Gaming Anyone try FlightGear?

[V8Li]

Other than the clouds, not really. And you think FSX has bad performance, FlightGear was completely unplayable on my old desktop.

I've played both on my laptop (dual 2Ghz AMD, 4GB Ram, ATI up to 1Gb) and find FlightGear to be much more efficient. With the 787-8 (VC) at San Francisco I get 25 FPS and it puts 60 in flight. 1024x728 resolution with about 30Km visibility.

Forgot to mention in my previous post: in the current version one can get to fly the Zeppelin. Landed last night the 787 with only one engine . It's fun...

 

[unussapiens]

I quite enjoy flying the F-14 after a wing has broken off due to stresses. It may be unrealistic, but it's entertaining.

 

[Hielor]

I quite enjoy flying the F-14 after a wing has broken off due to stresses. It may be unrealistic, but it's entertaining.

The videos are dramatizations (and faked, and I think some of the views of the pilot shaking the stick are actually in an F-16) but the story and the pictures are real:

 

[Urwumpe]

Possibly the story, but it is from History Channel, it is not like these can do it right.

 

[TMac3000]

Flight Gear is the best sim in the business! And no, I do not mean "except for Orbiter". Orbiter is great, and fun, and very realistic, but the fact is that man has never been to the planets yet, and until we do, we don't know everything that humans would face on an interplanetary voyage, so any attempt at realism, however impressive, is still just based on theory.

Flight Gear, on the other hand, required me to download actual navigation charts for flying airplanes, something human beings have been doing every single day, sometimes thousands of times a day, for more than one hundred years. And of course, a free open-source program with graphics and play that could easily have fetched $50-100 per sale on the retail market is wickedly difficult to beat.

First place: Flight Gear. Second place: Orbiter. Third place: Probably FSX, but I've never messed with that one, so I would have to say Janes Fighters Anthology, just for the pure versatility.

 

[Hielor]

Flight Gear is the best sim in the business! And no, I do not mean "except for Orbiter". Orbiter is great, and fun, and very realistic, but the fact is that man has never been to the planets yet, and until we do, we don't know everything that humans would face on an interplanetary voyage, so any attempt at realism, however impressive, is still just based on theory.

Flight Gear, on the other hand, required me to download actual navigation charts for flying airplanes, something human beings have been doing every single day, sometimes thousands of times a day, for more than one hundred years. And of course, a free open-source program with graphics and play that could easily have fetched $50-100 per sale on the retail market is wickedly difficult to beat.

First place: Flight Gear. Second place: Orbiter. Third place: Probably FSX, but I've never messed with that one, so I would have to say Janes Fighters Anthology, just for the pure versatility.

FSX is better than Flight Gear. Better ATC, better multiplayer, better help for novices, better mission support, better addons, better graphics. X-Plane is also better than Flight Gear...better graphics.

This has been discussed a thousand times. If you want a realistic simulation of the actual operation of an aircraft, including realistic ATC that talks to you, get FSX. If you want a sandbox sort of thing and want to have beautiful looking VFR-only flight in single player, get X-Plane. FlightGear isn't even on the list.

Sorry, but Orbiter is not ahead of FSX by a long shot. Moreover, they're really in two different categories, so they can't even really be directly compared.

 

[Moonwalker]

With an experience of more than 16 years of flight simulation, I also have to disagree. Flight Gear is anything but close to what Microsoft Flight Simulator 9, 10 and X-Plane is like. While X-Plane even is below MSFS with its missing ATC and the spinning clouds bug and missing professional addons, although X-Plane is certified by the FAA to be used for real pilot training (of course not the basic version). At least with my experience of flight simulation, I was actually slightly shocked when I tried Flight Gear, which did neither look good nor work properly even on my high-end machine. It's what I call the typical freeware stuff. There is a lot to be done but I do not expect too much unless there would be a company or a very huge community behind it.

FS9 and FSX still offer the most realistical solution for professional simming if we talk about highly detailed aicraft systems simulation and VFR. And aside desktop simming, guess why the majority of fixed base home simulators use FS as the platform for the visuals but partly also to assist the hardware instrument panels (in conjunction with Project Magenta, which beats almost everything).

And Orbiter is something which is not comparable to X-Plane, MSFS and Flight Gear at all anyway. It is a space flight simulator, and as such it does very well.

 

[autopilotman]

although it isnt free il2 1946 is a great ww2 sim and is definately worth paying for

 

[Moonwalker]

although it isnt free il2 1946 is a great ww2 sim and is definately worth paying for

No longer nowadays. Although Rise of Flight is going to be a WWI sim, it's what I tend to call a proper flight simulation...

 

[autopilotman]

here is a video from il2 1946