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start this by saying that I have only used the new flight simulator
for a few days now, and have gone from a Pentium 75 to a Pentium 133
right in the middle of my testing period.I started FSFW95 with a Pentium 75, CH Products Virtual Pilot I Yoke and Pedals, ATI-MACH64 Video Xpression 2MEG card, a 2 speed CD ROM, and an old Sound Blaster I. My review of FSFW95 hasn't changed except for the fact that on my new P133, the whole flightsim realism level has gone up a lot, and the performance as expected made me shout with excitement!
I will begin with the installation. It went flawless. It took at least 20 minutes, but was error free...and gave good progress bars.
Then once FSFW95 was running, I configured it with ease for my own preferences. Which are: Max Realism, Low scenery quality/high frame rate, Scenery Detail on Dense, Dynamic on full, and advanced weather menu. Then I also adjusted the windows a little smaller on the 737 to look more real, and to enhance the frame rate some more. Now I was ready to go.
I was immediately impressed how real the 737 model flew. I noticed that the old touchiness of FS4 and FS5 were now gone. You could really hand fly this plane and not have to worry about trimming or over-controlling. Why I really had to get myself to not be nervous about manhandling the controls too hard. I could even use the trim on the keyboard very accurately..without the nose bobbing up and down as in the previous versions of FS. This was real nice. Precise turns, climbs, descents, landings, and ILS approachs are now really easy to make. I even did 30 kt crosswind approaches in the 737 with ease...and was able to slip, and make a greaser landing everytime!
It's remarkable how "heavy" and "solid" this FlightSafety designed 737-400 for FSFW95 feels... it really will have you saying "this can't be MS flightsim, no way!" I honestly thought I was flying a new jet simulator, unrelated to any past Microsoft flightsim jet. It was really that good.
The autopilot engages and disconnects smoothly. There is almost no pitch change or oddities when engaging altitude hold. Heading changes via the autopilot are also done with much more smoothness than in FS5. We now have a Yaw damper too, something I've wanted on the jets forever, but now that FSFW95 flies so stable you really don't need to use it much. Basically the yaw damper keeps everything coordinated in turbulence and turns where you don't need or want to deal with the rudder.
The 737-400 panel is great. Totally different than all our other
panels, and offers almost complete functionality. The resolution is
good. Some of the small engine guages are not readable although they
operate. All the info you need however is readable, and most of the
panel is very realistic. The Flight Director graphic is a little
chunky. The HSI works great, and actually swivels and tunes like a
real one.The panel is user and mouse friendly, as useable parts will yield a "hand" on your screen to manipulate the knob or switch. The spoilers are multi-positional like on a real jet which is a nice new feature. Radios and knobs will either be changeable thru the mouse with + or - symbols to click, although I still prefer spinning OBS knobs or changing radio frequencies via the keyboard as it's a lot faster. Unfortunately the 737 panel is missing a radio altimeter. Not good. But, I can live without it, and soon I am sure we'll have adventures that will include the vocal radio altimeter as in FS5.
You do hear rumbling while moving down the runway, after flaps are down, and after wheel touchdown...this is a real boost for us noise nuts! The landing gear sound is taken from a real jetliner I assume as you can hear hydraulics, gear thumping and clunking! This was my favorite new FS sound! The marker noises have their own wav files now too, and they are loud and crisp. The flaps also have their own wav files, and have a pretty good grinding sound in each increment. Yes, we finally have terrific sounds!
No flaps, slats or spoilers are shown from the 737. This is too bad, however the gear is animated which is fun to watch. The views from the cockpit feature posts and internal window shapes when looking in anything other than staight ahead which I happen to like. Since the real 737-400 is a longer version of the 737-300 and has two emergency doors on the side, I am pretending this 737 is the new 737-500 model because the one shown in FSFW95 really looks like a -300. It's not long enough nor has the double emergency door exits. The -300 doesn't have a glass cockpit, and thus I really pretend that FSFW95 simulates the 737-500 best, as in real life the new -500 is glass, and has the same body as the 737-300.
