FSX VFR flight over some beautiful landscapes

 

A short flight with a C172 over the beautiful mountain areas of Romania. The photoreal scenery is Prahova Valley VFR by Romanian Scenery Design Team.

Adding autogen automatically to FSX photoreal scenery

These days I am working on a huge project, creating a FSX photoreal scenery covering my home country. One of the problem I faced was adding autogen to the textures. As adding it manually would have taken ages I have been looking from start for some automatic solution that can do it for me.
After some long searches I have found it. Actuall it is a combination of a couple of programs, but the end result was adding autogen to over 70%  of the country, in just three days, and without too much work from my side.

So here is how I did it:

VoxATC - Replacement for FSX default ATC with voice control

When talking about aviation, one of the key persons besides the pilot, that helps ensure a safe flight, is the air traffic controller. Therefore having a realistic ATC is important for an overall realistic simulated experience. Unfortunately many flight simmers are not really happy about the ATC that comes built in Flight Simulator X, especially when flying state of the art  planes with FMC that supports SID/STAR. Also especially on mountain airports like LOWI default ATC keeps vectoring the pilot straight into mountains.

One option  for a better air traffic control experience is joining one of the online communities like IVAO or VATSIM. Even there there are not always ATC connected and if you are living in some areas of the world with less coverage you might end up doing the flight alone.

Luckily there are a few ad-dons that successfully manage to replace the built in ATC of flight simulator and improve the overall experience.

How to completly uninstall and reinstall FSX

If you are installing add-on on a daily basis to your FSX, you probably got in the situation of ending up with a non working sim or one that crashes to desktop (ctd) in the middle of a flight due to broken or incompatible software.
This just happened to me and if I don't manage to fix it, then I most probably have to uninstall and reinstall the sim.

Ifly 737 NG FSX weather radar

Many of the latest FSX airplanes are lacking a weather radar. I know because of  the way FSX weather is programed it is difficult to make  a  realistic weather radar, still my own view is that it will still be good to have one no matter how accurate it is, just to add to the  overall realism of the simulation.
If you are missing a  weather radar in your Ifly 737 NG for FSX and you own WX500 package from Reality XP it is  possible  to add that one in the place of the lower DU. Not the most realistical place in the cockpit, but  there isn't much room  to place it in another position. If you are using the MAP/EFIS combination of  displays, the lower DU is seldomly used anyways.

The instalation is easy.

5 ground textures for scenery creation

A collection of 5 high resolution ground textures useful for flight simulator scenery creation. They and many more are provided for free by 4 Free Textures. You can download each texture in full resolution on each of the pages bellow using the download button.

Concrete wall texture

Cement with cracks texture

Gravel

Grass

Wood floor

Easy place library scenery objects in FSX

While trying to create some search and rescue scenery for Flight Simulator X, I came across this great tool for placing library scenery objects in FSX.

The free open source program is called Whisplacer and allows you to place library objects in FSX using a live preview mode (the program connects to FSX, reads the plane position and places the object visually in the sim). After user is happy with the scenery objects position the program can save a .bgl file. At the next FSX restart the scenery will appear.

I have placed for example a couple of the fsx stock oil rigs on the sea next to CYPR.

Whisplacer is a fairly small download and installation is also easy (it just needs to be extracted in a folder). My opinion is that this program  is overall easier to use than the Object placer that comes with the FSX SDK.

G.A.P. Mega Corfu X released

Greek Airports Project has released a very complete scenery for Kerkyra (Corfu) area, a busy European holiday destination. The scenery, which is based on over 2000 high res pictures of the area, models a large part of the island, the city, harbor, castles, as well as the Kapodistrias airport of Corfu (LGKR). It also features the floating sea base & helipad at at Agios Georgios bay.

More details on the official site.

Weapon for FSX

Captain Sim launched a product that will turn your Flight Simulator X in a combat flight simulator. The ad don allows you to add weapons to any aircraft in the game, alongside other functionality like Radar and HUD. You can see more details about the product on the official page, or watch the presentation videos.

New info about the PMDG 737NGX - working terrain radar

PMDG released a couple of new screenshots on their forum with one of the most awaited aircrafts of all times, their 737NGX. The images show mostly the exterior of the aircraft, but there is a cockpit screenshot that gives a important detail, the aircraft will be equiped with a terrain radar that shows the info on the ND.
You can enjoy the images and the news here.

