alanmerry

Hans,

 

I haven't noticed any problems and this includes not having scenery suddenly appear.  It's probably something to do with modern processors and video cards, as mentioned by defaid above, not that my hardware is particularly modern.  Processor is AMD Phenom II and video card is NVIDEA GeForce GTX960.  Converting textures to DXT3, without MIPS, usually makes them sharper, particularly when close up.

 

Alan

Chris_eve,  Hans

I use DXT3 for everything with no problems and good resolution. If I find any textures that are not DXT3, I convert them using the  DXTBmp Texture tool (mwgfx.co.uk) software that you mention with "Mip Maps" unticked.  There is also Texture Manager by Don Grovestine that will convert whole folders of texture files.

 

As for "massive" my FS2004, aircraft, ai aircraft, sceneries, etc etc etc occupy 180.8 GB of a 223GB SSD.  Ridiculous, I know!

But I'm pleased to see that a steady stream of FS2004 stuff continues to appear on flightsim.com

I don't know if this applies to FSX, but in FS2004 the only time I have run out of memory is when there has been a landclass file in a scenery folder.  Landclass scenery .bgl files need to be in their own folder (eg landclass/scenery) and that folder should not have a texture folder in it.  I hope this helps, rather than adding to the confusion!

I agree with "jgf" FSUIPC and FSNavigator 4.7,  then the world is your lobster!  Then a enormous variety of aircraft and scenery, much of it freeware, some 20 years' worth, which keeps me flying FS9. I recommend the turbo-props by Rick Piper.   MSFS has some catching up to do here!

I'm afraid I have to agree with most of what has been said on this topic.  It is not as easy as it was on the old site to find particular files.  Even in "Latest Files" it is not always clear which simulator a particular download is for.  The things that made flightsim.com stand out from other websites was the ease of finding your way about and its clarity, two things that the new site is yet to replicate.

I always load Previous Flight so that I start from where I left off.  Then before actually flying I might change aircraft, weather and time/date.  Am I missing something?

Just a thought, before I adjust the pictures on my uploads.  On your new website the pictures are square whereas on the old website they were rectangular, landscape.

Considering the shape of most aircraft, is square a good idea?  A minor point.

Which version of FS are you using? In FS9 or FSX a crash at a particular location may be due to Land Class files in your scenery folders. Land Class files (often including LC in the file name) must not be in the same folder as other scenery and any folder which has LC files must not have a texture folder in the same folder. If its not that it may be a problem with AI traffic. This is a more tedious problem to solve, finding the offending flights by gradually removing and/or editing traffic files.

If, on a real flight, even in 'cattle class', you have a video screen in front of you and can watch a moving map, you will see the non-straight route that your flight follows. (maybe not available on short haul routes)

You can place any scenery with ADE, it doesn't have to be an airfield. And you can take a screenshot from Google Earth and use it as a background to place objects accurately. Then just save the compiled scenery with its textures (if necessary) in AddOn Scenery or in its own folder if you add that folder to your scenery.cfg. The background doesn't show in the sim, but there are ways around that too.

I'm sure I have said this before somewhere in this forum, but it's worth saying again in this context. The freeware builders of both aircraft and scenery have turned FS2004 into, I think, much more than MS ever imagined when they first put the software together. Many thanks to them all.

Thanks to the many, mostly freeware, aircraft available, I tend to fly quite a variety. Most frequently the B747-400 for long haul by Project Open Sky (with a considerably modified panel), Project Airbus for shorter trips by A320 and ATR72 for shortest trips (by Francisco Sánchez-Castañer or the payware by Virtualcol). Not quite so regularly I fly the excellent freeware VC10 or Trident by David Maltby or Rick Piper's Viscount. The different flying characteristics together with a large amount of scenery, keeps FS9 full of interest. I rarely use FMC. I do use ATC, but I wish they would get their act together so that I don't land less than a thosand metres behind another aircraft. (Go-around ?? !!)

The simple answer is almost anywhere on flightsim.com or other flight simulator websites.

On flightsim.com go to File Library, Search Files, then file section : FS2004 and text : ai

Download the aircraft into your Aircraft folder in FS9. If the file just contains a texture, there is usually a link to the required aircraft model. This may be in the Read Me file. To make the aircraft appear in your sim you will also need some flightplans.

I hope this is what you were lookin for.

I'm still happily running FS2004 on W7. And I have a lot of software which also runs fine such as FSrealWX, Airport Design Editor and gmax. Apart from flight simulator related stuff I have MS Word and MS Works (both from 1997) and various picture editing software. For internet I use Firefox and outlook for emails. All of which does what I need it to do. Why do I need to pay for Windows 10 or 11 plus the software that will run on it?

