of late 2001. Personally, I feel certain procedures are best left off a public internet forum. I have no illusions that this information is some "state" secret that couldn't be gained with a little ingenuity and effort on the part of someone with intent to harm. Preventing someone from fine tuning his plan at the last minute from an airport hotel might help though.

It's depressing that watching aircraft up close from an airport fence, ect ,by aircraft enthusiasts have become some security issue. I think we can blame the majority of certain countries whose citizens approve of certain acts by terrorists because they have some "grievence".

Best of luck. I hope you and others remain interested in aviation. I've been very fortunate to experience much from flying that others have not be able too.


Cheers :)

Hwel & Expedite Climb!

Thanks a lot for your help and information!!
Exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for.

(Hwel: I think it will stop hurting the second you step on the flight deck ;))

WhatsaLizad,

I understand your POV, really. Given the past events one can't be too careful. Rest assured, though, I'm just a simmer enthusiast with a dream of becoming something else later :).

I do have piles of manuals but the actual SOPs are the kind of material that is hard to obtain, hence the questions.

Thanks guys!

Tero

Terop,

If you have a question for professional pilots this is the place to post it.
However it is not intended that the forum should be some sort of unofficial helpline for flightsim 2000 or whatever.
The forum is a professional pilots forum and it is important that in being accessible to all it should remain interesting to professional pilots.

Not everybody reads the forum description and that is why you will often see topics along the lines of "I am flying to Cyprus on AMX 201 0n 9th August are you the crew? /can I visit the flightdeck?/ which route will we take?" etc etc.

The forum soon becomes clogged with this type of stuff if left unchecked and for that reason it is normally removed to a more appropriate location. It tends to be the same with flightsimmers. The questions are rarely of much interest to professional pilots. We don't have a flightimmers forum "Computers and internet issues" is about as close as it gets.
On the other hand if the question is of general interest and not obviously specific to an individual flightsimmer then it tends to take its place with the others.

Jetdriver,

Point taken. However, I couldn't think of any other place / forum to ask. I don't think that the average simmer even has an idea what I was asking about. Of course questions like "Why can't I land my jumbo at 300 kias on Meigs" are of absolutely no interest to anyone, but I thought that my questions were a bit more serious than that. My goals with simming are set a bit higher than the average simmer's.

If one has a question for the pros, then as you said, I think this is the place to ask. Didn't intend to start a flight sim hotline here. I'm sorry if someone got into bad mood because of the questions...

Tero

Perhaps an offshoot of Computer and Internet Issues for flight simmers would be a good forum to start?

PP

Pilot Pete,

Excellent idea!

That way also only the particular pilots, who feel they are interested to help and answer questions like mine, would be there to read stuff and reply if they felt like.

Also, the Questions and maybe also the Tech Log forums would be free of flight simmers ;).

I'd be very happy about that, and that way PPrune could also become one of the more usual "hangouts" for simmers, and also professional advise would be round the corner... <--- I hope I'm not describing the nightmare of too many there. By adhering to forum rules and only posting flight simming related stuff at the new forum, I'm sure everyone would be happy :)


Tero

Can't land anything at Meigs these days...

Flight Sim 2004
 

Anyone got a hold of a copy yet?

I got mine yesterday, and must say I feel, once again, that MS have rushed the entire thing. The new weather system is good (snow changes the landscape as it falls!) but old naggy problems such as blurry textures, and abismal a/p tracking of the ILS still remain.

At least they put the Dome in the right place though! :E

I do however absolutely love the DH-88 'Comet', yummmmy.................

Biggest pile of c...,

For those that don't know if you have an ATI Radeon, quite a few out there I would think, I have a 9700, it doesn't work very well at all. I also have a P4 2.8 and 512mb RAM plus plenty of HDD space.

On the ground I was getting at best , 3 FPS yes 3.

Apparently if you have an nvidia card you'll be ok, well done microsoft, :mad: once in the air it was fine, locked at 30FPS. Trouble is you had to start on the end of the runway to be able to do anything, not very good at all.

InTheAir,

What are the specs on your computer that you are running FS2k4 on?

Take Care,

Richard

Pretty nippy Rich!

