Katana X: sharing experiences

[dswo 0]

My last thread, which I have renamed to indicate the outcome (no, Katana X was not crashing WinXP), has made me more aware than ever how dependent our experience of things is on hardware and drivers.

Therefore, the following observations should be viewed as tentative. I'm curious whether other users have had the same experience.

1. My sound card/drivers may be to blame for this, but the engine sounds act in a strange way. Example: the start-up sequence goes straight from ignition (I can hear that) to roaring loud. But when I taxi onto the runway and throttle up for take-off, the sound actually gets quieter. After that, when I idle the engine it is not as loud as it was immediately after startup. Very strange. My experience with the FS9 version of the same aircraft was much more normal: I could hear the whole start-up, and the engine at idle was not roaring loud.

2. The cockpit textures seem blurrier in FSX. The only explanation I can think of: my default flight in FSX starts at about .65 magnification, and my default flight in FS9 starts at .75. But zooming in to 100% doesn't make the FSX version sharper. I'm wondering if there is something different about the cockpit geometry of the FSX version. More data: I am using TrackIR 3 with vector.

3. The GPS and dashboard book hotspots are harder to find in FSX. It's easier if I lean in with TrackIR and get them from the side.

4. On a positive -- very positive -- note, I am pleased to report that the FSX version does not seem to have any special framerate issues. Sure, it's still FSX. But I'm pleased so far.

[dswo 0]

I understand better, if not completely, what's happening with the cockpit textures. To get sharp textures in the FSX version, global texture quality must be set to max (I had it on high). With FS9, I was getting the same sharpness with aircraft and global texture quality set to high (not max or ultra). I don't have a good sense of what impact the higher setting will have on FPS, but now I know how to get the sharp textures back.

[Snave 466]

Hopefully this will be one of the issues fixed with SP1 for FSX, it is a nonsense to not have the capability to set the res of the VC separately from more general graphics choices - only at MAX do you even get equivalency to FS9, so it's a meaningless menu option as it stands.