Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe DVD

10 Review to this product

• 

  Jon L. Albee
  August 17th, 2010 on 5:10 pm

  Rating

  Here are some things you need to know before buying:

  This software is not a game. It’s a real-time simulation.

  You’ll need a Cray supercomputer to run it.

  The graphics are, hands down, the best in the business… any business.

  The flight models are realistic. I know, I’m a pilot.

  Where else can you learn how to fly around the world in a range of aircraft with no risk whatsoever for about 60 bucks?

  If you enjoy this sort of thing (you know who you are), spend the money for one good dinner out on years worth of aviation discovery.

  When I was a kid I never dreamt that something so comprehensive, exhilarating and downright beautiful would ever be possible. How spoiled we are!
• 

  MiddleAgedGamer
  August 18th, 2010 on 6:13 am

  Rating

  I was very hesitant about buying and installing FSX after reading all the negative reviews. So I spent some time researching tips and tweeks, and then dove straight in. And I’m glad I did: the visuals are stunning, far better than FS2004. And frame rate: I’m getting 20 fps with occasional very short lived dips into the mid-teens (and that’s flying around large cities), using high settings (but not highest) on everything. My specs: Athalon 4200+ X2 (2475 oc), 2G DDR 450, gf7800gt (470 oc). It’s not buttery smooth like FS2004, but it’s not herky-jerky either. One weird thing about FSX is that beyond a certain point of performance, throwing better graphics cards at it doesn’t really boost the FPS much: I’ve seen first hand that SLI does NOT improve this sim’s performance. It’s all in the tweeks and there are many…search the web and you will see.
• 

  Adam Hems
  August 18th, 2010 on 7:02 am

  Rating

  I got my copy of this edition a week ago. The last copy of FS I owned was the 2000 version so I was about ready for an upgrade! I dropped the first DVD in and installed it; it took a good half an hour to get through all three DVD’s. Then I fired it up. I was immediately prompted for what kind of user was I – novice, experienced FS user or an actual Pilot. I picked novice as I’d not played a game like this one in at least four years and needed all the help I could get. It then talked me though some basics and let me control a plane already in the air at one point and that was cool – very easy intro; I was looking at the plane from behind so no confusing instruments or what-have-you. Felt like an accomplishment!

  After this it suggested I go through the tutorials, and told me where to find them, and even though I was itching to just take off from a small airport very close to my home in a Cessna or something and just get flying, maybe try to find my house – I resisted the urge and dutifully found the first mission.

  It was in a microlite, which is nice and easy to see out of, which was already flying in the air when the mission started. I just had to navigate it though some huge green squares hanging improbably in mid-air, which I just about managed after the second go. I then wandered about, and found it very cool to see a small boat whizzing along a coast I seemed to be over; I worked out how to get down close to it and was racing along just above it! Well, briefly – I got too low and fell in the drink :-p

  I only have a keyboard and mouse and found it devilishly difficult to control the thing with the keyboard; it was a little easier with the mouse. I then undertook several other missions, where I learnt to take off, and land, and navigate around the ground in an airport. The computer talked me through the whole thing; it was fairly straightforward and tremendous fun.

  I found after a couple of hours of periodically losing control of my various aircraft that I really needed a joystick. I rushed out to my local electrical retailer and bought the Saitek X52 flight System, which costs a third less here on Amazon btw, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I didn’t even need to restart the game; I just plugged it in and the whole thing worked immediately. It is so much easier to control the aircraft with this set-up; made a massive difference.

  The most fun I’ve had so far was the mission that introduces you to Jet’s. I found myself in the seat of a medium-sized passenger jet, on a slip-road by a runway. In front of me, through the windshield, I could see another passenger jet, ahead of me in the line for the runway. The computer started explaining to me some of the gauges in front of me, about how it was a glass cockpit and so on. I looked around using the “Virtual Cockpit” view, which is ever so lifelike. I found myself pushing the buttons on the display (prompted by the computer) and it was just so cool. All this while “we” (the computer, playing the co-pilot, and the plane in front) waited for a 747 to come in to land, which it duly did. Then the plane in front moved in to position to take off. The tower came over the speakers, and the computer answered it for me, and told me that we should move forward. I can’t describe how real it felt to move the thrust forward a little, wheel the plan around and get in position behind the plane in front; I was as nervous in that simulation as I was on my first ever driving lesson. I was worried I was holding people up in the line behind me! That the tower might get impatient! Anyway the first plane took off, and after more instruction I got myself on to the runway as the computer, still playing my copilot, jabbered away about heights, angles, vectors and some similar stuff I was too nervous to take in. Then we had clearance from the tower to take off and I was time to crank the engines and get off the ground! I managed it just fine, mostly by luck rather than taking in the computers’ tuition, and followed the computers directions and managed to navigate to a nearby airport and *nearly* landed (I clipped the trees at the front of the airport ). I did it the second time perfectly; the feeling of achievement was just exhilarating!

