Slammr Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 ...after an almost 3-year hiatus. My last FSX flight plan was filed in June of 2013. O.O I have some general questions, and also some Steam FSX SE-specific ones. Let's start with my rig's specs. I'm currently running boxed FSX Deluxe SP2 on a Win 7 SP1 (x64) self-built box: i-5 3470 IB quad-core CPU, Corsair H60 liquid-cooled, 3 add'l fans, 650w PSU, 8 Gb DDR 1600 mHz RAM, 1st-gen GTX 650 (1 Gb VRAM), 1 Tb WD HDD, 27" LG LED 1080p monitor, 1920x1080x32 res. Depending on my mood and how much desk space I'm willing to give up, I fly with either a Saitek Cyborg Evo or an X52. Neither my CPU nor my GPU are OC'ed. I have a hangar of about 15 freeware planes that are must-haves. No extra scenery. I should have pulled the trigger on either Acceleration or FSX Gold, but did not. I'm installed in C:\FSX and have the Highmemfix and WideScreenAspect on. I know my rig is getting, ahem, a bit long in the tooth, but the "old gray mare" is going to have to do me for now. On to the questions (and thanks for bearing with me) :) 1. Cold & Dark start. I just grab the 172 on a ramp somewhere and shut everything down but the master avionics switch and save the flight, yes? 2. I use the 4-dot axis indicator. I'm a lot closer to 50 y.o. than 40, and those dots are tiny! Is there a mod to make 'em just a bit larger? 3. I see the FSX SE is on sale for $7.49 until March 31. This seems like a no-brainer to me, except, well, because Steam. ;) I have a Steam account but haven't used it in a year and a half. I do miss my Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Kerbal Space Program, but Steam is so intrusive (to me, anyway). Then again, $7.49 vs. $180.00 for a purportedly NIB FSX Gold. 4. Which brings me to this: I can't reliably run both my boxed version and the Steam version on the same rig, right? I'd have to uninstall the boxed? 5. And should/will my beloved freeware hangar mostly port over to Steam? I understand MMMV. 6. Also, can players flying the box version fly online with Steam aviators? 7. And finally (at least for now) ;) is TS3 still the voice comms of choice, no matter which version? Thanks for reading all this, and most especially, thanks for any and all advice, answers, comments, beatdowns, etc! :D Slammr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Burke Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 I can only respond to #1 - cold/dark start. Not sure why you would want to leave the avionics turned on to save any given flight. I shut *everything* down, including avionics and the master battery. Every once in a while, the cold/dark start results in a plane that won't start with manual control and the only way it will start is by CTRL+E. In that case, my successful plan has been: start the plane with CTRL+E *then* shut everything down and save the cold/dark file. Then the next time you open that plane, it should start with all the manual (detailed) starting techniques, including master batt, avionics, fuel pump (mixture) etc. Happy Aviating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llivaudais Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 welcome back slammr, some answers: Yes, you can fly both versions on the same machine. No, the versions can't fly on the same internal MP mode together. You can use FSHost. I only flew SE a little while but don't remember any add-on issues. I fly most of my addon stuff from a separate folder (and keep AI in their own folder) I vote TS3 as tops and about 98-99% reliable. SE can be flown OFFLINE after you hop over a few hoops. hope this helps Loyd Hooked since FS4... now flying: self-built i7-4790 at 4 GHz; GA-Z97X mobo; GTX 970; 16GB gskill; quiet, fast and cool running. Win 7/64: 840 EVO OS; 840 EVO (500G) game drive; Win10/64: 850 EVO (500G) for OS and games A few Flightsim videos on YouTube at CanyonCorners Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrzippy Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 Welcome back! I can only respond to #1. I use the default Baron 58 as my "Default flight" I do leave the Avionics switch on. The reason being that if you start a flight in a 737 or 747 (neither of which have an Avionics switch) you will then need to program a keyboard or joystick button to turn it on. Be sure to have your throttles at idle, and mixture to full rich and parking brake set before saving your condition. If the mixture is not saved at full rich, you will not be able to start your jet engines. Mixture=fuel levers on jets. Don't know much of the View/4-dot axis or a way to make the spots bigger. How about a popup HUD? Still thinking about a new flightsim only computer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomTweak Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 I am pretty sure you can run FSX and FSX-SE on the same comp. I can't speak to "at the same time" but definatly on the same machine. For your add-ons: 99.9% of freeware add-ons I know of will run equally well on both versions. SE is really just FSX Gold + Acceleration. So if it will run on the one, it will run on the other. The thing is that with Steam, they tend to bury the FSX folder deeper in their folder structure than Microsoft. This can give auto installers problems, but I don't trust those anyway. I always point them at an empty Temp folder of some sort and let them install their goodies there, then copy into FSX-SE folder manually. It's a bit more complicated, and time intensive, but if something goes haywire I know what is where and can remove it quickly and easily. This applies to scenery, effects, gauges, you name it. As far as I know, there is no reason an FSX-SE pilot can't MP with regular FSX people. I've even MP'd with FS9 players with little trouble. With just the MP "stuff" in SE, no need for FSHost, or anything like that. As long as I can connect to the right server I am gtg. For FS9, yes, for SE, no. AS FAR AS I KNOW! I am not a big MP type, so I am sure there are others with much more knowledge than I on that subject. I have no clue at all about the whole 4-dot thingy. Have never used it, sorry. From what I can see, your computer should run SE just fine. You might take a look at the Sticky from Kosta at the top of the FSX forum and see if some, all, or none, of his tweaks will improve you performance. Some really kicked mine way up, I know that. Just make sure you only change one thing at a time, and test it thoroughly, before going to the next one. I did find that the [bufferpools] entry he recommends doesn't work well for mine. Is it my system, is it SE, is it just me? Another tweak? I haven't a clue. Just a note on that particular tweak... Hope all that helps a little bit... Pat☺ [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again! Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slammr Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 Thanks much for the good info, gents, and the welcomes back. :) It's been too long since I've been in the cockpit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amberdog1 Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Slammer welcome back and have a cup-o-joe on me. I use FSX Gold boxed so I really can't answer your questions but I did want to welcome you back and Happy Flyin:pilot: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomTweak Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 ...and have a cup-o-joe on me. He makes good coffee too! Of course, this is from a guy that used to take the two day old coffee out of the 30 cup urn in Avionics, on Sunday night when I opened up for mids, and heated it up in the microwave to drink until fresh was ready... Those friggen urns take 20 min or more to make coffee!! Way too long to wait at midnight on a Sunday. Pat☺ [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again! Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmatt569 Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Slammer, good to have you back among the living. Pat, y'all need to drink some of the afternoon coffee we do when we're out working cattle. Who knows how many "extra" handsful of coffee has been put in that pot! Bill Bill Mattson [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Airspeed, altitude and ideas, bad to run out of all three at the same time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slammr Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 Thanks again for the welcomes, and the coffee! :) I guess I've had my share of the day-old, warm and cold, back when I was young, dumb, and full of...beans. Prefer the fresh now in my old age. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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