Kirk

If you're using Orbx scenery you should be good to go installing into P3dv4. I bought much of my Orbx scenery for use with FSX and am now using it with P3Dv4. Your new rig sounds awesome!

Excellent! Congratulations!

There's really no need to commit right off the bat. You can download and run a demo of X-Plane for no charge. FSX:SE is usually the least expensive, currently $25 on Steam, and Prepar3d v4, what I use, has a 14 day refund policy (I don't know if it's difficult to get the refund or not, but I've read that it's not). I suppose if you want to commit immediately to X-Plane without trying any of them, that's your choice, of course. But I'm not sure why anyone would do that when you can try all 3 major sims for little or no money.

Thank you all for sharing! I see there is plenty more I can do, and learn to do. I don't have a clue how to fly using nav aids. So I think I might start there. Turn off the GPS and test my ability to get from here to there without that. Also, I had started flying some missions when I was using FSX, and enjoying them. But having switch to Prepar3d... well it doesn't have nearly the library of built in missions. But to add some freeware/payware mission type things sounds like fun too. I'm kind of excited to try these suggestions! Yeah, thank you all so much!

Over the past year I've had the opportunity to set up a pretty nice flight sim. I have a couple pay-ware aircraft and some decent hardware. But I'm beginning to get a little bored. I'm in the middle of a trip flying G.A. to the four corners of the continental U.S., a project I started not longer after learning to take off. And I'll finish it, because I finish stuff. But the last dozen legs or so, across MT, ND, MN, and WI, have been boring as all get out. Most of it flat and bland. I spend a lot of time flying between the two regional airports in my area trying to perform the best landings I can do, and I've gotten pretty good, but, well... yawn. I've been thinking about trying to learn to pilot twin props or regional jets, maybe. I don't know. I'm curious to know what you all do to keep flight-simming exciting and fun? Do you fly a virtual airline? Are you happy just flying low and slow around the world? Do you challenge yourself in some way? I feel like I'm missing something.

Bingo! Thank you, flytv1! Not only did I have more than one assignment to the same key/button, I had more than one assignment to my flight control surfaces (because that's not asking for trouble). I still have my old Saitek/Logitech yoke plugged in so I can use its throttle quadrant. I forgot to disable that yoke's controls. Thank you, again!

I've wanted to fly in X-Plane (11) for a bit, after a year using P3D exclusively. But for some reason as soon as my aircraft leaves the runway it goes wildly out of control. I've calibrated my flight controls (Alpha Flight Yoke, Saitek Rudders) and that all looks correct. I know when I first got it I didn't have this problem, I was able to control the aircraft. Does anyone have any other ideas on what I can check?

Thank you, johnost. The information you've given me has been helpful. And, yes, I tried the 2 monitor setup, but that's just not doable with the bezels in the center. It turns out that my low fps was due to a different issue (undocked ATC/GPS windows) and not so much the multiple monitor setup. But I think I may still move to a single 3840x1080 monitor. Anything smaller and I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Yeah, I've been doing this now for just over a year and I'm sure there are many things left to learn, just about the setup, let alone the actual flying. LOL. I will say I'm super excited about this particular remedy. It's like having a new, faster, better, computer setup. I like having the ATC window and GPS open and now I can run my graphics settings a littler higher. Thanks again for the suggestions and help. The forum here has proven to be invaluable to me over the past year.

Thank you, Jorgen, for your reply and suggestions. I'm going to do what you suggest, even though I believe I have found the answer to this particular issue. It turns out that the GPS and ATC were opening in undocked windows. If the windows are docked, the fps takes no hit whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what was going on.

I'm sorry for all the questions lately. I'm trying to tune my sim by finding a good balance between graphics and performance and it seems like one question leads to another and another. :) When I run P3Dv4 on a single 1920x1080 on ultra high settings I get around 140/150 fps. When I open the aircraft's GPS in its own window fps drops to low 30s! Same thing if I open an ATC window. Does that seem right? Do I maybe have something set wrong?

Thank you! I'll give that a shot.

Thank you, il88pp. I actually followed most of that. :D And, of course, it makes more sense to set up 2 monitors to get an approximation of what I could expect with a single 3840 . Although, I'll bet it would be closer if I use nvidia surround to combine them into one 3840x1080 rather than 2 at 1920x1080. But, yes, you're absolutely correct... I can get the information myself with what I already have!

I swear I've looked and looked for an answer to this but I keep finding answers to things I don't care about and not this specific question. Isn't there a key command in P3Dv4 that will automatically go to a "remove the cockpit" view (i.e., I'm using Air Manager on a separate monitor and don't need to see the VC at all)? I've always just moved the view outside the windshield manually. But I'm sure I've seen an easier way.

Thank you, flytv1. I'm trying to decide between a 43" and a 49". The 49" really being way too expensive. Actually, I'm also now considering an entry level 34" 21:9 just to test the waters on a wider monitor, compared to multiple monitors.

Oh, of course. With a 3 monitor setup it's going to multiply both the horizontal AND the vertical x3! So a single wide monitor won't do that to the vertical like 3 monitors does. That makes perfect sense. Thank you, johnost!

I'm currently running P3Dv4 on a triple monitor (1920x1080 x 3) setup. But even my 1080 Ti has trouble keeping up with high settings at a decent FPS. When I add a small 4th monitor for Air Manager, I have to go down to low settings in many areas of the globe. I'm considering trading in the triple monitor set up for a 3840x1080 ultra wide monitor, which would be the equivalent of 2 of my current monitors side by side. I wonder if anyone would know if a single wide monitor at 3840x1080 would give me better performance than 2 1920x1080 monitors side by side would. Or is 3840 going to behave the same regardless of how many monitors it covers?

That made me laugh way to hard. Please continue.

I haven't seen a lot on our forums here about the Honeycomb Alpha Flight Controls since they started shipping. I thought they were sold out everywhere but I found that mypilotstore still has them in stock. I ordered one and received it 2 days later (it shipped from AZ and I'm in CA). I'm pretty excited to give her a try. Apparently, however, there's some finagling to do if you want to use a Saitek Throttle Quadrant with a PS/2 connector. I'll figure that out. I'd love to share my thoughts if anyone would be interested.

Beautiful!

Maybe too relaxin... zzz...zzz...zzzzzzzzzz

Like johnost said, it depends on preference. I have a Logitech yoke and throttle quadrant for control and rarely ever touch my keyboard. I've been using a 3 monitor set up for my cockpit view. But I've been thinking of downgrading(?) to a single 34" widescreen (2560x1080) because of the hit my graphics take in order to drive all those monitors. And that's even with a pretty robust graphics card.

Did you download from logitechg.com? Notice the "g" - I guess it stands for gaming.

If anyone is interested... It wasn't the Stearman or FSX Default C172 that botched my Prepar3D. It was a freaking Windows update that coincidentally installed itself the night before!! I rolled back to before that update and everything is fine. Just fine. (Back to the Stearman. :D ) We live very close to the little airport that the Stearman flies out of. Right around 10:15 this morning I heard the unmistakable sound of her single engine. Sure enough, there she was in the clear blue sky, with someone else in the front seat, exactly one week after my ride. #jealous

Welp. Learning to fly the new Stearman is going to have to wait... I screwed up my installation of P3D. LOL. I copied the FSX Stearman folder into my Sim Objects/Airplanes folder (along with the default FSX C172) and now my P3D crashes when loading the airplanes. I know it's safe to copy over the default C172 because I've done it before. Even after removing those folders my P3D still crashes during startup. That's what I get for taking shortcuts. :D I'll get into the event logs and get it fixed here as soon as I can put a couple free hours together.