New to FSX

[davie_b1972]

Hi All,

I was new to FSX about 3 years ago and was unable to play it due to my pc specs. I now have a laptop and have just Installed it with the following add ons:

Ground Environment X Europe 2.0
Ground Environment X Europe 2.0 USA
Real Environment X
MY TRAFFIC
Ultimate Terrain X USA
Ultimate Terrain X Europe

I have got myself into a bit of a pickle because despite installing all this, I don't even know where to start :-s

My Laptop specs are:

Intel Core i3-5005u (2.0 GHz, 3mb Cache)
Intel HD Graphics 5500, upto 4181 MB Dynamic Video Memory
8GB DDR3 L Memory
1T Hard Drive

Any tips on starting out would be great

Thanks

Davie

[Fozzer]

Load up the default Cessna 172 Trainer.
Read the Aircraft owners Manual.
Go to your favourite Airfield (A nice quiet one).

...and spend hours and hours practising manoeuvrers, take-offs and landings, until you are good at it!

That's a good way to start!

Paul... ...!

[ViperPilot]

Welcome!

I agree with Paul (fozzer); start out with something small, like the C-172. Pick a small Airstrip without much Traffic, and take it step by step.

When I first started out, I found a guy on YouTube named "GVad The Pilot" who created a Series of videos that really helped me out and got me started the 'right' way. Here's a Link to his Videos; I think you'll find them very helpful...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7F70193E8AC5B873

Alan

[Fozzer]

.....and, above all....

Have fun, and enjoy it!

Alan and I do!

Paul.... ...!

[davie_b1972]

Paul and Alan, thank you very much for your response I will certainly do that and thanks for the link

Do you have any advice on graphics at all?

I see some great scenery on youtube and I do have a few add ons (VFR Scenery England) but I dont seem to be getting the same quality in detail maybe my laptop isnt upto it

Davie

[Sinkrate]

Hi Davie,

You don’t mention what kind of HID you are using, but I would say that the HID makes a big difference to how realistically you can fly in FSX. Get a good high resolution yoke or joystick – it is a good investment when you consider the time that you will be spending using it.

Check the settings section and adjust things to suit the capabilities of your machine. Ground traffic in particular, can have a big hit on frame rate in FSX. It's a case of "suck it and see" to explore the limits of performance but I would start by switching off the things that don't really matter to you such as perhaps traffic, weather, ground shadows etc.

If you are new to flying, the realism settings can be backed off so that even a complete plonker can fly. Any fool can take off and fly around; it’s the landing that requires some skill. Look at the green ILS arrows on many airports on your GPS. They show you the way in and indicate how far away you need to be to line up your approach.

Do the lessons that are included in the game. They are good to get you started and if you want to go further, there is a book titled “Microsoft Flight Simulator X For Pilots Real World Training” by VanWest & Lane-Cummings that is well worth getting.

[davie_b1972]

Hi Sinkrate, these are good Ideas as initially ill just be practicing anyway so it wont be such a big deal

What is HID?

Davie

[Hagar]

Hi Davie

HID = Human Interface Device. (I had to look it up. )
That's keyboard, joystick, yoke & pedals etc. For FS I would recommend a 4-axis joystick with twist grip rudder control at the very least.

[OldAirmail]

I have a yoke, and if you think that you might really like flying in a flight sim, then I HIGHLY recommend getting one. People have their favorites, but any one that you buy will become your favorite.


I also have a joystick that I started out with, before the yoke. That one went bad so I've just bought an Extreme 3D Pro Joystick for Windows used for $19.



I'm very pleased with it. If you find one listed as USED - Very Good, or USED - Like New, condition, and if the price is $10 or more below the normal sale price, then get it. If it's only $5 or $6 below, then buy the new one.



One recommendation that I would make is to go for simpler aircraft and scenery. Most flight sims are limited by the speed of the CPU first, and the graphics card second, irregardless of the amount of memory that you have.

Flying over large detailed cities, or for a long time, can take a toll on FSX.

If you don't mind photoscenery then BlueSkyScenery can be a great source of scenery, because photoscenery lowers you FPS much less than most other scenery.

This is a picture from BlueSkyScenery of Death Valley. BTW - It's FREE!



Likewise, photoscenery from OZx - Grand Canyon, agani - FREE!

[Dave T]

Paul and Alan, thank you very much for your response I will certainly do that and thanks for the link

Do you have any advice on graphics at all?

I see some great scenery on youtube and I do have a few add ons (VFR Scenery England) but I dont seem to be getting the same quality in detail maybe my laptop isnt upto it

Davie

I run FSX on a laptop with no problems. Set your resolution to your laptops default size and move the sliders to the right in the settings menu if you haven't already done so, if you get stutters move them back until it runs smoothly for you most of my sliders are fully right except for ai traffic and road traffic I like to get off the ground occasionally and not stuck in a queue and the roads looked silly with traffic at 100 percent. Download some aircraft and scenery and enjoy FSX.

[Shadowcaster]

Hi there welcome to the best Sim site on tinternet.

