[Huntn]

I'm weighing some kind of flight sim related article for IMG and trying to determine general interest. First of all is anyone currently active with a Flight Sim? I'm not currently flying one but I've been known to break out X-Plane for a cross country.

Would anyone be interested in a quick and dirty Flying an Instrument Approach feature or do you have any other flight sim related ideas?
Thanks!

-Dave

[Frost]

Nope, though not for lack of interest. Just no flight sims to play on my Mac, and I don't have an Intel Mac so I can't go out and play my main interest, F4: Allied Force. X-Plane is fun, but eh. Give me fighters, damnit. If I want to fly a dinky Cessna I can go to the airport.

I suppose I'd probably enjoy X-Plane more if I could max out the detail and all that good stuff, but the computer just isn't near fast enough for that kind of thing. And if it didn't hate my Logitech joystick.

[Janichsan]

I'm playing X-Plane on MacOS X and Il-2 Sturmovik via Parallels, where it runs excellent.

[Huntn]

Frost, on October 8th 2007, 07:39 PM, said:

I suppose I'd probably enjoy X-Plane more if I could max out the detail and all that good stuff, but the computer just isn't near fast enough for that kind of thing. And if it didn't hate my Logitech joystick.

I understand. If your looking for a dog fight fix, unless they have made some substantial changes to X-Pane, it won't do it for ya.

Janichsan, on October 9th 2007, 03:16 AM, said:

I'm playing X-Plane on MacOS X and Il-2 Sturmovik via Parallels, where it runs excellent.

Outstanding! What hardware are you using?

[Janichsan]

Huntn, on October 9th 2007, 02:01 PM, said:

I understand. If your looking for a dog fight fix, unless they have made some substantial changes to X-Pane, it won't do it for ya.

You can do some dogfighting in X-Plane. You just have to put the other aircrafts in the other team. But neither can you actually shoot another plane down, nor can you be shot down. The missiles and stuff are all deemed to be "exercise" ammo.

Quote

Outstanding! What hardware are you using?

My 2 GHz MBP with an ATI x1600 256 MB graphics board. Il-2 is actually one of the few games I found that runs in virtualisation environments (including CrossOver, but that lacks joystick support) almost as good as under BootCamp (at least in OpenGL mode). There are some minor graphical glitches with clouds, but apart from that it runs like a charm.

[morback]

If they'd make Fighter Ace available for mac you'd see me do bombing runs in my Tu-2!
Catch me if you can!

[Syzygy]

At the moment I'm addicted to Microsoft Flight Simulator X. It makes even my brand new Mac Pro cry uncle, but during the moments it works and works smoothly, it's simply a joy to play. For all the things Microsoft doesn't get, they certainly do get the pleasure of relaxing, free general aviation. It's all the more useful now that I just (finally) finished up my private pilot's license.

(Really, the applause isn't necessary )

Also, OpenFalcon is the name of the game for hyper-realistic combat sims. This derivative of Falcon 4 is a codebase independent of Falcon: Allied Force, and not beholden to any stale contractual agreements. While I do love Allied Force, I think OpenFalcon does it better. Mind you, it wouldn't be a Falcon 4 game if it weren't bristling with nasty bugs -- and it is -- but if you can look past them, there's a challenging, fun, and hyper-realistic combat simulator behind them.

That's about all the recruits going through my Boot Camp. X-Plane and the Global Scenery DVD's are resting comfortably on their shelves. I have the Mac version but since my new Thrustmaster Cougar doesn't play too well with Macs, I limit my flight simming to PC nowadays. Still, I do break out X-Plane every once in a while, because -- well, let's face it: Flying the X-15 is fun.

WWII Online -- though I'm no longer a subscriber, I keep the game around... more symbolically than anything else. It's the last true dogfighting game of the Mac, and if I wanted to get it into it again I'm sure I'd be rewarded with some terrific guns-to-gristle oil-and-metal WWII dogfighting pleasure.

What else is even out there for me to buy, even with my new half-Hades hybridized Macintosh? LOMAC? Pass. Knowing that it's a bit more arcadey than I'd like has kind of ruined it for me already. Screamin' Demons over Europe? Can't say I'm not tempted... It's been so long since the holy bliss of Parsoft has graced my desktop. Sturmovic? Is it any good? Really -- I don't know. Mac gaming might be a tiny rowboat in a surging storm, but at least everyone on the rowboat knows each other, y'know? There might be great PC flight simulators out there that I've never heard of.

