Ravna
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Posts posted by Ravna
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I compare them to FSX with all add-ons.
The stuff SimProbe and CumulusX do, is already build-in.
That's why they are called "Dedicated Soaring Sims"
MS has never given soaring much thought.
And they use less resources.
I get around 45 fps in stock FSX. With SP and CX enabled the framerate drops below 25.
Silent Wings gives me +70, with all options set to max.
But don't take my word for it, download a copy and have a look.
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Theres always a catch, huh ?
Without the source files it's next to impossible, that's true.
But you don't have to, and you can't use them anyway.
As said above , "planes made for FS9" and earlier.
I had no trouble converting Wolfgang Pipers LS4.
FSX models don't work with the GngModeller.
The files are still called *.mdl, but the format is different.
But I've read that someone is working on an importer for Blender.
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Aircraft other than those on their website ? Are there any ?
Are you trying to use unmodified MS Flight Simulator Aircraft ? That's not possible.
However, planes made for FS9 can be converted, it's pretty simple.
There's a tool called GngModeller, to import mdl files.
Bitmaps can be converted with Nvidia tools, or the ACES image tool in FSXs SDL.
Configuration files are in plain text and self explaining.
Doesn't take longer than a few hours.
Here's a Tutorial
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Got my hands on 2 dedicated soaring simulators.
They are called Condor and Silent Wings
Graphics could be improved, but flight dynamics, weather and resulting lift, makes soaring in FSX look bleak
Download Condor & the Miffin scenery, and you know what I'm talking about.
Both offer trial downloads, give them a spin.
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Some time ago, I found a plane with a gauge that resembles a car stereo.
It's Freeware and was made by R L Clark, every credit belongs to him.
I took the thing and made slight modifications to the SOAR DG.
It's just an additional floating window, assigned to Shift+2, and looks like this:
Operation is pretty simple, you switch it on with the knob in the upper right corner.
It plays an audio CD, if there's one in the drive, or you press the AM/FM buttons and assign sound files
to each preset by right clicking on it. (takes some time to respond, be patient)
I thought some of you might like it, everything you need is in this file
Just extract into your FSX folder.
Have fun.
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Your wings got blown off ?
I have nothing to do with that.
There are a few distractions, but it's just sounds and generic effects.
About the location:
I searched the web for good soaring places, outside Europe/America.
(Always flying in the same old areas gets boring)
Someone wrote about New Guinea, she was able to climb above 25.000 ft, during the NW monsoon.
So I thought we'll give it a go.
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Had a motorcycle accident last year, a car hit me.
Plaster didn't do the trick, the bones had to be supported with various metal parts.
Now everything is fine again, and the supports were removed.
One more week, and I'll be as good a new.
But what do you do, if the only thing you are allowed to do, is stay in bed ?
Easy, you plug extension cables into your rig and make a mission.
So, here it is.
Just extract into your FSX folder.
You can play the mission as it is, but SimProbe is recommended
Have fun.
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All drives will be read-/writable no matter which disk you boot from.
GAG just switches the drive letters.
The disk you boot from will always be called "C:"
Drive letters for removable storage devices stay the same.
Any bootmanager overwrites your boot sector.
If you uninstall it, you can't boot the disk, it was installed on, anymore.
But this can easily be fixed.
For XP:
Restart the computer with the Windows setup disk.
Wait for the screen, where you can press "R" to start the recovery console.
The console will list all your Windows installatons and prompt you to enter a number,
corresponding to the Windows installation that you need to repair
It will prompt you for the administrator password, simply press Enter if you haven't set one.
Then type these commands and press Enter after each one:
fixmbr
fixboot
Remove the disk and reboot.
For Vista:
Restart the computer with the Vista DVD.
A GUI will come up.
Enter language and keyboard settings.
On the next screen, select: "Repair your computer."
From the System Recovery Options dialog, select the "Operating System" you want to repair.
From the "Choose a Recovery Tool" dialog menu, select "Command Prompt":
Inside the command prompt type these commands and press Enter after each one:
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
Remove disk and reboot.
About the shiny blue lights:
Right click on your desktop and select "properties"
Click the "Screen Saver" tab.
Click on the button named "Power"
Click on the "Advanced" Tab.
There's a line that says: "When I press the power button on my computer"
Select: "Do nothing"
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You don't have to re-install anything, if your OSes are on different drives.
You can tell the bootmanager where each OS resides, or boot from the Bios.
The install order is only relevant if you want XP and Vista/Win7 on the same drive, AND use the Windows bootloader.
MS OSes overwrite the bootsector, and the Vista/Win7 bootmanager can start XP, but not vice versa.
The reason for this is that MS added another ntloader file format
In earlier times, Windows had a file called boot.ini, which was a simple text file, that could easily be edited.
Now it's a binary, that can only be manipulated with bcdedit.com.
Since earlier versions of Windows can't know anything about it, the newest OS has to be installed last.
However, if you use GAG or Grub this isn't a problem.
Install anything in any order/partition, and let the BM take care of it.
