Time to rethink my flight simming

[OBIO]

Over the last few months, I have come to realize were my taste in planes and flying style truly is. I spend most of my time flying low and slow in smaller single or twin engine GAs or low and fast in vintage military jets. So why do I have a ton of aircraft in my collection that I will most likely never fly? Because I am an airplane horder! A collector of aviation history. And the end result is that my FS2004 aircraft folder is pushing close to 800 aircraft. This has resulted in my sim taking FOREVER to change the plane selection window so I can pick the plane that I want to fly, and ACM taking FOREVER and A DAY to read my entire aircraft folder so I can change lights, effects, etc on my planes. And I just spent an hour or so on FSFields.com downloading more planes....but I was very aware of the planes I was downloading...planes that fit within my flying preference, planes that have VCs. There were a lot of nice looking planes on that site that I did not download because they were not within my preferred style of flight or did not have VCs.

Now that I have my 250 gig SATA drive installed, and will be installing an 80 gig IDE drive to the mix (along with my 160 gig IDE C drive), I will have the room to add on a few more installations of FS2004 and break my planes into categories. Early GA (up to 1950), Modern GA (1950 to present), Vintage Heavies (Commercial and Transport types) , and Vintage Military Jets and Cargo/Transports.

During this restructuring, there will be a number of aircraft that I will put into storage (planes that I do fly from time to time but not often enough to keep on my HD), a number that will be totally removed from my collection (planes that I don't fly, planes without VCs, planes that I downloaded just because they were there and free).

Yep, my addiction has gotten out of hand.

OBIO

 

[FengZ]

yup, i used to collect planes as well. I never got to 800, but i was up to around 350 or so.

And just like you, i only flew about 10 of them 99% of the time. So last year, i decided to do a complete clean install of FS, keeping only the planes i fly. Now FS9 loads up in under 15 seconds, and the select plane menu is instant.

I also narrowed down each re-paint per plane to a max of 2! Most of my planes just have 1 repaint only.

I find myself enjoying FS9 a lot more now, since i take each plane very seriously and try to learn everything about them operationally. Having only 1 repaint also makes each plane feel "real" and unique...as if they are really sitting in my hanger.

I haven't "tweaked" FS9 for over a year, and instead spend my time flying.

But it's great that there are so many ways to enjoy FS. Some collect planes, some use it for history, some for real-world training, some for site seeing, etc....what an amazing piece of software!

ps. if you want fast loading, considering getting a 15,000rpm hard drive. They are perfect for loose-file heavy games like FS9/X.

-feng

 

[Naismith]

It could be worse, you could be going between the two sims (9 & X). I keep swinging between the two. I like FSX for the low and slow but it peeves me off in some ways. Certain brought in Airports cannot display AI if you have shadows enabled for example, also I have so much in it that it takes about 3 weeks to boot up and when I go fly it sits at 6% for another month and a half. Slight exagerration there) FS2004 is wonderful overall but falls down somewhat in the prettiness.

 

[FengZ]

FS2004 is wonderful overall but falls down somewhat in the prettiness.

with the right addons, FS9 can still hold it's own. But yeah, some recent stuff i've seen for FSX looks amazing. My copy is still sitting on the shelf

these are all un-edited shots straight from FS9....using the russian bloom plugin.

-feng

 

[OBIO]

I do have 2 sims...FS2004 and CFS2. CFS2 is just insane... I have right at 1500 planes for it....I did a lot of converting from FS2000, 2002 and 2004 to CFS2 to fill my need for GA aircraft. CFS2 will also be pared down to just the WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam military aircraft that I use for dog fighting and dropping bombs. No need to have all those converted planes in CFS2 when I can fly them in FS2004 in their original state.

I also have FSX, sitting in my software drawer under my 55 gallon fish tank....someday, maybe I will have a computer that will run FSX to the level of smoothness that I want. But until then, FS2004 is more than good enough in terms of performance, scenery and aircraft selection.

OBIO

 

[Wing_Z]

...with the right addons, FS9 can still hold it's own... -feng

Totally agree, and your beautiful screenshots are testimony to that fact.
So...what are your "right addons"?

 

[FengZ]

Totally agree, and your beautiful screenshots are testimony to that fact.
So...what are your "right addons"?

1. Have an extremely streamlined system - not only with windows, but with FS9. Get rid of all unless files, read mes, etc. The less files you have, the faster FS9 can find what it needs.

2. The "must have" base files:

- UT USA/Europe & QLRP4UT
- Flight Environment v3 (use the high res clouds). You can also convert FEX clouds into FS9
- GEPro
- FSGenesis Mesh (entire planet coverage)
- TreeGen
- Active Sky with maxed out settings (high cloud layer count, thickness, etc)
- RealSky (i use this for the base sky color, not clouds). I like it better than FE's sky colors
- Russian Bloom Plugin - this is amazing!
- BananaBob's ENV map
- BananaBob's Prop textures

3. "Must have" scenery (even though i fly GAs, i love landing/taking off from big airports, because they feel more "alive.")

