Flight Simulator

Hey, I think I'd like to get a flight simulator, I remember when I was younger and went round my mates house (this is about 6-7 years ago BTW) and he & I played a flight simulator on his PC & I thoroughly enjoyed it (B17 I think rings a bell).
I couldn't have a flight simulator because my PC was rubbish then and there was no way I could run anything like that on it. Anyway... whats out there at the moment thats really worth having? Also what about the gaming pad joystick thing? Any recommendations of any? I'll be needing one of them to make it feel real!

Thanks

 

Sorry forgot to mention, I'm in the UK!

 

The Microsoft chain of Flight Simulator products are very good, however to run the latest one (FSX) well, you need a fairly high spec machine.

 

IL-2 Sturmovik or maybe Lock-On or Falcon 4.0 Allied Force for combat.

Flight Simulator X or X-Plane for non-combat.

There's also tons of older sims---Jane's F-15, Jane's F-18, Flanker 2.5 were all great.

Google: HOTAS (for the controller type---good ones run ~$100 US or more for the stick, throttle, and pedals--each)

 

Oh I don't know!! On IL-2 Sturmovik, Lock-On, Flacon 4.0... can you just free-fly if you want to?
because I'm thinking, just a non-combat simulator could get a bit boring, or are they really good and make you want to keep playing them?

 

I like to toy around with MSFS from time to time, and it keeps me up on my skills for real flying, of which I don't have much time or money for these days. Otherwise yes, Flight Simulator can be kind boring. FSX actually makes it kinda fun with the missions tho. I haven't bought Acceleration yet, but it sounds like they're a lot of fun.

But for fun:

WW2: IL-2 Sturmovik or Battle of Britain is good - it's kind of a flight simulator / RTS game - pretty cool
Modern Jet: Lock-On and Falcon 4.0 Allied Force
Chopper: Enemy Engaged: Apache Havoc / Comanche Hokum

 

In general, non-combat flight-sims model the plane's behavior/physics better (there are exceptions--the one's I listed, are all very well modeled--Falcon is just nuts.) Non-combat sims are challenging and fun due to their realism.--Try landing a 747 at O'hare in a rainstorm.........

But yes, the combat sims are more fun----to me. Be aware that the they aren't simple!! It takes like 5 minutes and over a dozen separate commands/processes just to start the engine in Falcon 4.0 AA. If that level of accuracy sound like fun, you'll love it. If not, there are other sims that are more....forgiving.

F-22 Total Air War is an older, but great combat sim that isn't nearly as extreme in modeling avionics + flight controls. --The Jane's games all offer an "easy" model to fly.---Not sure about the others, never looked for it, always turn up the realism settings to max.

Are you more into WW2 propeller stuff, modern fighters, air-to-ground, commercial??? There's great stuff in every category. Although it's been ages since we had a decent combat helicopter sim.

Lastly, be aware that most good flight sims, by their nature are old. Usually they're so complicated that when 1st released, they are buggy messes and take, literally, years to patch up into greatness. It's just the nature of the beast.

 

I don't really think I'm into anything, i doubt that ww2 is my thing, but then I've never payed a ww2 game, I'd expect modern fighters r more up my street. I also think that the 5 minute start would suit me, attention to detail is what I like! I think perhaps I should get just a flying simulator, realism sounds more like me. I think Microsoft Flight Simulator X would be the best place 2 start! So with that, do u just fly around and explore, or do u have to carry passengers and get them to their destination on time?

 

If you're interested in FSX---I think there's a demo here with a few planes + missions--scroll about 1/2 way down the page:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/downloads.html

 

Yeah I had a disk with a deom of the game ages ago, and I didn't have a joystick and the demo I had didn't teach me how to use the plane, so I didn't get anywhere.
Also... I've read that FSX is quite choppy and has frame rate issues, I also read the was around this is to lower the settings but then it apparently looks as good as the previous version (which i've seen pics of) I'd prefer high detail textures, but looks like FSX is practically unplayable (as I like smoothness), so are there any other simulators that have high detail landscape & crafts that also run smoothly, BTW I've got a:

* 3.01Ghz Pentium 4
* 1Gb RAM
* 256mb ATI Radeon X600 Series

 

There's a patch/service update for FSX---but I think it's to enable multi-core use, and yours is single core......

Maybe take a look at X-Plane:

http://x-plane.com/sysreq.html

Also, most of the older combat sims (or those based on older sim engines, like F4AF) aren't as demanding for a modern PC.

You could try FS9/FS2004.

Lastly, is much easier to learn any of the sims when you have the manual (or hard copy of the PDF-manual) those pop-up help windows are worthless compared to an actual manual.

 

Well today I went out & purchased a joystick and Flight Simulator 2004 (I wanted FSX, but due to is performance issues on a medium performance PC, I opted for an older version)
And I must say that I'm disappointed, it wasn't at all like I was expecting, I think I should have got a combat game thinking about it, the worst thing about the game are the textures, on the back of the game case they look really good, but its NOT! The buildings are unrealistic and if you come flying towards the ground... you don't crash, you just rebound back up into the sky!!
I know I shouldn't have been expecting anything amazing seeing as its a 2004 game, but the back of the game box made it look much better than it actually is, I expect I'll put it on my top shelf now and allow it to gather dust!
Next one has to be a combat game me thinks!

 

There's already a Flightsim thread here: * * OFFICIAL Flightsim thread * *

 

Uh....check the realism settings, and RTFM.


FWIW, I started off with less demanding combat sims. It took several years before the highly complex "thousand button" ones were my cup of tea.---You might want to try something like F-22 TAW. It's got great scalability and your ability to direct the air war via AWACS, then jump-in any F-22 to fight (or not) is tons of fun.

 

Hey Tony, just curious, how's F22TAW running on modern hardware and XP or Vista? I remember when it first came out and I enjoyed it, but haven't installed it or EF2000 or any of the sorts on my last few pc's.... any compatibility issues? Thanks

 

Works on XP (if memory serves, it requires a few display setting tweaks as well as "compatibility" setting adjustment) but it ran fine on max settings--no idea about Vista.