Been gone, what's good for very low and sort of fast?

I was a lurker here in the past and got some good tips. Finally have a question or two. It's been about 3-4 years since my my win 7 box died and and took FSX with it. Still have the DVD but I've read that there can be trouble registering and running it on win 10, besides there might be something better for my use now. Have been watching some YouTube with X-Plane 11 and P3Dv4. Can't say they looked better than FSX but I used to spend a lot of time getting the settings optimized just right.

My thing is fast action at low altitude, blasting through deep narrow canyons like the "Little Grand Canyon" that I read about maybe here. I've run down that 30 mile ditch at least a hundred times. Fast meaning illusion of speed since I'm usually in a Trike unless I need something with more ceiling. Low meaning 5 to 20 feet off the ground or water, wheels touching occasionally, dodging the tree trunks. Also like to learn about the world and see the scenery. I had Planes stashed everywhere, even on a glacier on Denali.

My dream planes are MIG 15 and P51's but neither one would last 30 seconds in a place that twisty, so whatever new sim I get needs to have a Trike or something that can do the same thing. I see there are some real world Trikes that can do 130 KPH, that would be nice. I used to cruise at 100 KPH in the FSX Trike but had to start at a high altitude strip and run downhill to do it. Tumlingtar in Nepal was perfect since it is at the top of a very long canyon with pretty scenery.

Thinking of getting p3d since I'm used to FSX but could use some advice.

Stan

After watching a bunch of youtube I'm sold on P3D. Looks like its default terrain is improved over FSX, hope so. Expensive though, especially since I'll need to buy some extra wifi data from my ISP for the download.

Couldn't find the FSX Air Creation trike I'm used to for P3D but found Ausflight Drifter by Ant's airplanes that seems to have about the same specs. Also found Alabeo WACO YMF-5 and Pitts S-2S, both look pretty damn hot. The S-2S has only a 20 ft. wingspan and low stall speed that might make it perfect for dodging trees etc., plus enough power to pull out of a box canyon if I make a wrong turn.

Anybody know what kind of terrain the WACO or Pitts need to takeoff and land in P3D? Most of the places I like to fly are in isolated parts of the world, with no listed airstrips of any kind nearby. For the Little Grand Canyon there's a bumpy little dirt road that goes very close to the Little Colorado River where the canyon turns North and gets deep and twisty. I need to keep a suitable aircraft parked on that road so I can fly it whenever I need to wake up my brain. If WACO/S-2S can't land and takeoff on a short bumpy road or other terrain in P3D is there another plane that can ? I had trouble in FSX with small planes other than the trike on that road. They just sank into the dirt.

It would be good to have either a faster trike or or something like the S-2S, that can land almost anywhere. One of my missions was to fly Lake Mead to the headwaters of the Colorado in the Trike. An airfield or two along the way but I preferred to land in fields or on riverbanks with nicer scenery. It's hundreds of miles so it took quite a few sessions. Worth it though.

After watching a bunch of youtube I'm sold on P3D. Looks like its default terrain is improved over FSX, hope so. Expensive though, especially since I'll need to buy some extra wifi data from my ISP for the download.

 

Couldn't find the FSX Air Creation trike I'm used to for P3D but found Ausflight Drifter by Ant's airplanes that seems to have about the same specs. Also found Alabeo WACO YMF-5 and Pitts S-2S, both look pretty damn hot. The S-2S has only a 20 ft. wingspan and low stall speed that might make it perfect for dodging trees etc., plus enough power to pull out of a box canyon if I make a wrong turn.

 

Anybody know what kind of terrain the WACO or Pitts need to takeoff and land in P3D? Most of the places I like to fly are in isolated parts of the world, with no listed airstrips of any kind nearby. For the Little Grand Canyon there's a bumpy little dirt road that goes very close to the Little Colorado River where the canyon turns North and gets deep and twisty. I need to keep a suitable aircraft parked on that road so I can fly it whenever I need to wake up my brain. If WACO/S-2S can't land and takeoff on a short bumpy road or other terrain in P3D is there another plane that can ? I had trouble in FSX with small planes other than the trike on that road. They just sank into the dirt.

 

It would be good to have either a faster trike or or something like the S-2S, that can land almost anywhere. One of my missions was to fly Lake Mead to the headwaters of the Colorado in the Trike. An airfield or two along the way but I preferred to land in fields or on riverbanks with nicer scenery. It's hundreds of miles so it took quite a few sessions. Worth it though.