PMDG 737 NGX HUD demo

PMDG seems to be getting closer and closer of releasing a great 737 NG for FSX. Proof is the latest video showing a demonstration of the revolutionary HUD (heads up display) that will be built in the 737NGX, working in the actual cockpit of the aircraft.

Besides the video their support forums give also a nice description of the features of functionality of the upcoming HUD system, supported by some cockpit screen shots of it in action.

ENB Series Flight Simulator X or 9 - How to install and obtain cool HDR lighting tutorial

If your computer is not powerful enough to run FSX in DX10 mode with Bloom enabled, or you are bored of the default lighting in fs9, you can easily add a very cool mod either in either FSX or FS9 which adds HDR lighting and dynamic shadows to the simulator. The mod is called ENB Series and it is based on a modified version of the DX9 dll which forces HDR and many effects in games which do not support it by default. The mod was originally developed for GTA game, but works very well in both FSX and FS9.

Good part at this mod is that it improves the visual quality of Flight Simulator X or FS2004 without a heavy toll on frame rates. I could argue that the effect is even better than the one obtained if you enable Bloom and DX10 mode in FSX, but, at least on my configuration the frame  rate remains the same when ENB series is enabled. Besides the visual impact you will also notice a interesting effect, if you look at the cockpit instruments and then raise your view to the sky, you will notice how the light dims out, similar as your eye iris will close to adapt to the increase amount of light. This adds a nice effect as the simulation would have actually been a movie, and the camera would have adjusted to light when moved from the dashboard to the windshield/sky.

The image at the top shows the difference between default FSX (right) and FSX with ENB Series enabled (left).

How to install ENB Series in either FSX or FS9

1. Download the mod from the official page below. I use version 0.075.
  http://enbdev.com/download_en.htm

2. After the zip file is downloaded, extract and copy the two files (d3d9.dll and enbseries.ini) in the FSX/FS9 main folder (same place where fsx.exe/fs9.exe is located).

3. You will need to replace the config in enbseries.ini with one that is best suited for the simulator (default one is provided for GTA). Open enbseries.ini with Notepad and replace the content with the configuration. I use the one provided on this forum:
http://www.simforums.com/forums/enb-bloom-mod-nicks-cOnfig-settings_topic32482.html

Save the file after is changed!

4. Start FSX and start a flight. To start/stop the mod press anytime SHIFT+F12;


To uninstall the mod just delete the two files you copied from your simulator installation directory.

Enjoy!


Known issues:
If the ENB Series does not work in FSX or 2004 or you see black squares, clouds, etc with the mod enables, check if you have two monitors connected to the computer. This mod does not support multi monitor setup on some configuration. Just disconnect the secondary monitor and restart the simulator  and it should work.


Use the mod at your own risk. I did not encountered any issues with it but you may never know!

Free VFR planning tool with maps covering entire world - Plan-G

I found very difficult in the past to find good VFR maps for my FSX flights, or a good planning tool with worldwide coverage. When I was flying in the US I usually used Skyvector, but as most of my flights are in Europe, and couldn't afford the price of proper VFR maps for all the countries I needed, I was mostly relying on the FSX flight planner to track my course.

Short time ago I came across this free VFR flight planner which will help you plan your flights, and obtain a very good VFR map no matter where in the world you are located.

Installation:

Installation is quite easy, although first you need to register on the forums to access the download page. Creating an account on the forums is easy and it takes only a few minutes to receive the activation email. After this you can login and download a 7 MB zip file containing the program. There is no installation required besides extracting the archive and copying the files in a directory of your choice, which I find good because it spares your system of different registry entries and not so necessary files.

At first run you will have to generate a database for the program, which is generated by going to Data tab and choosing Generate FSX or FS9 database, from the FSX or FS2004 scenery files. Process takes around 5 minutes. This way Plan-G will have a complete list of navigation points, airports, airways.

Interface:

Interface is very intuitive, with a tabbed like look similar to the Office suit. The map is based on Google Maps with the flight plan and navaids superimposed based on the FSX database. You can control how many elements are visible on the map using the Map settings tab.

Creating a flight plan:

Creation of a flight planner is done on the actual map, by clicking on the different waypoints. You will see informations about the flight plan in the right side of the application. When done you may save the flight plan in FSX or FS2004 format using the Save button.

