Welcome.

Ok!
What do you use then?

I first used a flight simulator then the buildings were sticks or blocks. I think that it was either Flight Simulator 1 or 2.

That didn't last long. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I tried it again.

Not knowing if I'd play with it any more than I did back in the early '80s I didn't even buy a joystick. I used my keyboard to try to fly. Committing suicide by papercuts would have been more fun.

So I bought a Logitech Attack 3 joystick for about $12-$13. INCREDIBLE! I can FLY!!! Actually, it wasn't bad at all. The Logitech software let you set any key to act as a shift key thereby almost doubling the number of keys to use with FSX.

So a bunch of time goes by and I'm thinking that I might want a yoke. It took me about 5 or 6 months to decide which yoke to buy. I chose the CH Product yoke because I still wasn't all that sure that I'd keep on flying.

The big advantage, for me, was that it already had the rudder, throttle, prop, and mixture built in. AND a ton of buttons. NOW I have it all - NOTHING else to buy!!!

Wellllll, maybe one or two more things. But that all. 

I think that they call it mission creep. Little, by little I bought that "just one more thing".

But you know what? Without a ton of money to just buy it all, I've had as much fun trying to decide what I could afford next, as I have using the equipment.

My family is ever so slowly getting the point that I would much rather have a $35 (or more, of course) Amazon gift certificate than a $100 item that will just end up sitting on a shelf, unused.

The area that I have for my computer system is almost 5 feet by 7 feet. I don’t watch TV, but I do like to watch movies. So my computer is used for that. I get my news from the internet. I manage bill payment with my computer. I buy a lot of things from the internet. Not because it can be cheaper, but because the internet offers a greater variety. And it goes on, and on.

The point being, my desk is used for a lot more than flight simming. And if all of the expensive flight sim equipment was the same price as the Saitek stuff I couldn’t use it because, for the most part, it’s just bigger.

So I’d like to hear from others: what they bought, and why they bought it. What problems did they have, and how they overcame them. What add-ons they have, and was it worth it.

Also, we can share what we’ve done to make the poor mans sim pit our own with simple mods.

I’m not all that new to FSX, but I think that I’m still a beginner. There’s always more to learn.

SIDE NOTE
Because I use my desk for more than flight sims I have a self made shelf to hold my monitors at eye level. Some of the Saitek panels are held (by screws) to the underside of the monitor shelf. There’s just enough room between the top of the desk and the bottom of Saitek panels to easily slide my keyboard out of the way.

I've recently cut a U shaped track and glued it to the edge of the monitor shelf. When I want to fly, I just place the two 9 inch monitors in the U track and plug in the USB cables. When not flying I simply disconnect the USB cables and push them behind the main monitors. Total time to set up or take down - about 2 minutes, or less.

The nice thing about using the USB monitors is the fact that you don’t need a power cable.

When I can post a picture I will.

USING 2 USB monitors is MUCH cheeper than 6 Saitek Instrument panels. And this setup lets me drop them in, or remove them in about 2 minutes or less.

Believe it or not, this IS an economy setup.

The board is a few years old. If I recall correctly I bought it from Newegg as a refurbished (used) board. The same for the i5 2500K CPU. The memory from my old board was used in this one, although I did add another 8 GB when it was on sale at Amazon. But thanks to a gift card I only spent $14.97 of my own money to get it. I got the video card on sale  also.

The Old hard drive is in this setup too. The case is about 7 or 8 years.

One of the things that I like about a desktop computer is that you can replace components when you need to and when they're on sale. This 3 year old board will take an i7 CPU. When I bought the board the i7 cost about $1,000. I just checked on Amazon and the one I want is, now, just over $300 now.

You may want to check out the AMD prices. You might find that the fastest CPU that your board will take is FAR less than you think. If you’re not comfortable with the insides of you computer check out YouTube for instructions.

But, the chip I have now can be overclocked when I feel the need for more speed. So right now, it's doing fine. Maybe in a few years when the i7 is below $100 I'll buy it.

In so far as the 9 inch DoubleSight monitor is concerned you can buy it, refurbished, direct from their website for $45 less than you can get it from Amazon.

One of my monitors is actually my wife’s "old" monitor. I bought her a nicer one.    But her “Old” one was the size I needed for my setup. Soooo….

And your 25 inch screen is larger than mine.    If I were to do it over I think that one Large monitor can be better. While she was away one day I took her large LED TV and hooked it up to my computer to see how FSX would look. It looked GREAT!.

Regarding AMD or Intel I have no preference. My MB was a VERY good deal, and it used an Intel CPU. So I bought the board and waited a few months for a good deal on an Intel chip.

I just looked online for my original Radeon HD 5670. It's selling (used) on Amazon for just $44. That board may be slower than the video card I have now, but I can highly recommend it to anyone, EVEN used! I was getting 45 - 65 FPS with FSX settings (judiciously) near max settings.

Bit by bit you can make your system better. And I've been building mine up over the last 3 years. But I'm careful how I spend my money. I save and wait, save and wait.

It also doesn't hurt to buy your wife something expensive every now and then too (when it’s on sale, of course). That way she won’t be upset when you buy yourself a "cheep little monitor" a couple of weeks, or months, later. 

So many times I've read over and over how this piece or that piece of sim gear is no good because it's not like the real XYZ airplane. Give me a break! As you said, to paraphrase, You’re sitting at a desk and looking at a monitor!

Reading the review of someone complaining about one rudder pedal or another they said "these rudder pedals are no good! They're to close together!" I'm sorry.  Take a look at pictures of REAL airplanes. Most of he rudder pedals that I've seen ARE CLOSER together than the Saitek or CH Products pedals.




One of the problems I have with the so called "name brands" is that they often used components that were unique to their own brand. Dell has been known to actually solder the CPU to the motherboard!

If that's not your situation I do have an option for you. A quick check of Pricewatch shows that Starmicro has a 3GHz P4 for $5.00 (3.74 Euro) with free shipping. I'm willing to bet that a small order of fish and chips is more than that. If you can't get it shipped to the UK, I could drop it in an envelope for you.

Speaking of the UK, I flew to the UK when I was 3-4 years old on a Constellation. We lived in Weston-Super-Mare for about a year and a half. 

OldAirmail wrote on Feb 19^th, 2013 at 10:08am:


Glad it's working out for you. Theres one thing I've always noticed about FS tweaks that people recommend. What works for them, does not always work for everyone else.

There are more FS tweak recommendations and GPU settings, and ENB ini file recommendations out there than you could shake a stick at. These all seem to be geared to specific issues that people have with frame rates, graphic quality, and other little "hiccups" that they experiance with their unique system setups.

I believe that may be the point I am going for. Every system is unique. For example, Fozzer gets his enjoyment with his very basic but capable setup. You get your enjoyment with all your control peripherals and mulitple monitors. I get my FS enjoyment with my unique setup (with exactly zero tweaks or payware addons).

Thanks for sharing your setup with us.