Timothy wrote:
but the resolution of the instruments was a million miles from being good enough for IFR.
Yes, you barely see the ASI reading inside a VR cockpit, but works well for long distance VFR scenery on a visual nav
So, I can’t see how it works for Garmin display details such as qnh, freqs, sqwak…I don’t think you can beat a touch screen+ipad for IFR+GTN instrument panel?
Also, in the sim you I took time to learn how to use VFR apps such as SkyDemon (or XCsoar) in all configs without getting lost
I guess the same for IFR apps, it’s bloody expensive to burn avgas just to learn how to tweak GTN/GNS on live flights
Talking about myself, setting/fixing avionics while in the air consumes all my brain power, so why not sorting this out in the sim?
(I can say proudly sometimes it comes before aviate, navigate, communicate)
Peter wrote:
What sort of PC hardware do you people use?
I have an Intel i7 4790k Processor, Nvidia GeForce 780Ti GPU, 16 GB DDR3 RAM and – important for loading times – 500 GB Samsung SSD 840 Evo. I use a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick. No pedal or any other fancy gadgets (In fact I think it’s function to use the rudder by rotating the stick itself would be nice to have in real aircraft).
This PC was a high-end gaming PC when I bought it in 2014 and still hold its own quite nicely. The NEC Multisync 2470 24" TFT display I have, displaying 1920×1200 pixels in a rare 16:10 screen width, gets fed quite nicely by my hardware, usually with above 60 fps even for current games such as Battlefield 1.
For FS:X Steam Edition it is certainly enough. Other “flight sims” I use are DCS:World and IL-2 Sturmovik. Both are combat flight sims but have a realistic flight model, DCS especially. And I like to shoot at things occasionally during flying 
I have to admit to seldom doing any “serious” flying on the PC, but on FS:X I already practiced lots of ILS approaches in typical North German “Schietwetter” (an idiom, literally sh*t weather) to have a plan B when I as a VFR pilot get somehow stuck in IMC. It doesn’t seem to hard to fly an approach down to minimums but then you don’t get the confusing sensations you would in a real aircraft.
I also use FS:X a lot to fly more interesting aircraft than the C172 I fly in RL, my favourite has somehow become the Bombardier CRJ700.
MedEwok wrote:
It doesn’t seem to hard to fly an approach down to minimums but then you don’t get the confusing sensations you would in a real aircraft.
As a very new IFR pilot, I agree, but see below. Flying the ILS, even in a real plane, even with crosswind and light turbulence is not the hard / difficult part of IFR. But then, I’m someone that during his PPL/VFR training, had to learn to stop looking at the instruments and look outside, and always maintained a constant instrument scan, so maybe instrument flying is only more natural to me. If you’ve learned to keep a constant glideslope on a VFR visual approach to landing, if you’ve learned to fly a PAPI from “some distance away”, you have the flying skills for an ILS. Plus if you start using the ILS to “monitor” your VFR approach, you already get used to the needles (as opposed colour / aiming point) presentation of information. Or in the SIM as you do :)
I find the transition between “IMC – look only at instruments” and “excellent visibility (possibly below / between / above cloud layer(s) – mix the two” a somewhat more delicate matter. I can do both well when “in the right headspace”, but if I don’t very consciously tell myself that I should “switch and fly differently now”, I tend to end up in a quite wrong attitude (pitch / roll) as soon as I touch the controls.
IMO, the parts of IFR that need real attention and “present danger by lack of currency” is stuff like: In the last 6 months, you have only ever always been vectored to the ILS intercept, and flown the ILS. Then suddenly, you have to fly without vertical guidance. You have to fly the arrival, with its vertical profile “on your own”, in mountainous terrain, and the chart has missing information or a symbol / writing that you have learned, but haven’t seen in a long time. What does it mean again? Or you have the fly a 2D approach. In these situations, thank the powers that be for GPS overlay and ownship on charts.