Other notable features:

The program has the ability to connect to FSX/FS2004 and display real time the position on the map, as well as showing different info like winds, weather. You can also benefit from an elevation profile by downloading some external files and placing them in the program folder.

Official website.

Fix FSX out of memory (oom) errors

I recently installed some addons that were using high definition textures in Flight Simulator X and I was getting constant oom errors.

The symptoms of FSX running out of memory were autogen spikes from the ground till the sky, blue or untextured polygons on the ground, gauges that kept freezing and very bad framerate. After these signs started to appear it was impossible to continue to play. Sometimes FSX crashed and gave an out of memory error.

My problem proved to be not the actual size of the memory (in my case 2GB of RAM and 1GB of video memory), but actually the way Windows was allocating that memory, in this case the VAS (Virtual adress space) which is the same size no matter how big the memory is. In some cases FSX needs more than it can access from the VAS. By default FSX uses up to 2GB of the VAS, while the rest remains available to the system. In some cases this is not enough for all the complex addons in FSX.

There is a way to increase the maximum available VAS for any application, incl. FSX. More details about this and the method to fix it can be found here.

Below the method to do it:

 For XP:

• Disable hidden files and folder.
• On the root C:\ you will find a file named: boot.ini
• Open boot.ini in notepad and add the following to the end of the OS boot line:

/3GB/Userva=2560

like in example below:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professsional" /fastdetect /3GB /Userva=2560

• Save and close the file;
• Reboot;

To set that back to default, simply remove the edit you made above.

Windows Vista/ Windows 7
BCDEDIT /set increaseuserva 2560

or

BCDEDIT /set increaseuserva 3072



WARNING!
It is possible to starve the operating system's slice of VAS to the point that your system will no longer boot!

If this happens, you must reboot the computer into "Safe Mode" (which bypasses the /3GB switch, and then edit your boot.ini (WinXP) or use bcdecit (Vista/7) to reduce the size of the application slice of the VAS.
Do not try this method if you don't have enough computer skills to do repair it in case something goes wrong. Use it on your own risk.

PMDG 737 NGX first screenshots

First images with interior details from the long awaited PMDG Boeing 737 NGX for FSX have been released by the PMDG staff in this thread on the Avsim forums.
They look amazing! According to PMDG we should expect this bird to be released sometimes during this year (2010).

You may also see some of the images on this forum.

My Geforce 9800GT is here

As I  anounced in the last post, I have purchased a new videocard, a Geforce 9800GT 1GB, to replace my old video card, a 9400GT.
Wow, what a big diffrence! It's the first time I can play FSX fluidly with full clouds on 1920x1080px resolution at around 25fps. Still I am not able to enable bloom without going back to 10-15fps, but who cares :)

I spent a day searching for a power source to handle the beas as the one I had barely had enough power, but it lacked some cables. The rest of the day was spent figuring out why I get so many errors and trying to complete a short flight.
It's time to buy some new addons.

CPU or video card update for higher framerate in FSX

Since the first time I put my had on a joystick and played Microsoft Flight Simulator X, performance (especially framerate) was one of my biggest problems. I like eye candy so I'm always pushing my computer configuration to the limit, after all it needs to be as real as it can.

Having this in mind I decided to scrap my old Geforce 9400 GT and buy a new video card.

I found this cool article on TomsHardware which compares FSX framerate on multiple CPU and GPU confrontations and at different quality settings. The graphics cards used in the tests are not the newest ones, but for people like me that are on a tight budget when it comes to hardware purchases, it does it's job.

Looking at the graphs, and in my pocket I ended up in deciding between a Geforce 9600GT and a Geforce 9800GT (1GB of DDR2 respectively DDR3). Combined with my E5200 processor which I just overclocked last evening at 2.78 Mhz it should hopefully give me the 20 framerates per second I dream at, while flying a complex aircraft during storm with medium/high quality clouds. Who knows maybe I will be able to even enable bloom.

Will test it and place my results as soon as I make the purchase. Keep you posted. If you have experience on a similar system please feel free to share.

