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darryl737

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  • Location
    Christchurch, New Zealand
  • Occupation
    Commercial Pilot ( Retired) Self employed

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  • Interests
    Outside of Sims, enjoy golf, relaxing to music with a good red.

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  1. There has been a lot said around win10, much of it reconstituted from others experience or from other views and not a lot from first hand experience. A lot has been said around privacy and the fact that win10 collects data and meta data about users habits and who has possible access to the data collected. There has been some spirited and slightly heated discussions on the message boards around many subjects related to win10 some of which I have been party to and some that I have thought better to stay clear of. There has been the odd forum post relating personal experiences with win10, but in large they have been negative which is to be expected as people will be more likely to post something when they have a issue rather than when everything is fantastic and they don't have a problem. This of course leaves the impression that there is much that is wrong with win10 as it relates to flight simmers and not a lot that is positive. This causes confusion and doubts over if you should upgrade to the new OS. The discussions around win10 and the concerns are not new. They are discussions that have happened every time a new OS has emerged and the concerns are the same. I remember these well from the win95 days. So my personal experience with win10 not only on my personal computers but customer built systems as well may help anyone that reads this come to a better understanding of the reality of the OS and I hope a more balanced view on weather changing is something that you should do or not do. There is much to like about win10, the ultra fast boot time ( 10 seconds on a standard 7200rpm HHD ), the fact that everything is quick, the fact its more like win7 on steroids than it is win8.1. Windows defender is back and better than ever and is a real anti-virus now that gives real time protection with updated definitions. The user interface is more intuitive as it has ever been and the fact that the OS constantly learns about what you do and don't do in the OS environment. This is just a small sample of what I find great about win10. There has been much written about issues with drivers and a perceived incomparability with hardware, manly GPUs. I have not had a issue with this as of yet, I have found however that once win10 is installed and it starts to run its updates it will at first install a standard GPU driver at first so that the system is up and running and then as it goes through the update process will install the correct and latest driver for your GPU. I believe that many people have panicked during this process and have tried to stop or install a driver from the manufactures site which in turn does not work correctly because the OS is mid way through installing a driver for the hardware so wont except a attempt to override that process during the download and install process. As this takes a little time again people have panicked and believe that a driver wont work with the OS and stop any further downloads. I have found for both AMD and NiVida that the correct up to date manufacture driver and associated software will be downloaded and installed, this process just takes a little time. I have also found that FSX and all my add-on software works fine, in fact I have had a 10 to 15fps increase across the board with win10 which when it comes to FSX is a giant leap in performance. I as yet have not changed my main FSX computer to win10 from win7 but I will be as soon as I get time to do so as my test bench results where fantastic. If you asked me a few months ago if I would do that my answer would of been a firm "NO" as I believe if its not broken don't fix it, however the performance gain in win10 is just to good to overlook. Auto updates have been a hot subject with many people disliking the fact that you cant in fact turn it off but only suspend the update for a period of time. I understand both sides of the argument and why MS went with this function. To me its not such a big of a issue that would sway me away from win10. I would prefer to be able to run updates myself and choose what I do and don't update but its not a game changer. You can set your OS up so that it will update only during what it calls quiet times on your PC so it wont have a impact on what you are doing, this strikes a better balance than what could of been just a straight out regimented update process. There has also been much discussion around the data and meta data that is sent from your PC. The fact that win10 verifies licence codes on a regular basis ( once a week I believe ) and that it can identify possible illegal copied software including the OS has people worried as to what in fact MS is gathering in regards to your data and what its being used for and who else may have access to that data. This is not new, if you are running a OS that came out after XP then much of what win10 is doing is the same. The new development is the constant licence verifications and the ability to identify illegal downloaded software running in the OS. Now if you are someone who has this on your PC then of course you are not going to be at all happy, and my view on that is good. But of course it raises privacy concerns, and weather MS has the right to do this. That is a bigger and more complex question to answer than can be answered here. But if you like me have legitimate software on your PC then its a issue that does not effect us beyond being philosophical argument. The last thing I will mention is win10s browser "Edge", its a shocker, it reminds me a lot of when explorer first came out. Its slow, clunky and just feels wrong on many levels. It is easy to get rid of fortunately and that was the first thing I did after playing around with it for a few hours. For what its worth I believe win10 has the potential of being the best OS yet, and the most divisive yet. It is not friendly to those who wish to keep their internet footprint as small as possible, or those who don't use the internet at home at all, it is very dependant on being online to get the best and some say the worst out of it. For me I like it and am pleased that I made the change. I have the view and have always had the view that what I do on the internet no matter how small and insignificant its in the public domain, so what is on my PCs is nothing that I would seek to hide or not share if asked. I don't and never had on my PCs address books over and above email addresses, stored passwords, questionable material or pirated software. So I like many don't have the big brother fear when it comes to my PC or my internet usage. I believe you have more to fear outside of your PC when it comes to "big brother" and the gathering of information about you.