[Huntn]

Janichsan, on October 9th 2007, 07:55 AM, said:

You can do some dogfighting in X-Plane. You just have to put the other aircrafts in the other team. But neither can you actually shoot another plane down, nor can you be shot down. The missiles and stuff are all deemed to be "exercise" ammo.

Exactly!

Quote

My 2 GHz MBP with an ATI x1600 256 MB graphics board. Il-2 is actually one of the few games I found that runs in virtualisation environments (including CrossOver, but that lacks joystick support) almost as good as under BootCamp (at least in OpenGL mode). There are some minor graphical glitches with clouds, but apart from that it runs like a charm.

Thanks for the info!

[Huntn]

Syzygy, on October 10th 2007, 03:31 AM, said:

At the moment I'm addicted to Microsoft Flight Simulator X. It makes even my brand new Mac Pro cry uncle, but during the moments it works and works smoothly, it's simply a joy to play. For all the things Microsoft doesn't get, they certainly do get the pleasure of relaxing, free general aviation. It's all the more useful now that I just (finally) finished up my private pilot's license.

(Really, the applause isn't necessary )

An expensive hobby, but fun, yes?

[Janichsan]

Syzygy, on October 10th 2007, 10:31 AM, said:

Sturmovic? Is it any good?

Definitely. About the best WWII flight sim I ever played - and I played quite a few.

[SpaceMonkey]

No, but I wish that I was. I have a PowerBook G4, so no Windows flight sims for me. I was really into F/A-18 Hornet (1.x through 3.0 and Korea) and A-10 Attack back in the day. My Mac at the time wasn't fast enough to run Falcon 4.0.

Is "Enemy Engaged" any good?

[Janichsan]

SpaceMonkey, on October 12th 2007, 01:47 AM, said:

Is "Enemy Engaged" any good?

Yes, it's great. Not perfect, but very fun. The dynamic campaigns are pretty fun - even not quite on Falcon 4 level.

[Unzane]

Avid X-Plane user here. Great for when I (perpetually) can't afford to throw a real plane around the sky

Working on building it some decent airliners now - see http://www.xpjets.com

[DaveyJJ]

X-Plane a great deal with some wonderful custom heavy metal jobs ( see here ... http://x737.eadt.eu/Home.html ).

IL2 runs under Parallels? Crickey! Must reload that one!!!!

[Huntn]

Unzane, on October 13th 2007, 09:33 PM, said:

Working on building it some decent airliners now - see http://www.xpjets.com

Looks outstanding!

It's been a while since I've flown X-Plane but the last time I did, what it really needed for glass flight decks was ECAM System pages and a FMS database that included all of the airways (for whatever region) to allow you to program a flight like it is really done. And it needed more of a brain for planning climbs, descents, and constraints. Finally some A.I. for the flight laws that all the new planes either have or are going to have like the 787. Of course maybe XP has improved in some of these areas since I last saw it.

I'm not ragging on XP just making an observation. Compared to the competition it is an outstanding civil flight sim, especially the flight modeling.

[blzbub14]

SpaceMonkey, on October 12th 2007, 12:47 AM, said:

Is "Enemy Engaged" any good?

Enemy Engaged is a great Sim, particularly as the dynamic campaigns (as mentioned above) were also playable in multiplayer. Finding people playing the game online was always the problem.

[RichardI]

I'm playing FS2004 under BootCamp on an iMac. It's great fun. I can't play X-Plane because I have a CH HOTAS setup, and everytime I re-start OSX, it "re-discovers" my controllers in a different order, and I have to set them all up again . Too much of a PITA.
I have Flyboys Squadron on order and I hope it doesn't have the same issue..

Rich

[Huntn]

RichardI, on October 15th 2007, 03:12 PM, said:

I'm playing FS2004 under BootCamp on an iMac. It's great fun. I can't play X-Plane because I have a CH HOTAS setup, and everytime I re-start OSX, it "re-discovers" my controllers in a different order, and I have to set them all up again . Too much of a PITA.
I have Flyboys Squadron on order and I hope it doesn't have the same issue..

Rich

Could you clarify a bit? Does it reset everything to default or something else?