Discussion
I haven't played a PC flight sim in nearly 20 years but I was quite into it as a geeky aviation-mad teenager.
I downloaded Infinite Flight for a giggle on my iPhone a few months back and it's great. Got me thinking about PC-based flight sims again. Is Microsoft FS still the default choice? A quick google reveals that FSX is the newest - but it's still quite old!
Am I going to need a £3k PC to make it run well? Mid 90's I had a 486 DX2 66 then upgraded to a Pentium 100 with a stonking 8mb RAM to play FS.
I downloaded Infinite Flight for a giggle on my iPhone a few months back and it's great. Got me thinking about PC-based flight sims again. Is Microsoft FS still the default choice? A quick google reveals that FSX is the newest - but it's still quite old!
Am I going to need a £3k PC to make it run well? Mid 90's I had a 486 DX2 66 then upgraded to a Pentium 100 with a stonking 8mb RAM to play FS.
Edited by Lefty on Monday 15th May 20:06
Lefty said:
I haven't played a PC flight sim in nearly 20 years but I was quite into it as a geeky aviation-mad teenager.
I downloaded Infinite Flight for a giggle on my iPhone a few months back and it's great. Got me thinking about PC-based flight sims again. Is Microsoft FS still the default choice? A quick google reveals that FSX is the newest - but it's still quite old!
Am I going to need a £3k PC to make it run well? Mid 90's I had a 486 DX2 66 then upgraded to a Pentium 100 with a stonking 8mb RAM to play FS.
I preferred FS 2002 as the additional content was better IMHO. I haven't got anything running atm as I've just bought a new laptop, but my brother and I had been running that easily on non-gaming HP laptops. He has FSX too and ran that with no issues. I downloaded Infinite Flight for a giggle on my iPhone a few months back and it's great. Got me thinking about PC-based flight sims again. Is Microsoft FS still the default choice? A quick google reveals that FSX is the newest - but it's still quite old!
Am I going to need a £3k PC to make it run well? Mid 90's I had a 486 DX2 66 then upgraded to a Pentium 100 with a stonking 8mb RAM to play FS.
Edited by Lefty on Monday 15th May 20:06
Certainly an area of gaming that has been neglected of late. I miss playing link up on CFS2 as well!
Lockheed Martin took the old FSX engine, re-hashed it a bit and released it as Prepar3d. Designed for serious simulation it is available with either an academic or professional licence. Much better than Microsoft's offerings but still familiar style/interface. Also loads of third-party add-ons.
DCS World if you want to blow stuff up in an A-10/F15/Su-25/etc. Be prepared to spend many many hours learning the a/c systems. This takes a serious time investment.
X-Plane worth a look too if you are a Mac user.
DCS World if you want to blow stuff up in an A-10/F15/Su-25/etc. Be prepared to spend many many hours learning the a/c systems. This takes a serious time investment.
X-Plane worth a look too if you are a Mac user.
FSX is still the big one, still has loads of add ons , free and paid for, the best are A2A & OrbX(IMHO)
Check out Flightsim.com or Sim-Outhouse.com for some good free stuff
FSX is availible on Steam too, as it might be hard to get a disc version,and is usually cheap in a sale. PC doesnt have to be a mega one, FSX mainly uses the processor, not the graphics card. But you can end up spending a fortune on add ons, the quality is really good these days. Loads of free stuff too.I think my install is >2Tb
Photoreal scenery REALLY takes up space!
There are other players though. I cant really comment as I dont have them but there is a ton of stuff about them on the web
FS2004 is still getting free planes, needs a low level PC only
Prepr3d is a 64 bit version of FSX, I think most of the FSX add ons work for it but am not too sure.
X-Plane has just got an update to v.11 and looks very good, is meant to be very acccurate in flight modelling & has some really accurate sim planes from PDMG.Its for PC as well as MacReview here https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?17381-R...
DoveTail Games, who took over FSX from M$, are releasing a 64 bit version called Flight Sim World, in 3 days, on Steam.Looks very good(I think A2A & OrbX are on board) but it only has GA aircraft at the minute, and add ons HAVE to go thru Steam, so might be very expensive.or non existant, and maybe no free ones.
Check out Flightsim.com or Sim-Outhouse.com for some good free stuff
FSX is availible on Steam too, as it might be hard to get a disc version,and is usually cheap in a sale. PC doesnt have to be a mega one, FSX mainly uses the processor, not the graphics card. But you can end up spending a fortune on add ons, the quality is really good these days. Loads of free stuff too.I think my install is >2Tb
Photoreal scenery REALLY takes up space!There are other players though. I cant really comment as I dont have them but there is a ton of stuff about them on the web
FS2004 is still getting free planes, needs a low level PC only
Prepr3d is a 64 bit version of FSX, I think most of the FSX add ons work for it but am not too sure.
X-Plane has just got an update to v.11 and looks very good, is meant to be very acccurate in flight modelling & has some really accurate sim planes from PDMG.Its for PC as well as MacReview here https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?17381-R...
DoveTail Games, who took over FSX from M$, are releasing a 64 bit version called Flight Sim World, in 3 days, on Steam.Looks very good(I think A2A & OrbX are on board) but it only has GA aircraft at the minute, and add ons HAVE to go thru Steam, so might be very expensive.or non existant, and maybe no free ones.
Edited by kowalski655 on Monday 15th May 20:39
LimaDelta said:
Lockheed Martin took the old FSX engine, re-hashed it a bit and released it as Prepar3d. Designed for serious simulation it is available with either an academic or professional licence. Much better than Microsoft's offerings but still familiar style/interface. Also loads of third-party add-ons.
DCS World if you want to blow stuff up in an A-10/F15/Su-25/etc. Be prepared to spend many many hours learning the a/c systems. This takes a serious time investment.
X-Plane worth a look too if you are a Mac user.
Just got into DCS, with oculus rift it's pretty damn good. in fact very good.DCS World if you want to blow stuff up in an A-10/F15/Su-25/etc. Be prepared to spend many many hours learning the a/c systems. This takes a serious time investment.
X-Plane worth a look too if you are a Mac user.
Into a multiplayer warzone with my mate in close formation, we both got shot down PDQ
Lots of helpful stuff, thanks!
I've got a "spare" 32" LCD TV which i'm thinking of sticking in my guitar/whisky mancave and maybe buying a new desktop PC to run FSX or x-plane with.
What do you think of this?
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view-item/Fsx-700-p...
I've got a "spare" 32" LCD TV which i'm thinking of sticking in my guitar/whisky mancave and maybe buying a new desktop PC to run FSX or x-plane with.
What do you think of this?
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view-item/Fsx-700-p...
Edited by Lefty on Monday 22 May 11:14
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