  2. Thanks for the comment. I have started my cockpit build, well sort of, I got a builder coming in 2 weeks to start building the room in the garage. I was going to build it myself until I found out that I needed a building consent for it, so it left me little option to get a builder in. I have some 737 parts arriving anytime now to add to the growing pile that are in the spare bedroom. Fantastic you are considering a build as well. My partner and I are looking at heading to the states for a holiday next year, and I am going to make so I can attend next years convention, which I am looking forward to. Fantastic you are getting 4 hours in a sim, time will fly by and you will have a blast I am sure. Darryl
  3. Over the last month there has been a number of forum posts that have ended up in rather animated discussions around what to use, how to build and settings for getting the best sim experience that you can on your soon to be, or just completed PC build. I am guilty of wading headlong in on some of these threads, something I have until recently avoided as I knew that it would cause me much frustration. Of course the first major bone of contention is that ole Intel vs AMD argument which I don't particularly understand why people get so passionate over their favourite brand of CPU. Its the same passion that people have over their Football team, or Ford vs Chevy, the list goes on. I have built my own PCs since the early nineties and have built FSX dedicated PCs for myself and in the last five years for paying customers as well. I don't do this as a form of income at all, its just something that I fell in to by accident through my brothers PC store when he would every so often get requests for a sim dedicated PC. I see it as a extension of the sim hobby and something that I enjoy doing, it has also kept me passionate about the hobby. Now I could start writing a list of components that I believe will give you results that when everything is setup correctly will make you happier than a dog with two tales, if only it was that simple. Even before I contemplate components for a build for a sim PC, I need to have a firm idea of what the PC will be expected to do, how will it be used. Is it going to be a general purpose and FSX PC, is it going to be a gaming, general purpose and FSX PC, is it going to be a straight out dedicated FSX PC that will not be expected to do anything other than that. These questions are the most important decisions of the whole build. This is where in my experience people make the biggest mistakes, which lead to disappointment, frustration and hard earned money wasted. The mistake they make is not the decision they have made over the PCs use but that they have already decided, most of the time unknowing even to themselves over the CPU they are going to use. It is already set in concrete that they are going to use a Intel this or a AMD that. So build has already be compromised, and the rest of the build will become one of having to make even more compromises. So the first and in my opinion the biggest hurdle that needs to be jumped in pursuit of your perfect sim PC is to have no brand loyalty at all. No hint of loyalty to Intel or AMD, no loyalty to i7s or FX-9590s, no loyalty to GPUs, no loyalty to a brand of motherboard. Get over that hurdle and you have made the first giant step towards YOUR PERFECT SIM PC.
  4. 100% FSX, the flight dynamics leaves FS9 in its dust.
  5. Is the era of the super heavies dying already?, After reading a number of articles in aviation trade magazines over the past few months it is starting to become clear that airlines are starting to review their super heavy programmes, and the economic figures look rather bleak. Malaysia airlines has already announced that they will be selling off their A380s ( albeit they are in financial trouble ) as they are uneconomic to run and service compared to A350s and 777s. More concerning for Airbus is that feeling is shared by a number of large customers of the A380 like Emirates, who have not made any comment as of yet about their A380 fleet but there have been rumblings that their A380 services would be far better served by A350s, 777s, and 787s, so I think it will be just a matter of time before there is a statement that they are going to scale back the A380 services. Boeing of course must be flipping the aviation industry the bird and telling them all "We told you so", after they were widely criticized for developing the 787 and not a replacement for the 747 to compete with the A380. Airlines who didn't get wooed by the A380 must also be feeling rather good about themselves. My country's carrier Air New Zealand was one such airline that felt that their long haul services were better served by 777s and 787-900s since they sold their 747 fleet. Now this may sound that I am biased toward Boeing and anti Airbus. I admit that I have only flown 737-300s and never got the opportunity to fly a Airbus product before I retired, so I do feel a close connection to the brand. I have been told that they are simply a stunning aircraft to fly. I think that it will be a shame if the A380s become a rare sight in the skies. I give credit to Airbus for dipping their toe in the super heavy commercial passenger market, and I think the A380 is going to become a heavy hitter in the cargo aircraft market where the profit returns on a dollar to weight ratio far exceeds that of carrying passengers. I will feel the same as I did when the last Air New Zealand 747 left NZAA for the very last time, knowing that not only was it the end of a era for the airline I had once flown for, but that the 747 would become a rare sight in NZ skies in general, there will be a lump in my throat.