P4 2.8GHz, Asus (no ordinary) motherboard, 512Mb RAM, ATI Radeon 9700Pro, Striped RAID array (super hardrive speed)

I get the stuttering as well spanner, always liked FS2000 but doesn't work very well with the Radeon either.

IntheAir,
I reckon you've got a device driver problem. FS2004 will talk to your graphics card via DirectX. Are you still using the driver that was originally supplied with your PC, or have you updated it recently?

Also, have you got the latest and greatest version of DX9?

For further info, can I suggest you visit the FS2004 forum at

http://www.flightsim.com

There are loads of people there who will help you sort out your problem. With your rig you should be getting high frame rates (fs2000 was always a dog anyway).

Cheers

InTheAir,

That should be enough horsepower to get FS2k4 off the ground. Do try running 3DMark2001SE Build 330 and see what kind of score you are getting.

I was wondering if one of the drivers or your OS had a bad install.

What size stripe are you using on RAID 0?

ASFKAP,

The GeForce4 Ti4200 is still best bang for the buck and it outperforms the FX5200 and the FX5600.

Take Care,

Richard

Is the problem with ATI video cards a general thing? I have one, and had serious problems with my astronomy software in getting it to display correctly.

The author of the software told me he's had dozens of complaints about video, ALL from people with ATI cards and NONE from those with anything else.

I'm getting towards an upgrade being due; I like the (oldish) Asus motherboard I have so will probably go for one of theirs again. Sounds like I should opt for 2x256 rather than 1x512 - or should it be 2 x 512?

I don't need a superfast video card, but might go for one anyway, on the basis that will avoid problems. What's a good card around the £100 ($160) region?

Keef,

The main problem with ATI has been the lack of driver support. With their latest crop of ATI Cards, they have worked hard to change that problem.

I find the video quality of ATI better than nVidia but I find the driver support from nVidia superior to ATI.

As I said above the best bang for the buck is the GeForce4 Ti4200. It is a great card and it smokes the GeForce FX5200 and the GeForce FX5600 in performance.

Here are a couple of options from Dabs:

Gainward

GeForce 4 Ti4200-8x 128MB DDR AGP RP DVI VO £114.01

http://images10.newegg.com/productim...128-140-04.JPG


GeForce 4 Ti4200-8x 128MB DDR AGP RP DVI VIVO £134.00

http://images10.newegg.com/productim...128-160-04.JPG

MSI

GeForce 4 Ti4200-8x 128MB DDR DVI VIVO £94.99

http://images10.newegg.com/productim...127-070-05.JPG

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. 1 stick of RAM if your new motherboard only supports a single channel Memory Controller and 2 sticks if it supports two Memory Controllers. Total RAM should be around 512Mb (or 2x256Mb) with WinXP.

So ... did anyone upgrade?

I fly R22s, and reading the back of the FS2004 box today the aircraft list includes the R22 BetaII. Any heli pilots able to comment on "realisticness"??!!

Also, how does the FS2004 scenery compare to previous versions? Are the "UK photo landscape" CDs compatible (and/or worth the money?)

RC

Dont know if they are compatible with FS2004, the scenery thigns, but I know that add-on aircraft that are compatible with 2002 DO work on 2004, so I suppose the scenery might. ANyhow, dont take me on that.à

The VFR Add-on scenery is good. However, I preferred to not have it on. I do have a powerful system, but when flying at the recommended altitude of 1500 feet, it still took a while to load, and even then, it was a little blurry. Others may have a different opinion.

Re the helicopter. Not my field :)

Smooth skies,

Dan

FS2004 is pretty slick actually.

Flight dynamics..still like flying a lawnmower..ATC still vetoring me onto finals at LOWI at 8000ft ....aaaahhhhh cannt get better :}

I`d recommend it,weather is alot better,the virtual cockpits are clickable so its alot more natural to fly :cool:

Most add on sceneries / planes are being patched.Give it 6 months or so and should be very impressive. You do need to tweak..see the threads at www.avsim.com -shows howto fix blurries,slow fps etc etc.

Tonic Please:
Airbus is coming..the PSS are patching the a320,and got a a330/340 on the way :ok:

A340!!! FANTASTIC!! :O :O :O

And no mate, there is only one version unlike 2002.