seavixen1948

Ah !!, Flight Simulator 1. Still, it was the most realistic available in "way back then". My interest really started with Microsoft Flight Simulator and 4.1 if I remember correctly. The ability to actually design and test and fly the product of your own mind and imagination built in to a simulator. There were other Flight Sim programs designed for the Z80 chip and limited graphics. In fact most of the graphics were ASCII text with a "successful landing" banner popping up at the bottom of the display after doing a takeoff, fly, landing entirely by typing in thrust, angle of attack, altitude, and very little available for actual fine adjustments like ailerons etc. In fact the input need to "fly" seemed/seems more like the inputs from a basic autopilot to the aircraft controls. Have we moved so far away from these "old" flight simulators on the actual mechanics of input of command or control (physical and automatic) to fly. The fun was to hire time in a Cessna 172 at the local aero club, fly and remember and take note of everything you did. Back at home fire up the Flight Simulator and try to duplicate the real world flight from earlier that day. Sort of reverse testing in a way. But, graphics, they make the Flight Sims of today so close to reality. I think I will land the Bell 206 I am flying in my driveway now. Cheers, Mark.

Hello Oldynewby, The improvements you have laid out for your current hardware all make sense to give a good (sob, howl, sniff) bottom end performance PC for FSX. Each iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator requires hardware at a level which increases exponentially. However, ........ , One hardware improvement/replacement solves a lot of performance issues with FSX. A, or is it ,.an, SSHD. A Solid State Hard Drive. No more waiting for a mechanical Hard Disk to spool up to 7,200 rpm and trying to carry some of the load the Graphics Card inbuilt memory (RAM really) is carrying or strike a balance between RAM (Motherboard) and whatever brand/type of graphics card you have. With Graphics Cards the inbuilt memory is more precious than gold or diamonds. My PC started as a fairly "ho hum" tower case with the usual things. Over time the set up looks like this: AsRock FM2A55M VG3 dual core motherboard (AMD chip 3.2 MHZ dual core.) RAM 8GB. Graphics card, Intel GeForce GT710 2Gb RAM. Cooling, a very large chip cooling set up with 12cm fan integral. A Crucial BX500 SSHD. Windows 10 Professional build 1909. HDMI cable for graphics PC to monitor. Primary Display 1440/800 32 Bpp Windows 10 needed a lot of tweaking to bring the system requirements within range of the capabilities of the hardware. I will not go into the tweaks here as there are many good advices published and software available for smoothing out Windows 10's requirements. Results; FS 2004 with every slider and tweak at maximum and Terrain Mesh packs installed covering all of Australia (Terrain Mesh) and individual town/city scenery packs. About 14Gb. FSX Steam Edition with almost every slider and tweak set at maximum with Terrain Mesh and round we go again. The only adjustments downward I have made are filtering set at bi-linear. And, amazing, FSX SE running smooth as a politician's promises and in fact smoother than FS 2004. A good SSHD here in Adelaide costs around $50.00 AUD. I do not know the cost converted into English Pounds, probably about 25 to 30 Pounds. So, in all this, buy and install a Solid State Hard Drive and read up on how to strip Windows 10 of it's not needed "features". Cheers, Mark H.

Dear Steve, We have life and then, in a blink, a new life we will never understand until that time. What you have, files, scenery files, things related to flight simming are far more than that for many who enjoy what is in fact, more than a hobby. What you have is history. Many of us approach flight simming asking ourselves a question. "I wonder is there a better representation of this, or that out there or can I create what I want to see and share it. That is the big thing, to share what you have created. Please , share your work, your creations. As I say, it is history. Mark from Adelaide.