Meh- 2020 has nothing over FSX

[pcwildman]

I'm workin' on it! Again, it doesn't matter. I'll make it work as well as it can. I'm not so sure about them not using elements of previous Sims. Many pieces of the puzzle are the exact same. And all settings are set on Max.

 

What I do notice is that I found the only complaint about no Lat/Long figures on an obscure site with few comments. So, no one does their own navigation calculations. No one even cares that the GPS1000 doesn't give figures. When I made that first flight between NY and Chicago with only flat grey in between, it got me interested in Navigation. If I had been a Flat Earther I never would have found Chicago. I learned Spherical Trig, and any Simmer worth his salt should be able to solve a spherical triangle. I have an entire spreadsheet devoted to Navigation around the World. I have incorporated William's Aviation Treatise as well as countless other techniques.

 

Flight Sim is about more than just flying, it's Geography, Math, History and Geology too. But I guess playing 737 Pile-Up on an Aircraft Carrier is more fun.

[Herc79]

Well, "hardcore simulation" actually means different things to different people. To some, that means using a G1000 and ignore steam gauges because "that's old and gone". Which it's not, but I digress. To some, the navigation is limited to GPS with no waypoints, just A to B. At destination, dive to the ground, and zoom to the runway, as if landing a fighter on a carrier...

 

To others, like myself, I like to use VOR instruments, NDB's and stopwatch. Not referencing any GPS or even the map function... just hoping like heck I didn't lose track of which leg and freq I needed!

 

But spherical triangles and aircraft nav? Yea, I've no idea.

 

Keep in mind, FS2004 featured sim accurate star placement... no, not "SIDS STARS", but actually the distant stars in the galaxy, would be placed accurately above, for the season and date, allowing navigation the same as old sea mariners, using sextant! And if memory serves, I think one of the default aircraft even had a sextant for this purpose! I wonder how few FS2004 users ever tried it?

 

Geology? Like the type of beach rocks I'm landing on with my tundra-tire bushplane? How about expanding on this, since you seem much deeper into this sim business than some n00bs like myself?

[plainsman]

This shot shows an example of geology interpretable from the sim. This shot in Southern Chile shows a recent lava flow has dammed an estuary to create a fresh water lake on the left, separated from the sea on the right. If you fly east out of Brookings, SD, you can see glacial striations evident on the landscape. Many mountainous locations have many glacial features you can see in the sim. There are many examples of breeched domes, anticlines, and synclines, which are evident in the sim, such that the folding can often be interpreted. If you fly northwest out of Lawton, OK, you can see the buried granitic Wichita Mountains jutting from the surrounding plain. These mountains were a major range all the way from north of Lawton to Amarillo, TX, millions of years ago. There are major faults that are now visible in the sim. Many more examples are easily cited.

[leegra]

Sorry for my early criticism...Inappropriate and unjustified...

 

Lee Graves

 

 

(Ryzen 5 3600 cpu; ASUS ROG B-550-F MB; 32 GB Corsair memory; GeForce 2060 video card; Sabrent 1 TB SSD; ASUS 27" Gaming Monitor; Updated Win 10; ANTEC case)

[pcwildman]

Lee Graves- didn't phase me.

 

Plainsman- nice explanation. Mainly the Geology is about landforms. I don't know of any missions yet where you get to break open rocks and see what they're made of. Anybody looking for new mission ideas? You have to find the rocks which match the rocks at the scene of the crime. Maybe throw in a Crystal Skull.

 

One good example is the Richat Structure in Mauritania, a perfectly circular set of ridges in the Sahara. When I read about it I flew out there and there it was. I haven't checked it out in MSFS, yet. I'm betting it looks incredible. It is an eroded geological dome.

 

There's also a crater scar on the plains of Kansas or Oklahoma, I'll have to look it up, but when I flew there in FSX I found no indication of it. You would have to consult a geological map to identify it. There's a chance it will show up in MSFS. It's millions of years old and they've plowed that area for hundreds of years.

 

Other geological features include volcano fields, such as around Paracutin in Mexico, Taupo in New Zealand, Toba in Indonesia (the largest eruption ever 75k years ago, which may have almost wiped out our species), but the best is Reunion Island east of Madagascar. You can see evidence of massive subsidence after the hotspot blew its top, with cliffs thousands of feet high. All of these are hotspots, there are hundreds all over the world and make for some of the best flying. The Hawaiian Islands are the most recognizable example.

 

It's not that FSX will teach you directly about Geology, but as I study geology and what shaped each part of the earth, I can then get in the plane and fly over these features which makes it easier to understand.

 

Devil's Tower in Wyoming, Ship Rock in New Mexico, The Grand Canyon, the U shaped valleys of Yosemite (carved by glaciers), the Great Lakes, The Scablands in the Northwest (carved by massive floods ten thousand years ago), Manicouagan Crater in Quebec, Craters of the Moon in Idaho, Crater Lake, Meteor Crater in Arizona (it almost hit the visitor center), The Deccan and Siberian Traps (huge outpourings of lava), and virtually every hotspot on the planet make for great flying. Then you can study mountain building, orogenesis.

