LeSving wrote:
For VFR? What exactly is “VFR” in a flight sim. I have though about that over many, many years. In X-Plane you can easily hook up SkyDemon on your favorite pad, and you have all the VFR nav practice you need, just pretend it’s a bit hazy outside Don’t know if that can be done in MS2020. Very useful for getting to know the nav software on your pad. What exactly else are you going to practice anyway, VFR that is, and that demands “real life” graphics?
VFR means you can dead reckon using what you see within the simulation. I have used XP-11 for my CPL training and it works flawlessly in the UK if you add the Orbx photoscenery onto it. I also hook XP-11 up to SkyDemon but that’s for de-briefing after the flight, just as I’ve done during my real CPL details.
Additionally, it also helps if the aircraft simulation and performance are more or less accurate. XP-11 is not very realistic when the aircraft is on the ground, or very close to the ground, but otherwise quite useable. It depends on the aircraft you want to fly as well. There are very good C172/PA28 models, but for the more obscure aircraft, good look finding “a” simulation in the first place, yet alone a good one.
You don’t need 80 FPS, not at all. And you won’t get 80 FPS even with a top 5% percetile gaming system (I know because mine is…) if you consider realistic scenery, a good add-on aircraft, heavy weather etc.
If you can get at least 30 FPS as a minimum in the worst conditions and an average of more than 40 FPS, that’s pretty good.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
You don’t need 80 FPS, not at all. And you won’t get 80 FPS even with a top 5% percetile gaming system (I know because mine is…)
Not on X-Plane probably, but on DCS and IL-2, no problem. But, it’s a long time since I have tried X-Plane now, can’t remember ever turning on a “vulcan” 
Maybe I get 80? 30 FPS is really slow and unusable IMO.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
VFR means you can dead reckon using what you see within the simulation
I understand that, I just don’t see what to do with it, how it matters if it looks “real and detailed” or not (related to MS FS2020). You know it’s only a sim anyway. Flying VFR (nav) I always use SkyDemon to navigate. So if I were to train VFR nav, it would exclusively be to get up to speed on SD. But I have never tried FS2020. The Yak-52 in DCS and train aerobatics works fine. As for the scenery, couldn’t care less
Alpha_Floor wrote:
VFR means you can dead reckon using what you see within the simulation.
In today’s regulated flying it means more than that, particularly in Switzerland and Germany where e.g. traffic circuits are often “supervised” by anti noise folks and those off the track get reported… Or VFR routes need to be adhered to quite strictly, which means you need the landmarks which define them. This worked before but looking at the stunning landscape, often enough enhanced with 3d buildings, of MS2020 I suppose it takes it to a totally new level.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
If you can get at least 30 FPS as a minimum in the worst conditions and an average of more than 40 FPS, that’s pretty good.
If we remember that old time movies used to run on 18 or 24 pics per second, the racing to get 80/100 frames (which correspond to a 100 hz TV) is quite academic and at times silly. I never had any of the sims I used go much over 30 and it is plenty. Actually, a smooth 30 fps will do much better than a wildly oscilating 50/80 representation. The main thing is not framerate, the main thing is that terrain loads up smoothly and the picture stays smooth as well, that there are as few stops as possible.
A good simulator program for IFR & equipment familiarisation would be Garmin G500 TXi sim – work on any laptop!
I used to play with X-plane 11 on my MacBook Pro, but that was not an ideal setup, so bought a standalone PC build up specifically for doing my flight simulator flights on it. It is super quiet (big internal cooling blocks) while operating it. So far I have been sticking with X-Plane 11 in combination with PilotEdge.net for life ATC. OK, I have to fly virtually in the western part of the US, but the combination of flying around and getting actual assignments by ATC is great. As far as I understand, the new MS flight simulator is great for scenery and thus VFR flights, but the less realistic scenery in X-Plane doesn’t bother me at all.
PilotEdge offers this CAT (communications and airspace training) program of 11 lessons. You have to fly them in sequential order and you can pass or fail them. Also, they have this instrument program with lessons running from I-1 through I-11. I have just been completing these two programs and found them interesting as they introduced me to the specifics of ATC in the US and help me stay proficient in using the instrument scan and avionics in the aircraft as well as in talking on the radio.
LeSving wrote:
But, it’s a long time since I have tried X-Plane now, can’t remember ever turning on a “vulcan”
Vulkan is a pretty recent graphics API (first release in 2016) and X-plane can use it from version 11.50 which was only released last year. Anyway, if you start using X-plane again, be sure to turn on Vulkan in the graphics settings.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
the racing to get 80/100 frames (which correspond to a 100 hz TV) is quite academic and at times silly
It’s not. 30 Hz without so called “motion blur” looks ridiculously intermittent. For TV and movies, motion blur comes in naturally, and makes everything looks fluid. Better quality is achieved by pumping up the FPS, motion blur or not.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
VFR routes need to be adhered to quite strictly, which means you need the landmarks which define them. This worked before but looking at the stunning landscape, often enough enhanced with 3d buildings, of MS2020 I suppose it takes it to a totally new level.
Maybe so, but why? Isn’t one of the points about flying cross country to experience new places ? The trip will never be anything like the real thing in any case. A typical “VFR flight” goes like this:
Where does “VFR” actually enter here ? Better graphics is better (it’s better to look good that to look bad), no doubt about that, but it’s very blurry to me why it improves “VFR”. Maybe I’m getting too old, I don’t know, but the important things to me is FPS, flight model, etc
There is no doubt that the higher the frame rate the better the visual quality. Movies used to be and still are shot at 24FPS. The motion blur or whatever you want to call it is not built into the technology but is a human factor called persistence of vision. The difference between tv technology and cinema is that the tv interlaced images whereas cinema uses a progressive system. This is carried forward today with some HD cameras being marked 1080i or 1080p.
In aesthetic tests most people on a larger screen find the progressive system more comfortable than the intermittent.
One problem with very high frame rates is that there is the danger of them being so real as to seem synthetic to the viewer.
For the filmmaker or video game maker the problem with the digital world is that there is too much choice and if it was not for decoding software we would be back to the old days of television with 24FPS NTSC for USA , 625line PAL for UK, SeCam in France, 405line NTSC for Brazil and many many more so that in distributing around the world was a nightmare without even going into languages and the dreaded Dolby A ,B, C non Dolby sound etc.
AeroPlus wrote:
so bought a standalone PC build up specifically for doing my flight simulator flights on it.
Care to share where, what and how much? Thanks