There may come a day when te internet stuff stops working, but then I'll buy a small machine for that and keep the W7 running as it is.

It is normal practice to backup all computer files on a regular basis. I backup mine every month onto an external hard drive, which is only connected during the backup, thereby protecting files from any bugs that may creep in during day to day operations!

If I need to reinstall FS9, I then install from the CDs, which sets up the necessary files in "users" and then overwrite all the files in \FS2004 with those from the backup, so that all the add-ons are back in place. Backup, each month can take a couple of hours (lots of aircraft and lots of scenery) and a reinstall also a couple of hours, but a lot quicker, I think than trying to reinstall each scenery/aircraft from scratch.

In your situation I think I would

a) backup your current FS9

b) reinstall FS9 from CD

c) apply the FS9.1 patch

d) copy back all FS9 files EXCEPT fs9.exe

 

In subsequent backups the FS9.1 will be backed up along with all of your other files.

I hope that this answers your question.

I had and still have this same problem with FSdreamteam's KJFK. I contacted FSdreamteam who admitted there was a problem with the Key/License number. While it is OK for developers not to continue to support older systems and/or versions of FS, this needs to be clear in their advertising. When I bought this add-on it did say that it was for FS9 and worked in Windows 7. I checked! I don't buy payware that isn't compatible with my system!

Yes, I've spent many an hour searching through AI aircraft and flight plans to solve FS9 carashing! The clue is that the crash happens in the same place and at the same time. But the aircraft/flight can be anywhere within probabaly 40 miles. As you have done, the first thing to check is recently installed aircraft and/or flight plans. If that doesn't find it then its a long haul through your flight plans!

Try removing half of them. If the fault continues then you know which half the fault is in. Half this again and repeat until the fault is found. Not a quick process!

It seems the way of all software nowadays, not just simulators. You don't buy the software, you just 'rent' it. Anytime you load it, the first thing it does is go to the software's website (which you may not be aware of) and installs updates and anything else the writers care to throw in, whether you want it or not! And there's always the possibility that it just disappears !

It can be quite difficult to find the option switches to stop this happening. You may also need to go into your control panel to stop 'scheduled updates' to stop software from updating at obscure times and frequencies.

So not only is the software not your own, your computer may not be either!

Hence I have stuck with Windows7 and FS2004, (not to mention other ancient software). I am in control of MY computer. And thanks to plenty of quality add-ons in flightsim, and elsewhere, FS2004 looks good to me!

Further to previous post, I have found the model on flightsim. Search for bevpt1.zip It was actually built for FS2002, but it's not a bad model considering its age.

I have the Beverley by Ralph Pegram, Brian Horsey and Bob Hazeldine. It flies well, but very slowly! Let me know if you like me to pass it on.

Thanks for your thoughtful and extensive analysis. When FS2020 was announced I had thought of buying it. But due to the apparent "in development" state of it and my extensive collection of add-ons for FS2004, I'll hold off, as least for the time being. There are a lot of excellent add-ons for FS2004, including the Historic Jetliners Group planes that you mention and as for scenery, the ground textures of the Netherlands by NL2000 and Don Muang airport by Thai Flight Simulator (both freeware) show what can be done with FS2004.

Not sure about the gforce gt710. I run FS9 in Windows7 with an Nvidia GeForce GTX960 and that's fine even around dense scenery around airports. You should be able find comparisons of the two somewhere on the web.

But I would suggest a SSD rather than the hard drive, unless you need 1TB of storage for something else. The SSD is faster. My masses of scenery and hundreds of aircraft half fill a 240GB SSD with Windows7 on a different SSD. You might like to consider a SSD for FS9 and a HDD for everything else depending on how much storage you need.

I hope this helps, rather than adding to the confusion!

I think this has to be a hardware fault, probably the E key on your keyboard is sticking. The fact it works as it should when you use shift-X seems to back this up. So its either a serious clean or a new keyboard!

A quick search of Amazon (expensive) or ebay shows plenty are available. No doubt other suppliers are also out there.

I am building an overhead panel for FS2004. I have a zero delay arcade USB encoder, connected 12 on/off switches and plugged in the USB. The switches work straight away both through options-controls-assignments or through FSUIPC. No problem, except, for example:

To switch on the landing lights I switch the allocated switch on. So far so good. But to switch the lights off I have to switch the switch off then on again to send the necessary signal to the sim. Obviously I would like that when the switch was on the lights are on and off when the switch is off. I think I could place two switches close together, one upside down to the other and some sort of handle across the two to make one switch to achieve the required result. But does anyone have any experience, suggestions, ideas? Thanks.