The only thing to remember is that Windows always wants to be the first OS on the first HDD.
It doesn't have to be there, we can lie to it.
With Gag, you just select the "swap drive letters" option for an MS OS on drive 2.
For Grub, you have to edit grub.conf, but I don't think anyone here will use it.
Anyway,
this isn't something we should worry about right now.
FS might be rewritten, and folks might want to upgrade to Windows 7, but not this year.
As soon as there's FSXL, or whatever, we'll have a deeper look.
About your first question:
I got my first box 6 years before a certain Mr Gates released something called DOS.
Back in the "old days", you just had to know how everything works.
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It is your computer, you paid for it.
You can do with it whatever you like, as long as you don't apply physical force.
What if you want Unix/Linux, or any other OS ?
Dells no-format policies are as void as it gets.
And yes, OSes can be installed on different physical HDDs.
We don't even need a bootmanager in that case.
A modern BIOS let's you decide which HDD to boot from, if you press a certain key.
(Mostly F2)
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Yes, since Vista there's an utility called bcdedit, which makes editing the boot menu very easy.
The catch is that a freshly installed Microsoft OS overwrites the old boot sector, so you must install Windows 7 after XP.
You can also use the Grub bootloader if you have a Unix/Linux Partition on your Box.
My favorite is called GAG , coded in pure assembler.
You just copy it onto a diskette, boot from it, mark your OSes and select: "Write to HDD"
Works fine for me with FreeBSD / AIX / Solaris / XP / Win7.
It can even hide partitions and swap drive letters, if someone wants to install DOS or OS2.
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Not to put a too fine point on it . . . but Mr Gates has "officially" left Microsoft.
These days, Mr Ballmer is responsible for everything MS.
Just to correct a misunderstanding - ACES hasn't been shut down, they "only" sacked all but 6 devs.
They can't just shut it down, there are subscribers to ESP.
An MS spokesman said:
You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games.
Sounds a bit vague . . . I for one couldn't care less for their LIVE experiences.
But there's something going on - I've got an update for ESP this morning.
Here's my 2 cents:
Vista sales stayed far below expectations, so the looks of older programs weren't a major concern.
But now Windows 7 is about to be released, and MS will push it with all they've got.
I'm running it since pre Alpha state, and today, it's what Vista should have been in the first place.
It's fast and responsive, all bells and whistles turned on - even on a P4 with 1G RAM
People will accept it, and that's where the Flightsim cookie crumbles.
I don't know how many of you still run XP, but let me tell you that FSX and Windows 7 don't mix.
As soon as you start FSX, the whole system switches into legacy mode, which looks weird and reduces performance a lot.
My guess is, there will be a complete rewrite.
With ESP - with DirectX 11 - and whatnot.
It may not be any better than FSX, but look at this shiny interface . .
Needless to say, you'll need a pretty hefty rig to run it.
Everybody wins, but the customer - sounds familiar, huh ?
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That's strange.
It works for me in 5 browsers and 3 different operating systems.
Must be your box . .
Have you tried to right click the link and select "open" ?
Heres the full URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/mi...ulator_partners
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El Reg wrote an article about this yesterday.
The comments are the most interesting part.
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Thx for the reply, Bruin.
It totally escaped my attention, that I had real world weather enabled . .
I couldn't run CumulusX, because my GPU broke down, and the mobo chip can't run SP2.
Changed flight and weather file, I hope this works better.
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No, nothing commercial.
(Im from the Unix world, we don't know the word "money"
)Just to make things a little easier.
Many ppl aren't comfortable with simple things like moving/editing files.
I run a motorcycle forum , and have my share of "users". :winks:
Editing config files is not a problem, just look at the FSUIPC installer.
I admire the work of this community, but it needs a bit of knowledge to get all your stuff working.
(and almost nobody reads manuals)
It might be a good idea to provide the full "SOAR Experience" with one click.
BTW
Here's my first attempt at soaring missions.
Maybe you like it.
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Hi, I just landed.
(Karen opened the catflap for me, so I could sneak in)
I wanted to share some stuff, but am not really sure how to do it.
Most users are the point and click types. It has to work out of the box.
They can't be bothered to download additional stuff.
Am I allowed to include material, hosted on this site, in an installer ?
Dedicated Soaring Simulators
in General Discussion
Posted
No worries Sam, it's all about diversity.
As Hodge said: He can soar, and his kids can fly F-18s afterwards.
That's the strength of MS FSs and also their weakness.
They do everything fairly well, but nothing really good.
Their flight model is made for a Cessna, if the aircraft get's larger, weight and engines are added.
Still, it's the FM of a Cessna . . .
They don't care about the dimensions of the visual model, you can assign the FM of a 747 to a Sailboat.
This approach isn't ideal for gliders, military jets and especially not for Helicopters.
I'm not saying FSX is bad, I just wanted to point out that there are other good sims.
With the size of todays HDDs, we can have a dozen or more on our boxes.
Nobody ever said this site is Microsoft only.