[Need Advice On Using Laptop For Flight Sim]

It's not as if there's a million choices.

FSX will give you the DG808S glider and a couple of soaring missions.

Via links on this site you can get:

* SOAR DG808S - replaces the FSX default DG808S with more accurate flight performance and better instruments

* CumulusX! - gives you more accurate thermals

* sim_probe - partly an add-on to CumulusX adding ridge lift, plus acts as a flight logger

if you google 'fsx soaring mission' you'll get a few links to free downloadable soaring missions - the basic idea is the mission sets the 'waypoints' of a soaring task, sets the weather and positions the glider at the start, and a timer tracks your time around the task. Do the default microsoft ones first (austrian soaring, swedish soaring) which don't need *any* addons and you'll get the idea. But after you get good at it you'll find the add-ons really move FSX into a different league of fidelity - with hindsight the FSX glider instruments will feel like a joke, the FSX thermals could keep a cow aloft, and FSX default has no ridge lift so long ridge-running missions (or free flight) would be impossible and I think these now represent the majority of soaring hours flown in FSX.

good luck

Ian

Where do I go for these three items?

[Need Advice On Using Laptop For Flight Sim]

Where do I go for the three above links for * SOAR DG808S, * CumulusX! and * sim_probe.

[Need Advice On Using Laptop For Flight Sim]

It's not as if there's a million choices.

FSX will give you the DG808S glider and a couple of soaring missions.

Via links on this site you can get:

* SOAR DG808S - replaces the FSX default DG808S with more accurate flight performance and better instruments

* CumulusX! - gives you more accurate thermals

* sim_probe - partly an add-on to CumulusX adding ridge lift, plus acts as a flight logger

if you google 'fsx soaring mission' you'll get a few links to free downloadable soaring missions - the basic idea is the mission sets the 'waypoints' of a soaring task, sets the weather and positions the glider at the start, and a timer tracks your time around the task. Do the default microsoft ones first (austrian soaring, swedish soaring) which don't need *any* addons and you'll get the idea. But after you get good at it you'll find the add-ons really move FSX into a different league of fidelity - with hindsight the FSX glider instruments will feel like a joke, the FSX thermals could keep a cow aloft, and FSX default has no ridge lift so long ridge-running missions (or free flight) would be impossible and I think these now represent the majority of soaring hours flown in FSX.

good luck

Ian

Where do I go for the three above links for * SOAR DG808S, * CumulusX! and * sim_probe.

[Need Advice On Using Laptop For Flight Sim]

That will be the fastest gaming laptop you can buy, pretty much, and will be capable of running all the flight simulators (all current games, actually) although *of course* you will have to adjust some options (scenery density, etc) to get the perfect framerate - this is true of all games as they try not to have the software limit the machine...

Any laptop won't compare in price/performance with a desktop - i.e. this performance would cost half in a desktop PC, but I guess that's not what you want.

Battery life in this laptop probably sucks, or at the very least the laptop's heavy - that's the price you pay for the performance. Gaming will drain the battery in 30 mins or less (my guess) but office use should be much better but nowhere near as good as laptops designed for long battery life (i.e. small screens and low performance).

Re disk space, go for the larger disk if you are keen on flightsims. X-Plane 9 is a 70GB install, for example (although that's way the biggest)... Also perhaps counter-intuitively, larger disks generally have a faster transfer rate (more bytes spin off the disk in a single rotation...)

Ian

p.s.

hahahahahhahahhaahhaaahahahaha

but hey, it'll give you wireless connectivity like any other wireless card. Online gaming over a wireless connection is generally problematic if you're trying to shoot people and can't afford periodic lag, but otherwise ok. With a bit of luck the 'gaming' router simply comes with the right default settings to minimise that kind of issue. But flightsims don't usually have big demands in that regard and multiplayer (i.e. online) FSX sucks anyway.

p.p.s

that 17" laptop screen will be amazing to look at, but for most games you won't need to run it at it's max resolution, and framerates will be better. I.e. try it at a slightly lower game resolution but have anti-aliasing set, and up the other sliders (scenery complexity, autogen density, shadows, cloud detail) before you try upping the resolution to the full 1920x1200. *If* you have to make a tradeoff, I'm sure that'll give you the best result. For the normal Windows office desktop, 1920x1200 will kick ass so it's definitely a benefit. You should find it's great having a 17" screen for flightsims, but the actual resolution is slightly less critical as long as anti-aliasing (AA) and AF (anisotropic filtering) are set to ON to smooth out the lines.

Thank you for the information regarding a laptop computer. I am brand new to all of this. What are the programs I want to buy to get started with soaring once I purchase my computer