Microsoft Flight Simulator X
Flight Pro Simulator – The Best Flight Simulator
Flight Simulator Professional Edition reviewed here is one very large program, Microsoft redefines the words Compact, Typical and Custom, 358mb, 720mb and 1,144mb respectively. I selected the 1,144mb option and some 27 minutes later was ready to start flying. This all from 3 cd rom disks. The first two are needed for the installation, the 3rd being filled with extras. The in-box manual which you will need to read is second to none and in itself deserves an award. Not many Flight Simulation programs can trace their past back some 18 years of constant development and evolution. This now adds up to the best ever version of this the King of Flight Sims. Microsoft Flight Simulator is no mere game, it is as the marketing guys say “as real as it gets”. No other Flight Simulator comes even close.
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Having flown all previous versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator I knew I was in for a treat. It soon becomes all too obvious that a quantum jump has been made with this version over the previous version. I found myself starting up the engines of the Beach King Air 350, just to hear the wonderful sound they make as the turboprop cuts in from the starter motor. You get to do this twice as its got 2 engines. Seeing Concorde charge down the runway and hurl itself in to the sky, using the brute force of its 4 Olympus engines, reminded me of seeing the real Concorde all those years ago for the first time, and I felt as proud to be British now, as I was then. After all these years no one has even come close to building a replacement for the Concorde.
Flight Simulator 2000 has a serious side, you can if you wish undergo a training program which is a very real complement to real-world pilot training. So much so that many of today’s pilots start their training with this simulation, remember its not a game, its not a toy its a simulation and its as real as it gets. I would go further and say its as close as you can get to really flying an aircraft on your desktop. Perhaps this is Flight Simulators best asset, learning to fly any of the aircraft well and mastering the arts of take off and landing etc, bring a real sense of personal achievement and rates very high on the feel good factor. Oh did I forget to mention the clouds, they now look very real. But all the eye candy in the world will count for nothing if the planes do not fly true to life. I am sure that given the constraints of the amount of raw processing power a modern-day desk top computer now has, this is as close to reality as you can get, at least until the next version comes out.
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Unfortunately there are a number of small fly’s in the soup. Microsoft says the minimum specification is a P166 or faster with 32mb ram. I was unable to test it on such a low spec computer, our lowest spec is now a P400/80mb and this did cope quite well overall, but it was at the expense of lowering the many options for display and effects and running the program in a window. Our new PIII/800 with 256mb performed very well even with all options turned right up. From this I would draw the conclusion Flight Simulator 2000 is crying out for the very fastest PCs that you can buy today. It will run on the slower end of the PC performance spectrum but really comes alive when given the right hardware to run on. The other fly is the amount of hard disk space needed, some 1,144mb for a full installation less if you opt for Compact at 358mb, Typical at 720mb which is no problem if you are fortunate and have one of today’s 20 gigabyte plus hard drives!
Conclusion, this is the best ever Microsoft Flight Simulator and not by a small amount, I would recommend that upgrading even from Flight Simulator 98 is a worthwhile move. Safe flying.
Yet this guide costs £14.99p the same price as Microsoft Press latest At A Glance guide for Windows Millennium which sets new high standards for such a guide. I think the guys that work on the At a Glance series should have a word or two with the guys producing the Inside Moves series!
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About the Author
Fsx vs Reality
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