I haven't flown the Extra much yet, however I must say the times that
I have, it's just a lot of fun. It's crisp, very responsive, and just
as stable as I had hoped. It's no 737, but is not overly sensitive as
controlling FS5 was. The panel is great, with some of the little
toggles being hard to read, but the gauges are clear, and we finally
have a real manifold pressure gauge, rpm gauge, etc.The neatest little thing on the Extra is the digital G-force meter which displays in a light bar the amount of positive and negative G's you're pulling while flying. This looks like it was taken right out of the real plane and even allows you to use a stopwatch kind of function right on it to record the peak forces encountered. You don't need to hit shift-z anymore for G forces. Also, the tach has digital lights to warn of too fast prop speeds...a great feature most real aircraft don't even have! Make sure to fly in real mode with manual prop and mixture settings so you can fly it like real pilots.
I found myself easily performing aerobatics with great precision. It was far better than anything I ever experienced in any other FS aerobatic plane until now.
The graphics of the plane are real nice, with prop effects at various rpms that you see at the front corner viewpoints.
The scenery in FSFW95 is better. Many areas including my own city of
Boston region finally have a good airport and city scenery. There are
several new areas to fly that are detailed as good as the original
SFO, ORD, LAX and SEA group, however only one major airport has
details in these regions, still wanting us flightsimmers demanding
full airport scenery everywhere. The areas of addon scenery like NYC,
Las Vegas and San Francisco are included here which is nice. However I
understand you must use an install patch for Europe I and II to get
those to work I understand, but haven't tried yet. I did get FSFX to
work fine by manually installing the files.The world is now 3D polygon style with real hills, mountains and changing elevations believe it or not...so be wary when flying in places you think are flat...you may get a rude awakening!
The city urban textures are marvelous...so good I almost didn't want
to install FSFX. The buildings are more in number and detail. All
major lakes, rivers and highways can be seen throughout the USA. Some
coastlines have the FSFX style "foamy ocean shore" effect, and the
water looks a little better than the old default water.
The weather is the same in terms of graphics. Simple, 2D. The 3D clouds option gives you the same "sugar cube" effect as from way back when, and will decrease your frame rate at least 30%. You would think by now we'd have smooth clouds. The thunderstorms are still black as coal, and rediculously tiny. This is a big reason I installed FSFX was to fix the thunderstorms. I sure wish we had the old lightning and thunder effect of FS4. (dreaming on huh?)
I haven't explored much beyond the Boston - Chicago region yet, so I do look forward to all the other long awaited world scenery we now have default.
The one problem is that even on a Pentium, you will get some pausing
of the scenery if not often slowdowns. This is annoying. I was
almost ready to give up on FSFW95 in the beginning because I hit some
30 second pauses while the hard drive scanned for scenery in the NY
area. This was terrible, however I discovered that setting up your
joystick in Win95 joystick setup properly to select your exact brand
and combination of controls will reduce the pausing a great deal!
Don't fly FSFW95 without setting up your joystick first thru Win95! Now on my P133 the pausing is even less, thus I now find FSFW95 totaly acceptable in terms of fluid flight. But, anyone on a slower machine will get more pausing and I must say, if I didn't have a Pentium, I don't think FSFW95 would be useable due to the pausing problem. I understand pausing is how Win95 handles games that is the problem, and not FSFW95 itself.
FSFW95 is new, we just now have gotten converters for FS5 planes and adventures. With all the popularity and hoopla with FlightSafety involved in this software, the future will be great, and in a year I bet that FSFW95 will be as famous as FS5 still is.
If I had to give FSFW95 just one grade, it would be an 86. I would grade it lower due to the scenery pausing problem - but now on a fast Pentium I can't complain. For all you flyers on 486s, I must say FSFW95 would be dissapointing...but may also prompt you to upgrade...which is worth it.
There is always a lot to improve upon with a new Flightsim release, and I am sure there will be another patch or something in the future before any "FS7". Basically, FSFW95 is a much better .0 version than the terribly troublesome FS5.0 was.
Go get FSFW95 if you have a fast computer. Keep enjoying FS5 if you don't. I will enjoy both FS5 and FSFW95 until I can convert over the aircraft and adventures. Then I will clearly be an exclusive FSFW95 pilot!