FSX Eurocopter Super Puma AS332L2 by Dirk Fassbender Review

I will start this review saying that this is probably the best freeware helicopter made so far for Flight Simulator X.
During the last couple of days I flew the Eurocopter Super Puma AS332L2 by Dirk Fassbender that has been recently launched for FSX Acceleration on Christmas Eve 2009. The helicopter is available for free download at Avsim and Hovercontrol. It works only in Acceleration and not in SP2 or earlier versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

I have to say the quality of this helicopter and the complex level it was model is better than some payware models on the market. Even if the helicopter uses quite a few of FSX default gauges this is hardly noticed as they are perfectly integrated to make the cockpit look like the real thing. Besides this the cockpit has all the gauges you may want at a helicopter from the default GPS to an working autopilot modeled after the real unit. Systems are also very close to reality as far as I could tell from the material I have read about the helicopter.

The 3d model contains quite a few eye candies, including working windshield whipers that actually clean rain, realistic icing effects, multiple animations (wipers, visors, dors, survivors, search light, flir pods ...), external payload model and emergency flotation system.

This is the first helicopter I flew with an trimmer system that makes flying the helicopter very convenient and gives you some time to relax your hands from the control. Although this is good it is far from the stability that an airplane has so you still have to make adjustments to the joystick from time to time. This is where the autopilot unit comes in handy; you can use it to make a complete automatic flight from hover to instrument approach and landing. I have tested most of the features and it works quite well. The system doesn't like when you pause the game. I also had some issues when I was engaging the diferent functions, the helicopter takes some time to transition to the selected mode, during which it makes quite drastic movements. You can see below some images from a full automatic ILS approach and a hover flight using the autopilot.

When it comes to flying manually, the helicopter responds very well even to the slightest joystick movements especially during hover and low speeds. I have not flew the real thing, but the dynamics of this helicopter look very good. I took it to the extremes and it responded as I expected in each case.

The helicopter comes equipped with the default FSX GPS which is good, although I would have loved to see the real flight computer, but taking into account payware models don't have it either or have even worst implementations of the FSX GPS I would say this is something you can leave with. I could navigate very easily using the GPS unit and it did not bother me much.

What I like:
- Realistic autopilot;
- Very good VC and external model;
- Animations;
- The way it flyes;
- Trimmer gauge;
- Internal lighting of the VC;
- Wipers and icing effects.

What I don't like:

- nothing  ;)

FS9 / FSX possible issues while installing on Vista and Windows 7

Due to the big number of changes that the two operating system have implemented, especially in term of security and system folder structure here are a couple of tips to solve some of the issues you may encounter while installing Microsoft Flight Simulator on Windows Vista or 7.

fsx.cfg and fs9.cfg file location on Vista:
C:\users\(name)\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\fsx
C:\users\(name)\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\fs9

fsx.cfg and fs9.cfg file location on Windows 7
C:\users\(name)\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\fsx
C:\users\(name)\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\fs9

scenery.cfg on windows 7 has moved as well to:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX
On fs9 scenery.cfg is located in flight simulator installation folder.

Problem: My settings are not saved after I leave flight simulator.
Solution1: Try running FSX / FS9 as an administrator (Right click on FS shortcut and choose Run as administrator)
Solution2: If above does not work give full control to the folder where fs9.cfg or fsx.cfg is located (see above folders depending on the system). To do this right click on the folder (e.g. C:\users\(name)\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\fs9) -> Proprieties -> Security (tab) -> Edit (button) -> Add > write "Everyone" and check all options including Full Control.

Problem: Cannot set antialiasing properly in FSX /FS9
Solution: Use nhancer. Full details here.

Freeware FSX AS332L2 - Eurocopter Super Puma lauched

I have just downloaded and flew one of the newest and most promising freeware helicopter for Microsoft Flight Simulator X Acceleration. It is the AS332L2 Super Puma model by Dirk Fassbender available at hovercontrol.com and Avsim.

The feature list looks amazing for a freeware product:

working autopilot, internal cargo, FSX acceleration external cargo possible, FSX acceleration hoisting possible, HSI and sector mode on screens, skywatch made out off the default FSX radar, working floats, detailed engine deck, several door animations, realistic cockpit night lighting effects, windscreen icing effect, wind screen wipers with effect, six paintings included but only from real L2's, equipment visibility options via the FSX default payload menu, FSX GPS, animated sunvisors, animated door windows, search light, two flir pods, passengers, crew in VC visible if wanted, rotorhead fully animated, easy checklist.

I am currently test flying it and will be writing a review about it. I have to say this looks to be the most complete helicopter for FSX I have ever flew.

For more informations you can visit the producer's website.