Your eyes have misinformed you.

The base textures are exactly the same as FSX.

Watch out for the versions of P3D - starting from P3Dv4.X many of the `old` FSX aircraft no longer work, and textures, gauges and feature sets no longer function in some. While in others they do...

P3D is offered with a 60-day moneyback guarantee so if your selection of aircraft are non-functional, you can get a refund.

Why would you not simply use the aircraft in the sim for which they were built? I'm not aware of ultralights for P3D, nor of which ones work with which versions of the sim!

Your eyes have misinformed you.

The base textures are exactly the same as FSX.

 

That's disappointing, but thanks for the information. I always felt FSX could have been a near perfect simulator but maybe the higher-ups told the development crew that time was up, when they still needed about six months to finish everything.

 

I'd figured 64 bit would have fixed things like streambeds going up the canyon walls, ugly looking snow, and the occasional tree floating in space, and the lack of detail in isolated parts of the world. LA harbor is nicely detailed in FSM. I've flown over, under, and through the Vincent Thomas bridge, but a large town, Alotau, first airstrip if you're flying to Southeast New Guinea from the East, isn't there at all. Not one building. Did they fix any of that stuff ?

Your eyes have misinformed you.

The base textures are exactly the same as FSX.

 

That's disappointing, but thanks for the information. I always felt FSX could have been a near perfect simulator but maybe the higher-ups told the development crew that time was up, when they still needed about six months to finish everything.

 

I'd figured 64 bit would have fixed things like streambeds going up the canyon walls, ugly looking snow, and the occasional tree floating in space, and the lack of detail in isolated parts of the world. LA harbor is nicely detailed in FSM. I've flown over, under, and through the Vincent Thomas bridge, but a large town, Alotau, first airstrip if you're flying to Southeast New Guinea from the East, isn't there at all. Not one building. Did they fix any of that stuff ?

 

Why would you think a design that affects ONLY the way your computer handles information would have any effect on textures or mesh?

 

Dealing with your `issues` in order:

 

1: Streambeds are set by Vector graphics, working with Mesh. Nothing to do with 64-bit at all

2: Ugly looking snow is set by textures. Nothing to do with 64-bit

3: Tree's floating in space are an anomaly caused by pushing your computer too hard.

4: Isolated parts of the world - you've answered your own question. With very few simmers flying there, why would you expect detail? As it happens, PNG HAS had a major upgrade, several years ago, with the PNG scenery/mesh combo from ORBX and Holger Sandmann. The Holgermesh is freeware.

https://orbxdirect.com/product/holgermesh-png

 

`They` don't fix stuff. YOU do.

Yeah, for an engineer I should understand more about how stuff works. Maybe if I did I could get FSX running from the old DVD that was installed on a couple of previous computers.

Most of the missions I have planned for myself are in far flung parts of the world, but the PNG scenery sounds interesting IF it includes the Louisiade archipelago.

Also since I've never bought a scenery, I'm wondering how the various ones look 20 feet off the ground, airports excluded. I saw an X-plane 11 video with ORBX scenery that didn't look so good at very low altitude. I would help to know before I spend the money.

Watched a 48 minute video last night comparing default MS Flight, X-Plane 11, and P3D v4. MS Flight had nice seashores and excellent autogen buildings in the towns. It looked like a real town and IMO beat the crap out of FSX, P3D and X-Plane 11 in that respect. But at ground level the buildings looked dingy and lacked detail. Clouds look bad. Planes didn't look as good either.

X-Plane 11 had more realistic sky colors, and excellent default airports and traffic, but the autogen buildings were irritating, with everything lined up in rows.

P3D looked the same as my old FSX. Not what I was expecting after 12 years since the original FSX. Towns looked stupid in P3D compared to MS Flight, with mid-rise buildings uniformly spread out over the town, and the same odd textures between buildings in towns at low altitude as FSX. Payware Planes do look very good in P3D v4, I guess because the planes are new, redesigned for v4.

Still leaning to P3D, but now I'm on the fence. Wondering which is best for low altitude in remote canyons. Seems like you need all three, MS flight for following shorelines, X-Plane 11 for default airports and night flying, and maybe P3D for planes (and trees). Not planning to get all three though.