 

Even larger than the Grand Canyon is the Copper Canyon in Mexico, equal to three Grand Canyons. So, as you fly, try to imagine what made the landforms underneath you, read and learn what you can. You'll never buy a house on an eroding river bank in your life. There's an excellent series on YouTube, How the Earth Was Made.

 

May the Road Never Rise Up to Meet You

[pcwildman]

I never used FS9, but I'm thinking of getting a copy just for the sextant. I could never get them to work in FSX. Navigation is a whole nother ballgame from piloting, and I realize that most people hate math. I like the idea that if my GPS and other instruments go out I can still figure out how to get home. I use GPS, VORs, DMEs and my own calculations as I fly.

 

I would urge every simmer to read Bowditch. Originally written for ship navigation in 1802, The American Practical Navigator has been updated throughout the years to include all forms of past and modern navigation techniques and is the Bible of Navigation. Many of the sections about ships are equally valid for planes. There's also lots of cool stuff about clouds and winds. Glider pilots can gain a better understanding of how winds behave around mountains and ridges. Regular pilots can learn what to watch out for when flying in the mountains. These conditions are mimicked in FSX. You can be forced right into the side of a mountain if you misjudge the winds.

 

Enjoy.

[pcwildman]

I also have to say that I found 737 Pile Up quite entertaining and wouldn't mind participating myself. That was kind of a cheap dig. The great thing about these simulators is the endless variety of things we can do. Someone needs to do an Airboat for the swamps. I have Hovercraft in FSX, but have never seen an Airboat. It'd be too easy.

[stephinder]

Can't say I'm too impressed by 2020. This seems more like a game company put it together to make a quick buck. No moving your head around anywhere in the cockpit, no three quarter view out front as you approach from an angle. I thought the graphics is what makes this so great. They don't look any better than the original FSX. We've lost thousands of airports. Once I get FSX back up and running I doubt I'll ever fly this again. I see nothing but limitations, whereas FSX is endlessly fluid (for free or low cost) and will never be used to its fullest capacity. Why didn't the Aces Team come up with their own and market it?

 

I can't stop laughing!

[Herc79]

I never actually tried the sextant, never really got the time to learn it, so I’m not totally sure if it works 100% properly, but I do recall that there was a claim it worked… might have even been an ad that pointed it out! I’m sure there are easier/faster/cheaper ways to get FS9 / FS2004 “A Century of Flight”, but I got a copy for cheap from Kijiji ads in my local city. Kijiji is basically similar to eBay but done more like “want ads” or “newspaper classified ads” and little in the way of bidding. In this case, $10 got me an immaculate, complete (even with all the advertising brochures, keyboard control list, the startup guide) in the very attractive tin case that the early editions were sold!

 

Funny enough, I was so “drowning in coolaide” about FS9 that when FSX came out I rushed out and installed it… and was pissed about it for months! Every criticism that you can imagine, and more, I had used to describe it! After a few months of fighting with FSX I finally uninstalled it. So when this thread was started, it reminded me of my own reaction to the early days of FSX, the fair criticisms and the outlandish unrealistic opinions I held about it. And clearly FSX grew popular, and was effective, and a very positive experience for millions of people… I just wasn’t one of them, and there’s nothing wrong with being on either site of it!

 

There WAS two things I quite enjoyed, albeit briefly, about FSX, one being a few missions in the DHC Beaver, the other thing was the gliders, something I never ever thought I would like, yet within minutes I started to LOVE that!! But I was fighting a losing battle in a horrific war against framerates, stutters, missing textures, CTD’s and it was just making the whole thing miserable.

 

Ok, thanks for the explanation of geology as relates to FS, somehow I didn’t “get” the original point of the post that mentioned it! Yes, clearly with this level of ground detail, we can really start to properly see the beauty of this world we live in! The Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion Canyons… amazing, the Swizerland at Lucern, a castle in the Black Forrest, the Rocky Mountains, Icefield Parkway in Alberta…

[naaltu61]

I am not going back to using my monitors and now that I have my VR and the settings adjusted it is awesome. MSFS 2020 looks WAY better then FSX did.

[Throttle_Up]

I thought the graphics is what makes this so great. They don't look any better than the original FSX.

 

I feel something has gone wrong in your setup or you have the settings dialled down really low (just a guess). I sense that by now you will have fixed the graphics side of things!

 

As much as I loved beloved FS9, FSX and X-Plane 11 - none of them can come close visually to this title. I just took these shots.

 

Finals at Kansai

 

Departing Manila

[learpilot]

I thought FSX was better at first but since I have learned to use MSFS I find it Infinitely better.Flight dynamics alone would make MSFS worth the money.I s MSFS perfect ?? not yet but hopefully they will keep working on it.

[edjoe]

It is true that graphics in MSFS2020 has surpassed previous flight sims but the flight model continues to be below par. MSFS2020 has even given the option to use the FSX flight model but since airplanes are being designed with the more modern one in mind, some still fly like they are attached to bungie chords. Also, since new airplane folders are pretty difficult to reach and edit, changing some parameters of the flight dynamics has become an unappealing exercise.:)

[tiger1962]

Also, since new airplane folders are pretty difficult to reach and edit, changing some parameters of the flight dynamics has become an unappealing exercise.:)

 

I respectfully disagree - they're in a different place but you can edit everything with Notepad only.