kingsleytailors

Hi, I’m Tom, have been on this forum (and many others) since I got more deeply involved in flight simulation, I don’t remember how long ago. The forum will have kept track, I get birthday greetings every year.

 

My flight dimming goes back to SubLogic’s release of the Atari version of their original simulator, tracks through Microsoft’s release of an Amiga version for what may have been FS2 or FS3 (something that worked a whole lot better than FS2 on the PC, because of limited PC graphics). While buying and trying various MSFS versions (Amiga got only the one) I got distracted into Air Warrior, a multiplayer game then running on the Genie dial up service, at first on Amiga, later on PC, as early Pentium and SVGA got that platform for usable.

 

On retirement, I came home from Asia with a fast Pentium 4 PC, 500 MB of fast RAM, and NVidia’s GeForce 256 (a first of its kind). When FS 2004 came out, I bought it, installed it, and quickly started building hours. Now on the Internet, I started following the flight simulator forums, learned about having multiple versions on the simulator, and built a Golden Wings environment because I was most enjoying the antique aircraft and wanted an antique world. From there, Silver Wings for flying things somewhat more modern, and then I got interested in propliners and built another world for late 1950s from CalClassics resources. I kept a modern environment of course, flying Skylanes and Barons to visit my scattered family.

 

I duplicated this partly on laptops, e.g. putting the basic FS9 and Golden Wings on a Pentium M machine with Intel 3D graphics, and succeeding laptops. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well FS9 performs on modest PC hardware.

 

When FSX first came out, I tried a demonstration release on my “entertainment” laptop (4th Gen i5, 2 cores/4 threads, Intel 3D graphics) but this was just too sluggish, although the machine was a real master of video processing or photo editing. So I bought myself a box I would dedicate to flight simulation (5th Gen i7, 4 cores, 8 threads, Radeon 5770 graphics). FSX (I bought Gold) installed OK, authenticated, but ran sluggishly, about like FS9 running on the Pentium M laptop. FS9 would run with almost everything maxed out, processor turbo speed was about the same as the Pentium 4, but most of the data movement paths were much faster. So what was supposed to become my FSX machine became my new multiple environment FS9 machine.

 

Until Microsoft decided that the “check for CD” authentication mechanism was a security flaw, and patched Widows 7 to disable the function. I identified the patch, removed it, kept flying, could see where Microsoft was going, started flying some FSX. Then Microsoft released Flight, I loaded the interface and tried it. Guess what? After installation Flight, my authentication of FSX became invalid. So back to FS9. Until another Windows security update killed the drive on that machine: multiple runs of a “repair the boot block” routine on the premise that altered boot locks were security flaws, and I had set up multi-boot for a couple of different Linux implementations.

 

That made me so angry that I put the machine in a closet and replaced it with an iMac. Many years as a Unix administrator, I trust anyone’s Unix implementation more than anything from Microsoft. That meant my flight simulation was down to X-Plane, which I bought and tried, but the computer was not really powerful enough and I had all new controls to learn, so that got me out of flight simulation for almost a decade. I had many other projects: genealogy, tens of thousands of photos to scan, tens of hours of video to edit, and more.

 

When I wanted to fly, I had FS9 on the old laptop. I slight limitation eventually discovered, the laptop would overheat and shut down after an hour or two. It wasn’t just flight simulation creating this challenge, image recognition (built into photo library management software) or video processing would also work the CPU hard enough to trigger thermal shutdown. Most of my video was short enough to finish.

 

Digressions. I came back to flight simulation with purchase of a high performance Windows 10 laptop, 7th generation i7, GTX 950M, huge storage for my photo projects. Bought and installed FSX Steam, which ran moderately well. Installed a basic FS9.1 with the NoCD fix, ran like the blazes. Then I discovered that anything using the GPU, with CPU near max, overheated the laptop. Motherboard forming the keyboard part of the case started warping, eventually enough to separate the keyboard from the bottom part of the case. While flying in FSX: what’s that pop? It’s a fragile plastic fastener breaking.

 

That one backed up and set aside, I looked for a serious gaming laptop, the design of cooling systems foremost in mind. And maybe it will run FS2020. 10th Generation i7 (4 cores 8 threads) and Mobile RTX 2070 GPU, three variable speed high tech cooling fans and almost a foot and a half of air outlet vents. First bought and installed FS2020, probably more deluxe than I need but there were certain aircraft I wanted. FS2020 loads and runs, drawing hard in resources without doing anything. I need to sort out my controllers.

 

Then I loaded FSX Steam Edition, and realized this I the first computer I’ve owned that can actually handle FSX. So now I am moving from FS9 community to FSX community. I come with thousands of hours in FS9, too many installations producing logs on too many machines, logs lost, so starting over with FSX. I still love flying close over the scenery in primitive aircraft, the Cub is the most primitive I can find. Most of my FS9 hours were in 1930s classics and 1950s propliners. I like planning and executing long flights, following old airline schedules. I’ve been around the world at least five times, starting with Wiley Post’s flight in the Vega, the return to North America of the M130 Clipper that got caught in Asia after Pearl Harbor, PanAm’s first “round the world” Constellation flight (actually coast to coast the long way because they could not fly domestically), and Amelia Earhart’s last flight. Using period navigation techniques, I got lost in the same places.

 

Most of my simulated flying was enabled by the flexibility of FS9, the worlds I could create, the accurate models I could find. I will learn what I can do in FSX, maybe fall back on FS9, maybe just pretend that any facility, any rule, since 1960 just does not exist. I tend to fly with Skyvector playing VFR sectional and terminal area maps showing on another machine, and I don’t like the world they show me. My real world flying experiences go back to late 1950s, small rural airfields that would get swallowed up by suburban development before the end of the century. I would prefer to simulate that earlier world.

well let me read with a cup of coffiee :rolleyes: