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glider66

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  1. I've been using a triple 1080p monitor setup for several years now, which has gradually evolved in the screens and the stand. It was originally three Phillips 24 inch, then I replaced the centre screen with a Hanns 27 inch IPS monitor to get greater colour accuracy and a slightly larger image of whatever "window" I was working on. So for shared desktop use it worked ok as long as I didn't leave any windows spanning the joins. It also worked surprisingly well with xplane 11 in triple monitor wide view setup, because the human brain could compensate for the slightly different colours and pixel sizes. However, I've now replaced the two outer monitors with the cheapest 27 inch IPS monitors I could find, made by HP, at only £120 each. Despite being different makes, the screen images now match perfectly, in colour and size, and the HP monitors have very narrow bezels, so with them wrapped around they look like just one ultra wide 5760x1080 monitor, with a diagonal of approx 75 inches. The immersion in flight sims is excellent, especially when used with Trackir. In Xplane 11, I have them setup as three separate full screen views (left/centr/right), and in FS2020 for now I use them in windowed mode, which I just draw out to the full width, (until Asobo incorporate individual monitor views). They're only 1080p (each), but I find the ultra-wide view more immersive than a 16:9 4k image, and is less demanding GPU-wise. One thing to watch out for with any triple monitor setup is the stand, if you go for a single combined one. Almost all of the ones advertised as for 27 inch are too small, not enabling the wing monitors to be angled correctly. I eventually bought a https://www.vonhaus.com/vh_en/vonhaus-gas-triple-monitor-arm-with-usb-port This is much better than the run of the mill type, with balanced gas-assist of the height of the wing monitors, enabling accurate alignment.
  2. It was a tricky decision, ideally it needed to be in the centre, but I use the yoke much more, and being right handed it seems much more controllable than using it with my left. Another reason is that the whole under desk contraption (panels,yoke,pedals,joystick,quadrants) is on castors, so slides easily to the right when I'm not simming or when I'm using my g940 heli gadget. (just visible folded up underneath the left hand end of the desk). I'll have to take a photo of it to explain it more clearly. It's an old Logitech G940 force feedback joystick and pedals that I've heavily modified for helicopter use. The stick has been extended to about 15 inches with a bent tube giving much more precise movements, and the throttle stick has been mounted on a horizontal arm to mimic the collective control. When I'm using that, I'm also able to use the saitek panels just to the right of it. You've just made me realise that means I'm sitting in the left hand seat of the Helis, which I guess is usually the copilot position as well !!
  3. I've been using VR in XP11 for some time now with a Samsung Odyssey headset via Windows WMR. I then bought a Pimax 8k (not the plus or the XR) a couple of months ago, lured by the 170 degree wide field of view. I was so impressed with the increased immersion because of the much increased peripheral vision, that I decided to significantly upgarde my PC hardware. I went from an i7 3770k to an i9 9900kf (and new 9th gen motherboard), and a GTX 1070 to an RTX 2080ti (bought sh, after the price dropped to £500). I also put the OS and sim on a 1tb M2. SSD. The FPS improvement on my triple screen setup is predictably massive, even with high settings in complex scenery areas. I also started to use Vulkan, which also improved things considerably. My problem though, is that during this transition of kit, I hadn't used the Pimax headset, until now, and I can't get an image on it in XP anymore. The Samsung Odyssey works perfectly, and the Pimax works well on this kit with every other VR app that I have. I was wondering if I've somehow confused XP by using two different types of VR headset ? or if my Pimax is not compatible with Vulkan ?
  4. As with some of the other replies, my Sidewinder 2 FF works fine with FS2020, albeit without force feedback. As this photo shows, it still has pride of place in my cockpit control setup, to the right of the Honeycomb Yoke. (this shot was taken in FS2020.) It runs really well in both Sims, though you need to create individual saved control profiles, with the yoke enabled and the joystick disabled and vice-versa, so that they don't clash. I also have separate profiles for the Joystick with it's twist stick rudder enabled , and also another with the Pro Flight Rudder Pedals, so I can use the stick with and without pedals. I still find it to be the best stick, built like a tank, with very realistic force feedback in xplane (with an addon), so it will be good when the FS2020 FF support gets enabled. (as has been indicated). I generally use it with microlights and very light planes, and when used with a VR headset (in XP), the immersion is really good.
  5. AS with other FS2020 enthusiasts, I'm continually surprised at the extent of the negative online feedback, especially on facebook. It's getting beyond trolling, and seems to be becoming concerted fake news. I apologise to the (few ?) genuine complainants, there are certainly plenty of glitches and bugs, and there will be great variations in the level of hardware and user experience and knowledge. I've just applied the big patch (today 17th Sep), and I see nothing but improvements so far, at least with GA aircraft, as I'm not very interested so far in big commercial jets. After reading the online feedback on FB, I was quite apprehensive of applying it, as so many users were damning it worse than ever before. No doubt Asobo are aware of all this online negativity, but I believe that the hard core of Flight Simmers (rather than gamers), will stay with it and are grateful for FS's re-incarnation.
  6. As the saying goes, "I used to be undecided, but now I'm not so sure..." Yes, FS2020 is great in that the whole world is already there, no need to download tiles. If one tried to do that with Ortho4xp, it would use hundreds or terrabytes of diskspace and take several years. Thanks God for variety though, I use xplane with Ortho4xp in my most flown VFR areas, and now MS2020 for everything else. They co-exist happily on my PC, and there's no such crime as software Bigamy..... :) Another thing that dissapoints me about the current social media furore about FS is the way so many users feel they have to choose, and then defend their personal choice to the death.....
  7. I'm a bit of a kindred spirit here, I've been tinkering since FS98 too and I always preferred VFR scenery as well. I progressed through FSX, then P3D and am now using xplane 11.5 and FS2020. Yes, add-on VFR scenery was quite expensive, even just for limited areas like just the UK. I had all the versions of Horizon Gen X, and tried other add-ons that added autogen trees too, (very unrealistic though, they were completely out of scale !). :rolleyes: There is a quite good VFR scenery alternative to FS2020's scenery now though, something called "Ortho4XP", which I use currently with xplane. Quite surprisingly, it's completely free too, though the process of creating the "tiles" oneself from online imagery such as Bing or Google Earth needs patience and careful following of the instructions. It's actually more accurate visually than FS2020, because there is no autogen so the buildings and vegetation are exact, but lacking in 3D height. It poses an interesting choice for me, when flying in XP or FS. I've attached two screenshots of a village near me, Wroxham, in Norfolk, taken from 800ft. The FS2020 version (c172 - ASXGS) is running at "Ultra" and shows great detail and perspective in the buildings, and they and the water are in the right positions, but they bear little relation to the style of the real buildings, and the bridge is missing. By comparison, the XP11 version (c172 - N172SP), running also at max resolution and using Ortho4xp scenery at 19 res, shows the buildings absolutely correctly, and the bridge, though "flat", but that effect is less noticeable as you go up. The quality of the uploaded images is slightly reduced as 80% jpeg's, to keep within the forum's upload size limit of 450k
  8. I made up a PDF of all of the default (Premium Deluxe) aircraft showing external and cockpit views to help me decide which to fly during a session. (so much choice !) :) I captured all of the views from the sim itself on Ultra settings at 1080p, and the text info was cut and pasted from the Internet. In case it's useful to anyone else, I tried to upload it onto here, but the system wouldn't allow PDFs, so here's a link to it.... (admin please delete this post if it contravenes anything)... http://www.webfiles.org.uk/images/fsims/fs2020%20aircraft.pdf
  9. I don't know if there has now been more than one "boxed" version, but mine has never asked for the disk one to be inserted, other than during the original install process. I'm thinking that the authentication is now handled by the reg number that has to be entered online during the install, similar to a the digital download version. My boxed version had a small card in the folder with my unique reg number. I bought my Premium Deluxe from a well known Netherlands Pro Flight Sim supplier, (I live in the UK, but Amazon UK were unable to a deliver within 4 weeks after the release date, even though I'd pre-ordered it). As with others' thoughts, I bought the boxed version in case I ever wanted to sell it, (not likely though !) The composition of the two printed manuals shows a surprising lack of production co-ordination. The standard manual is a small soft cover job with the basic concepts and standard aircraft, whereas the deluxe supplement is a larger format hard cover book (with fewer pages), that just details the additional aircraft and airports.
  10. Well I did say I like both ! :) I agree that 2020 is great, and I did set up a 200gb cache on my ssd, so yes, I can fly offline with good autogen. I'm still using XP11.5 and FS2020 in equal doses, because I like the world-wide detailed 3d scenery, but when I'm flying around my local countryside, I prefer XP with Orth4xp because not only is my house very accurate (from 800ft), but even my car on the drive and my neighbour's fishpond ! Joking aside though, the VFR from height is spot on, instead of FS2020 turing my local village church into a flat roofed block of flats !
  11. Here's why I like both !! Screendumps at 1000ft after take-off from London City. The top is FS2020 at high setting with a 50mb Internet connection. The bottom is Xplane 11.5 with self-downloaded (free) Ortho4xp scenery using Google maps at Res 18. I like both, for different reasons. The Xplane with Ortho4xp is absolutely accurate for VFR familiarity, photoreal, and needs no Internet connection. When flying a little higher than this, say 1500ft, it looks real and all landmarks can be spotted. FS2020 however, is more lifelike because of the 3d buildings and vegetation, even though most of the buildings are "similar". (My local village Church for instance, is drawn as a block of flats !) The fact that FS2020 has this level of detail anywhere in the world is amazing, and I'm sure the autogen 3d buildings will improve. It's so much better than previous add-on packages that drew trees that were completely out of scale. http://www.webfiles.org.uk/images/fSims/dome%20comparison.jpg
  12. Thanks for the heads up.... Yes, you're right, all content there now. Here's me celebrating by buzzing the more detailed control tower at Heathrow...:)
  13. That's a relief ! (nice to know it's not just me... :) ) I've been researching all the FS forums on the problem and getting confused over all the contradictions about the boxed versions. Apparently the included key activation code is currently being used to verify the owner, rather than disk one being re-inserted. Whether that is temporary or permanent remains to be seen I guess. As I mused earlier in this thread, all versions seem to depend upon the centrally held activation details to discourage piracy. A clever move considering the degree to which the sim is enhanced by live online content when running. All the bootleg versions will be denied the enhanced scenery, live weather, and live traffic....
  14. I'd be interested in hearing the result Mike. I've just done something similar, I tried the xbox gamepass standard version while I was waiting for my premium deluxe boxed set to arrive. It now has, so unlike yours both being dgital downloads, I did delete my gamepass version and reinstalled the boxed PD via the ten DVDs. It took about 2 hours to install from the DVDs, and then another half hour to download an additional 20gb online. (I'm lucky, I have a 50mb connection). It all still works, and much faster too, because this time I installed the game and the cache on my 1tb M.2 SSD drive. The trouble is that it doesn't give me access to any of the extra premium deluxe planes or airports, even though my system shows the PD content as "owned" and "installed". I'm aware that Steam users have had a similar problem, but their fix doesn't work for me. ....so I'd be interested to hear if your upgrade does let you chose and fly the additional planes. I'm beginning to believe that although the content is installed on your local hard disk, your permissions of what you can fly is held within the online account when you log on. A good way of preventing piracy, but a bit frustrating when the protection goes wrong.... :(
  15. That's the frustrating part again Andrew, the content manager shows all of the premium deluxe extras as installed, the extra planes and airports. I'll message the supplier after the bank holiday if it doesn't resolve itself with updates in the meantime. The missing premium content does seem to be an ongoing issue with certain installs, so maybe it's just a bug that will eventually be fixed without me having to do anything.
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