Along with the suggestions made, I would highly recommend the superb Tiger Moth by Ant's Airplanes http://www.antsairplanes.com/freeanddemos.html or here on Simviation http://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1 ... &x=19&y=10 a wonderful stick and rudder machine and there's a ton of repaints for it https://www.google.co.uk/search?safe=of ... oCuuDwGTE0

Cheers
Rich

[Daube]

I'm going to bring a bit of bad news here, but I hope this can turn into useful advice.
Your laptop computer is clearly not powerful enough for FSX.
That doesn't mean you will not be able to use that sim. But you might want to forget about the nice sceneries you saw on youtube.

Your CPU is an i3 with a very low frequency. FSX needs a very powerfull CPU following this logic:
- the more GHz, the higher the amount of FPS in game
- the more cores, the fewer the ground blurries.
In this context, an i3 (which is just dual core) with only 2 GHz will require that you lower the graphical settings drastically to maintain a fluid flight.
Same goes with your video card, which isn't made for video games at all... but that problem is less critical for FSX, so let's ignore it for the moment.

The very first thing you'll need to do in your sim is to configure the graphical options. This is done in two major steps:
1- in the game settings
2- in the video card settings under windows

In the game, you will have to decrease all of the parameters that are impacting the CPU. I'm thinking about these elements in particular:
- do not enable the DX10 preview.
- set the FPS limit to 20. You might want to try higher, or unlimited, but this will either kill your CPU or transform your scenery in a sea of blurriness, because your CPU will not be able to update the terrain tiles in time.
- the mesh complexity, which should be lower than 50% in your case
- the mesh resolution, which should be lower than 19 meters (the higher that number, the lower the precision. You want a low precision, not a high one. 2 meters or 5 meters resolution would not be good for your CPU)
- the ground texture resolution should be set to 1 meter
- the water settings should be set to low 2x, for the moment
- the level of detail radius should be set somewhere around the middle...

- the weather settings.... tough one. Ensure your thermal visualisation is set to none.
- keep the clouds draw distance to a low setting too. It's very expensive past the 80 miles...
- you can keep the cloud density to max, at least you can try.
- you can also keep the "detailled clouds". The not-detailed one are incredibly ugly.

- and finally, disable EVERYTHING in the AI traffic settings. Set all to zero, no exception. Your CPU will not like them, at all.

This should be a not-too-bad basis to discover the simulator and see how the performance is, depending on where and what you fly.
Later on, you will be able to adjust these settings (increase or decrease) and see what happens.

For the rest of your experience, the other members have summarized it pretty well: choose an easy plane like the Cessna 172, choose a nice and quiet (far from big cities, which are very bad for the CPU) airport, and get yourself familiar with the flight model and the plane controls. Fly around, explore, and take your time to read the forums.

[COBS]

Hi

The Default FSX Cessna 172 is difficult to fly , it is hard to trim for level flight .

In the following shot is an Update for the Cessna 172 available freeware from this website .
Download it and install it , it is much nicer end easier to fly .

http://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1 ... p&x=21&y=9

Cheers
Karol

[Fozzer]

...of course.... ...

Its always possible to avoid any disappointment by trying out good-old FS 2004, which always worked a treat for me on my previous old Pentium Dual Core, 2.8 GHZ processor and Nvidia 6600 Graphics card in my Tower computer, with all the settings wound up to the max!

The graphics are far superior in FSX, but sometimes, because of that, lowering the settings in FSX will sometimes make it visually inferior to FS 2004 maxed-out!

My present Processor is an Intel i-7, and works with everything running flat-out, so I reckon an Intel i-5 Computer or Laptop would make a good starting point for FSX.

FSX is very "Processor-heavy". Anything less will require lowering many of the settings.

...just my four-pennyworth...

Paul.... ...!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&key ... jqo1iwrq_b

[garymbuska]

Hello and welcome to Simviation
You can find a lot of good advice here and have gotten some good ideas already
Like one post stated FSX is a CPU and RAM hog.
These are the things that effect FSX and how well your system can perform then
There is no particular order here
AI traffic keep it down
Cloud draw distance keep it at a reasonable amount
one of the biggest killers is the autogen textures and what is called bloom keep them down
Tuning FSX to any one system is best described as trial and error. Find out what does not work and than back down from that.
Scenery detail and Aircraft detail is another killer
Weather is another big factor
If you want to see the worst case scenario set up a thunder storm and than use a highly detailed aircraft at a highly detailed airport and you will quickly find out where you stand.
With your specs stay away from highly detailed scenery as you will only be disappointed
Frame rates should be set to a max of 20 in your case do not use unlocked frame rates as this will cause your CPU to try to achieve the higher settings and it will not be able to.
Of course there is the FSX CFG file this is where you can really tweak your settings.
If you read the sticky post at the top of this forum they will help you a lot
Just take your time as there is no short cut
There are lessons you can take built into FSX that will help as well, But I suggest that you find a aircraft that is to your liking but for now stay away from any plane with jet engines until you can handle the propeller aircraft.
There is a ground school that will teach you how and why planes work.
In the real world real pilots start out in ground school before ever getting into any aircraft.
And do not be afraid to ask any questions here no matter how stupid or dumb you may think they are.
This is a lot of information here but like I said take it slowly and you will be flying in no time.
People like myself Fozzer and others who have been flying for a long time are only to glad to help out in any way we can