This is my setup (I used to call him “Goliath” but in today’s standards he’s much “smaller”):
i7-950 w/ Tt Frio OC’d @ 4.1GHz | GB UDR3 | GB GTX 660 3GB | 12GB RAM 3Ch | INTEL SSD 330 120 GB (Win 7 64b) | 2 × CRUCIAL SSD M500 240 GB (FSX, P3D, XP10) | Saitek Yoke, Rudder and X52 Pro
I have 2 monitors, one 27in for the cockpit and a smaller for the other stuff (weather console, FMC window, VATSIM connection panel for online flights, maps etc).
The processor is the old i7 and the cooler is very noisy, will switch to water cooling in the future.
The GPU is also old but gets the job done for medium settings and not too complex WX.
The Saitek stuff is nice and is robust, has a hat switch and lots of others, but the rudders’ return springs gave up after 5 years.
If you’re planning on buying a new rig make sure that it has (Intel/NVIDIA options):
- a fast, modern processor (i5 is fine) that overclocks (either itself or through OC’ing to 4.5-5GHz)
- lots of fast RAM (eg 12-32GB)
- a new GPU (eg GTX series 10×0) with 4-6GB.
- SSDs for fast sim core/scenery load times and a conventional huge HD if you use huge photoreal sceneries (lots of GBs of these)
- an UHD large monitor
That would cost around 1.5K.
In the SW department I’ve used FSX, P3D and XP11. P3D/XP11 are the future in the PC sim world, XP11 does some fancy fluid computations, they say it’s more realistic to hand fly and has some very good payware aircraft (IXEG 737-300, Flight Factor’s Boeings), but a good P3D payware aircraft, eg PMDG (B737 etc), Majestic (DH8D), FSLabs (A320) and some smaller companies’ products are very realistic as well, so say actual pilots.
If you want to use fancy freeware/payware scenery expect to spend a lot of time configuring the sim to find the sweet spot between… flyability and visuals.
Here are the specs of my current setup. I call it “Teras”, well that’s what it was back in 2008 when I got it. The limiting factor is the HDD and memory. I might try updating those before I throw it out the window. However, it will be hard finding more DDR2 ram.
Asus P5Q Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.1GHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460
Corsair 4GB DDR2 (yiek)
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB (yiek^2)
Some randoms HDDs adding up to 2 TB for backups
PS: This setup runs X-plane 10 just fine with loads of scenery, as long as the HDD is cooperating.
If I lose my medical (before groing too old), I will build myself a real setup. Multiple screens, touch screens, nice chair etc. But in the mean time a lap top and a simple twisting stick does the trick just fine (I would much prefer pedals rather than the twist, but pedals are bulky and difficult to place). I need a real “number crunching” lap top in any case. My lap top is getting a bit old, and it’s the GPU that is the bottle neck even though it is a GTX something (950-m maybe?). It cannot be upgraded though. The standard today for gaming laptops seem to be the same CPU (Intel i7), but the GPU is the newer generation Ti with much more power and memory. Maybe as a Christmas gift ?
This thread belongs to the IT section 
So, has water cooling gone out of fashion? It must make a right mess if it leaks…
The video bottleneck always involves noisy fans, so you get a noisy PC. Processor cooling went silent ages ago.
Peter wrote:
So, has water cooling gone out of fashion? It must make a right mess if it leaks…
No, it hasn’t. Some 15 years ago, when I was building a water cooled, fanless PC, I would get my hands wet. There was this ~50cm tall aluminum heat exchanger standing next to it and a pump that sounded like I had an aquarium. About two years ago I bought a desktop from a local shop and wouldn’t know that it’s water cooled until I looked inside. Not exactly fanless though… Here’s a pic.
The standard today for gaming laptops seem to be the same CPU (Intel i7), but the GPU is the newer generation Ti with muchmore power and memory. Maybe as a Christmas gift?
The way Nvidia names its products, the GPUs ending with
-50 are only entry-level GPUs
-60 are decent middle class GPUs
-70 are decent gaming GPUs
-80 are high-end GPUs
The suffix “Ti” generally indicates improved performance over otherwise identically named GPUs without the suffix.
Of course these are rough generalisations and the performance difference between the various models also varies by generation. The latest models are the 20xx models though I have no experience with these. Due to hardware development far outpacing software development for years now, my PC from 2014 is still sufficient even for an ardent gamer like me. But it did cost about 1900€ back then.
