DCS A-10C or X-Plane or other combat flight sim

Hello all. A newbie here. I am awaiting the arrival of my new HP Envy 14. Before you all stitch yourselves with laughter over how NOT a gaming machine that is, know that I am in no way a gamer and didn't buy the Envy with any intention of becoming one. That said, I am a former airline pilot and, in my younger days, I spent quite a lot of time playing flight sims, both combat and non. I stopped as soon as I got the job. Believe me, when you do it for a living, the last thing you want to do is pretend to do it on your days off. Now that I no longer fly the friendly skies, I thought about maybe messing around a bit again.

Much to my dismay, in what little research I have done, it would appear that the glut of realistic flight sims that used to exist a decade ago was a passing phenomenon. The only 2 current ones I have come across are DCS A-10C and X-Plane. I was wondering if anyone could comment on either of them and how the user experience is? Also, are there any others that I am missing? I am really more of a combat sim guy. I got my fill of flying around aimlessly and looking at the scenery while at the airlines. I am also a stickler for realism so arcade style shoot-em-ups will likely frustrate and annoy me. In that vein, does anyone know if you can run any of the older sims (think I still have Falcon 4.0 and Janes F-18 somewhere gathering dust) on Windows 7?

Only 2 more questions, I swear. First of all, I just realized that I have my old Saitek X-36 HOTAS joystick and thrust lever. I believe it has USB hook-ups. Can you run them on Windows 7? Do the HOTAS buttons work? Lastly, below are the specs for my new laptop. Does it have the horsepower to run these games? Well I guess that was 3 questions. Thanks!!

HP ENVY 14 customizable Notebook PC
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-460M Dual Core Processor (2.53 GHz, 3MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz
• 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650 switchable graphics [HDMI] - For Dual Core Processors
• 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• One 8 Cell Lithium Ion (standard) + HP ENVY 6-cell Slim Fit Extended-Life Battery (over-sized)
• 14.5" diagonal HD+ HP Radiance Infinity LED Display (1600x900)
• SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam and Dual Digital Integrated Microphones
• Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• Backlit Keyboard
• Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere(R) Elements 8

 

You could also have a look at Lock On: Modern Air Combat, but yeah, sadly there is a lack of modern combat flight sims. I would assume that all these games should run just fine on W7. Your system should be able to run any of the mentioned sims well.

H.A.W.X. is too arcadey.

 

Welcome. I used to be a huge combat sim guy too. Just having kids and stuff has changed that.

I played the A-10 beta for a bit, as well as the Black Shark and I am thoroughly impressed. If you enjoyed the likes of Jane's Longbow, F-15, F/A-18, and Falcon 4 you'll really enjoy the DCS sims.

If you like WWII aircraft then be sure to check out Wings of Prey. It has a simple and realistic mode. There will be a successor to IL-2 as well called IL-2: Cliffs of Dover due out in March. It was renamed from Battle of Britain.

I have a CH Products HOTAS setup so couldn't tell you about Saitek for sure. But based on this post at Saitek forums it seems support has been dropped for the X-36 in Vista and 7.

X36 and Win7 64 problem - The Official Saitek Forum

And your laptop should be fine to run those SIMS.

By the way how did you manage to get a Radiance display? I thought they stopped production of those months ago? Is this a refurb?

 

HP re-released them about 2 weeks ago for a limited amount of time. They also simultaneously released a $500 off coupon for any build over $1399. There's actually a whole thread about it in the HP Envy & HDX forum section because they apparently over sold the Radiance displays and have since cancelled a ton of peoples orders. So far, it looks like I'm in the clear.

As far as the drivers for the X-36, I knew that Saitek had dropped support a while back but I'm hoping the X-45 stuff will work. To the best of my knowledge, they are the same hardware, just different colors. We'll see. Thanks for the swift replies guys!!

 

It looks like HP is trying to dump inventory in prep for a refresh of the Envy 14 line. I had originally planned to wait until they released the Envy 14 w/ the new i5 Sandy Bridge CPU's but I couldn't pass up the deal. Including Microsoft Office Home and Business, I spec'd out a $1600 unit and paid $1100 for it. Don't think I would have gotten that kind of deal on an SB build for a while.

 

Yeah, it seems like you got a very good deal on that HP with that awesome display!

 

I owned an Envy 14 for a while with the Radiance display, back when they were first released. I used the Bing Cashback program too 30% back plus a coupon. I got like a $1900 laptop for less than $1200. Granted a large part of that was the SSD, which was part of the reason I returned the laptop (after 90 days no less!). They took foerever to replace the faulty SSD (actually never did before I got fed up), not to mention a couple other issues like hissing in the headphone jack and a creaky hinge.