  6. A good magician never blames his wand. Its a shame that you feel that way and you have wasted your money on machines that were never going to run FSX well. A fantastic gaming machine is not what is required by FSX as has already been pointed out along with the reasons why. I don't believe it is a badly written piece of software when compared to the other sims, and its focus was clearly on aircraft flight dynamics over having pretty detailed scenery, which lets face it at a few thousand feet you not really going to need to see or can see someone picking their nose on a street corner. With the addition of add-on scenery it does however really immerse you in to some detailed landscapes and the airports are like a piece of art. Its our expectations that are quite often the issues not the software or its perceived lack of performance.
  7. The negations with my partner have been progressing better than I had been expecting, she seems rather intrigued with my latest idea. Well I say intrigued but it could well be perplexed, concerned, humoured by, or she could be all of those things its a little hard to know. She did say to me "you are definitely having a mid life crisis" in that half joking half should I be getting concerned kind of a way. I showed her my plans that I had drawn up thus far along with a rather large folder of items that I would require, and various other musings I had jotted down over the last few months as the idea was marinating away in my head. It felt like I was presenting a business plan to the bank manager. She was rather surprised with the amount of time I had already put in to this idea and shared with me that she thought I was having a mid-life crisis and I obviously had far to much spare time on my hands. "Ok how much is this going to cost US", she made sure she emphasized the us bit, again in the half joking half concerned way. I had avoided answering that question over the last few days as I knew this was going to be the possible deal breaker, I couldn't really put it off any longer. I had sort of a figure in mind but it was no more than a half educated half throw a dart at a dart board kind of guess. So after explaining about how the build would probably take me 12 to 18 months to complete and that I was going to do it as cheaply as possible, and so on, I gave her my figure and took a little step back and waited for the situation to go to DEFCON 4. "15 to 20 thousand I reckon I can do it for", my god it felt good to get that out. I thought it would be closer to 20 thousand than 15, with the biggest cost being the computer hardware of course along with all the screens I would require for the panel, and I am still unsure if I will use moulded displays in the windows or a projector for the front windows and moulded screens for the sides. The projector, screen mix does work out cheaper and wont produce the same amount of heat as having it all screens, but the downside is there will be a visual difference from the front to the sides. I can get my hands on a 737-300 instrument panel, and over head panel ( gauge free of course ), and maybe the centre pedestal minus the throttle quadrant. Having worked in the industry I am still close friends with a few people in the engineering department, and they still have some of the old panels from when the fleet changed over to the more familiar glass panels, so even if I cant get the originals they will fabricate some for me using the originals as moulds, I am very lucky in that respect. I am also lucky that they have offered to do the fabrication for me as the costs of getting that done is quite high. Of course that leaves the throttle quadrant, analogue gauges, and the panel buttons, switches, and dials which I am hoping my contacts can source for me at a reasonable cost. Many ( like the switches on the breaker panel ) I will 3d print myself as they are purely for looks and will have no function. I will post pictures once the room is built and the cockpit build is under way to show anyone that is interested in the progress. I welcome any comments, suggestions, advice or questions you may have. I am not sure who if anyone reads the blogs but I will give regular updates with the hope that it may inspire others to do the same. Oh and my partners reaction when I told her the cost, lets just say that my reasons for us to not get married are no longer good enough and she is planning a trip for us to her home town in Greece so we can announce our up coming wedding to her family in person................Oh no. Darryl
  8. It was over dinner and a few glasses of red wine that I thought it was time to broach a difficult subject with my partner of ten years. A subject that I had been wanting to discuss for a few months. I started off the conversation with the immortal words "I've had a great idea". The response was what I had expected, it was a sigh, and with her head in her hands she let out a muffled "Oh no" I've had a history of sharing my great ideas with her so she knew she could be in for a long night of negotiations. Two years ago one of my great ideas was I thought we needed to buy a muscle car, my reasoning was that I was concerned that we weren't doing enough to contribute to global warming, and I felt guilty that the hole in the ozone layer was getting smaller and that we were somewhat responsible for that. We brought a muscle car. "Is this going to require that we open another bottle of wine, or make a strong cup of coffee", she said. I went and got another bottle of wine from the rack. "I want to build a flight simulator", her eyes glazed over with complete un-interest and un-concern. Fantastic start I thought, this might be easier then I imagined it would be, there was a major problem though. You see I knew that she was thinking that I wanted to buy a new PC, add my existing peripherals on it and wham bam thank you mam one flight simulator, simple. "Is that it, go for it" she said with the sense of relief written all over her face. "I don't think you fully understand my idea, I want to build a flight simulator that's a complete 737 cockpit", their was silence. "How much space will it take up in the office" she said, the glaze gone from her eyes and the look concern creeping back on her face. "Oh no space at all, it will be in the garage", "Well how much space will it take up in the garage", she said fully concerned and somewhat confused. "Well as much as a 737 cockpit would take up", the penny dropped, "WHAT, you want a full size 737 cockpit in the garage, the whole thing, the whole front end of a 737 you want to have in the garage", Oh dear the head has gone back in the hands already and she hasn't even asked me how much its going to cost yet. Negotiations are on going Darryl
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