- GeoRender series
- Flytampa series
- some of Aerosoft's stuff, such as Lukla
- Tongass Fjords, Misty Fjords, Freight Dogs, and Vancouver+
- FlightZone portland
- FranceVFR

4. Install good landclass files

5. Then optimize. For me, i do the following:

- Convert all aircraft texture to DXT3
- Delete all 2D cockpit .bmp from the panel folder, and remove them from panel.cfg (i only fly from VC)
- keep only one model type, one repaint, etc
- Convert all AI texture to DXT1

6. Get rid of unused Gauges, Effects, and Sounds. Also get rid of unused Modules (they can cause CTDs).

7. Install only planes you fly. For me, the requirements are:

- Photo-Real or high quality VC with smooth guages. And all operations can be carried out from the VC. No 2D panel required.
- Excellent flight modeling (such as RealAir stuff)
- Good external model w/ high quality paint job
- Can serve multiple roles (such as the Super King Air 200 - Passenger flights, military, cargo, etc)

8. Install good AI. They make the world feel real. I used to fly with zero AI, but everything felt the same. With AI, at least planes in South Africa is not the same as Seattle...even if the scenery looks similar.

9. Defrag using Name Sort

10. Try to run FS9 in high res if your system can handle it. On my laptop, it runs at 1920x1200 res. On my "gaming rig" it runs at 2560x1600. This will make the graphics look super sharp.

11. Max almost everything inside FS9. Lock FPS (i lock mine at 45).

and that's all. If you do the above, FS9 can run butter smooth even on modest systems and it'll look gorgeous.

-feng

 

[Panther_99FS]

Because I am an airplane horder! A collector of aviation history. And the end result is that my FS2004 aircraft folder is pushing close to.
OBIO

I believe Roger my have ya' beat here.....

 

[OBIO]

I believe Roger my have ya' beat here.....

I forgot to mention that I have had FS2004 for only about 6 months...got it for Christmas last year (2008).

OBIO

 

[Cazzie]

Sweet shots Feng.

But you said it all when you said aviation history OBIO. I have no use for jets. but I still buy then and download the freeware simply because I am in love with aviation history. So what, I would never be able to fly the actual thing, I can still make it easy and take some nice screens for my desktop or home made calendars.

I'm like you too, only fly low and slow. Take my time, I like to stay realistic and fly aircraft I could probably actually fly in the one to one.

Caz

Agree with you on the add-ons Feng, I use Active Sky and its clouds in lieu of Flight Environment, but everything else is essentially the same.

Caz

 

[Lionheart]

Thanks Feng for that list. I just copy/pasted it.

After seeing those screenshots, I am going shopping for that scenery, especially the clouds. That Russian Blume tool with those clouds is brilliant.



I am an addict as well when it comes to downloading and hoarding planes and scenery, lol.

I should make a 'clean' version FS9 that is totally performance oriented and use that for fun flying, and have the 'addict hoard' version as the storage center. I should just go ahead and make my dream FS9 version! lol.. FS9 Ultra Platinum. Make new splash screens like how Bill Lyons did for Golden Wings..

Bill

 

[Kiwikat]

3. "Must have" scenery (even though i fly GAs, i love landing/taking off from big airports, because they feel more "alive.")

Precisely why I like FSX. The whole world feels alive, not just where there's detailed addon airports. :mixedsmi:

The other day I counted all my variations in FSX. It's well over a thousand now. I only have about half my planes for FSX installed too. It is good to see that the newer sim's hangar is finally expanding.

 

[Wing_Z]

Beautiful, Feng!
I can see that list has just been bursting to get out...
We have similar setups, but I've had a yen to improve FE's clouds - then I see you have V3, and sure enough I am stuck back in V1.3
Downloading that update now, a choccie fish award to you, sir!

 

[Lionheart]

Does anyone have a general location for where to look for the Russian Blume effect?



Bill

 

[FengZ]

hey bill, you can do a search here for "bloom" under the FSX thread and you should find a link to it. Don't use the one you find on the author's site, because those are tweaked for games such as GTA, Oblivion, etc. The one posted at the SOH is meant for FS.

i forgot to mention one more small tweak. Since i only fly from the VC and have deleted all 2d panel/bmps, i insert this line at the bottom of the last VC entry:

gauge99=dsd_view_skip!no_2d, 0, 0 ,5 ,5

i found this gauge in a freeware plane once (i forget which one tho). By installing it, it'll skip the 2D panel screen when you cycle views. So you go from Spot view directly into VC!

-feng

 

[EMatheson]

Hey, Feng... what are your Bloom settings?
I wish I could get it to look that good on my machine...