1. diesel

   9

   This is a high fidelity flight simulator capable of so many countless features. While FSX does require higher-end hardware to run smoothly, it renders a very realistic flight simulation experience. Difficulty settings can define weather it is a game or a simulation, as the realistic settings options requires sound knowledge of real world working aircraft and their systems, as well as very realistic flight dynamics and handling. Even on the easiest difficulty settings however, basic light knowledge is needed to successfully take-off, climb, cruise, descend and land. Knowing how to configure the simulated aircraft for all flight stages is definitley needed if you dont always want to end flight with a crash; in that aspect, it is not a "game" flight system. The software itself can be tweaked quite a bit to adjust many different aspect of the simulator, including professional-grade addon aircraft, highly detailed scenery, upto 19m LOD terrain, real-world dynamic complex weather systems; the possibilities are nearly endless with addons and tweaks. Package software provides many Missions to complete for progress-based gamers, as well as a Free Flight option, allowing you to fly and log flights of your choice, at anytime, in any aircraft provided, anywhere in the world. This software does not benefit from SLI or Crossfire configurations to any notable advantage. It does however, require a significant amount of system resources and video memory to run smoothly at Maxed graphics settings. At least 4GB RAM, Minimum 512MB video and Intel i7 and above are my recommended hardware requirements. Systems less can run this, but with stuttered FPS on medium settings, or all settings low for lower end machines.… Collapse

   • Helpful? 2 of 2 users said Yes.
2. Frosti

   8

   The best training program for pilots, even though it's not like the real aviation at all. With payware add-ons you can go through Standard Operational Procedures that are very realistic, but they are very expensive. I bought this game when it was released and back then I didn't know a single bean about aviation even though I am very interested, but through the years this has developed my knowledge. What i don't like about the game is for an example the requirements, 15GB of space and grows to 40GB when you get a few addons. And the RAM it takes makes no sense, while FS9 runs very smoothly and takes only 3-5GB and uses less than 500MB's of RAM, I am very much making videos with FSX, and i'm very unhappy about that i have to play in 20% when recording so it will be smooth when i'll speed it up. FS9 is still the best simulator in my opinion, and the addons for that game are much better. But I like FSX much and the 10 pounds were well worth it, but fs9 is better.… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.
3. DontBeNasty

   7

   As a flight simulator fan i came to love FSX, but this does not blinded me towards its flaws. "MISSION PLOTS BUT NO STORY":as you would expect, flight simulator X doesn't have a story with possible exception being its missions which have a one time plot each(you wont see any plot connections between the various missions) though this can't be considered a flaw. We are lucky to get plots on missions at the first place. "GAMEPLAY":The game itself now is fairly easy to learn. tutorial missions do a fairly good job on teaching you the basics and some more advanced flight techniques don't be fooled though. the game will gradually get very challenging and the more advanced missions will require dubious amounts of effort and lots of trial and error. fortunately, the save feature allows as many saves as you want and whenever you want, sparing you the frustration(although its only up to you to save since there is no autosave feature). also many will love the clickable **** as memorizing each and every keyboard combination might be time consuming and annoying. "INTERFACE": the interface in the menus is good. its easy to navigate the options, set up a free flight(set up the weather, choose aircraft and payload, place to start etc.). The ingame interface on the other hand, is a bit of a chore. the reason for this is that one monitor cannot fit all the instruments inside it. you will constantly need to turn and zoom the camera to the instruments you need to see, forcing you to let the controls of the aircraft. a hat switch on the joystick is a convenient feature, but still you would have to let the controls and grab the mouse in order to use the clickable virtual 3D(as well as the 2D) **** because one entry level joystick and one keyboard cant cope with the seer amount buttons and button combinations. final verdict on the interface: you will need at least a decent HOTAS joystick and a second monitor in order avoid frustration "TECHNICAL": It mostly feels great to fly in the world of flight simulator X. there are lakes, coastlines, fairly detailed big cities and famous land marks like Eiffel tower and Parthenon. There are actual cars on the roads(to a point where the technology allows it, dont expect miracles) and there is also wild life though it feels like its only placed on specific places to enhance missions. unfortunately the technical is where the most drawbacks are. If you take a close look on the ground you will notice randomly placed textures and at many parts the textures are like someone took the paint tool and randomly started placing square texture dots. beyond that there are the human models which they are horrid with an equally horrid repeating animation. in missions where you are supposed to have people entering or exiting your aircraft(heli or otherwise) there is no animation of it. The only confirmation of it is by the dialogue and sound effects, not to mention that there is no copilot or passengers visible from the virtual **** nor spot plane view(copilot is actually visible from the outside). The biggest black page on the game's technical faults is the performance. Bugs, glitches, crashes, constant stuttering, sudden lag and poor framerate add an immense amount of frustration. Even the first patch which improves the performance and fixes bugs is not enough. fortunately there are solutions to make the game more smooth(smooth framerate is what you want, the very nature of the game makes low framerates acceptable). even if you got past the lag and stuttering, the game is still very demanding and power hungry(even today a power rig might have problem running on full settings. yep is the single most demanding game ever, even from crysis). generally this is not like other games and lowering graphical settings might not only improve performance, but in fact make it worse. so in addition to the flying gear and extra monitor you will need a very beefed up PC making it more expensive than the price of the individual game.
   "FINAL VERDICT" despite its major technical flaws that can be overcome with lots effort and tweaking by the user, playing this game can be pure magic. the missions are varied without getting boring and i will add the huge number of third party DLC as an advantage as there is everything for every taste. the physics have only a few hiccups, but generally are excellent. BE WARNED this game is not for everyone. you need high budget gear, and the game it self although more accessible can be unforgiving later on more advanced missions. hopefully the new Microsoft flight will be a major advancement in solving the performance issues that plagued this game.… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.
4. SamFriedman

   3

   This newest Flight sim by microsoft Is a slideshow unless you have the following: Penium 4 3.4 ghtz Duo 2 Core with 2 Gigs ram, and the best video card money can buy.
   Its a system hog ...my friend has a 7800 VIDEO Card running ON A PENTIUM 4 3.4 GHZ Sysytem and he's defaulting to med settings.… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.

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