  There are several helicopter missions – I couldn’t do those. I will go back and try them later but I found that guy, even with my whizzy new joystick setup, *HARD* so for now I’ll stick to planes!

  Later I tried the online thing; I found a game hosted by somebody who was prepared for newbies like myself and joined it. I neglected to ask for permission to take off but made it without incident (or rebuke from the tower), and then pottered about the airport flying very low and making a complete nuisance of myself. Finally the guy in the Tower asked that I get above 2,000 feet, which I duly did; when I didn’t answer he must have realized that I didn’t know how the radio worked and he attempted to explain it to me. This was all via verbal communication, btw. He had a Scottish accent and he was very good about it. I shall go back when I have more of a clue.

  I finally tried taking off from an airport near my house and following the roads – it worked! I picked the microlite as I had got the hang of that one and it’s nice and slow so it’s good for low-flying and checking out the view. There is a large road bridge near my house and I found that easily enough; of course the houses and other buildings around the roads are made up but I still felt like it was familiar and that was cool.

  In summary, I can’t remember the last time I was so immersed in a computer game – I found the learning process just utterly exhilarating. I recommend everybody give it a try

  As for performance, I initially had my graphics settings cranked to Ultimate and got about one or two frames a second so wound them back to somewhere in the middle and it’s fine. No doubt my next computer will make it look better which is something to look forward to BTW I am running Vista which maybe helped I don’t know. The specs of my notebook, for the curious who care are below.

  - Toshiba Tecra M4 with 2Gb of RAM and a NVIDEA GeForce Go 6600 TE 128Mb
  
  - I ran the game off of an external Maxtore 7200 RPM drive / 16 Mb Cache
• 

  Mr. Gamer
  August 18th, 2010 on 1:10 pm

  Rating

  Stick to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 if you do not have “hot rod” computer. This game needs a PIV,lots of memory, and a real good AGP/PCIe graphics card-no joke. If you love the airplanes and do not have the above save your money and enjoy FSM 2004. Just as much fun without the missions,bells, whistles, etc. If you got the machine-go buy it-you will love it. Otherwise it will make you unhappy cause you got to have the computer to run this game.
• 

  Lars-erik Nesvig
  August 20th, 2010 on 5:44 pm

  Rating

  I have been playing flight sim for nearly 10 years. My first version was on a PowerMac back in the 90s on a computer that a total hard disk of 1 gig. Flight Sim has come a long ways since then. I rated this game as a 1 for fun because for most people, it is too powerful. I got my copy today and upgraded my video card to a PNY 7600GT 256MB PCI-E in anticipation of this game. I am running a Pentium 4 3.0 ghz with 1 gig of ram. I knew that I would struggle but I did not think it would be this piss poor. I am however excited that my 2004 now runs superbly with my new video card. I am also very excited to play this flight sim once I have the firepower required. I already uninstalled my copy of FSX. Why let it sit there taking up 15 gigs of memory when I will never be able to run it well on my current platform. Even with vista which will require more ram, this version requires much more firepower than the average gamer system. When people say that an EXTREME system is required to have fun, they are correct. I installed it and played with settings and to get it to run in the 15-17 fps range, the scenery looks much worse than 2004. Why not just run 2004 at higher fps and with cool add ons that work well? This is what I will be doing with my new graphics card. Some idiots will spend 5000 on a new computer, but I will wait for the price to come down. So this game is currently a bummer for me, but I gave it an overall rating due to the fact I know that it will one day be awesome. The missions look incredible and the graphics at 4-6 fps look great in the sense of the quality of buildings but at 4-6 fps it is a slide show. So save 70 dollars today, upgrade your 2004 and wait until prices drop!
• 

  Evan Doss
  August 22nd, 2010 on 4:05 am

  Rating

  Awsome game. The graphics are unbelieveable. Sounds like people are haveing troubles running it on systems compariable to mine so I don’t know what thats all about. I’m running a P4 3.6Ghz HT, 2 GB of ram, 128MB Graphics, and 250GB hard drive. I’m also luckey enough to be one of Microsoft Vista beta testers so I am running it on Vista RC2 which may be the difference. I hope to have my Intel Core 2 Duo system up and running soon so we’ll see how much better it runs on that. As I am a licensed pilot myself I have always been impressed with the realism. They still haven’t made IFR flying perfect. If your looking for a sim to practice your IFR approches then check out X-Plane.
• 

  Linuxfan
  August 23rd, 2010 on 1:47 am

  Rating

  This takes a real computer, but it is the most fun of them all. The graphics are really high; and you can keep this game for a long time, it will take a few computers and a long time for it to get old. It is really well laid out, missions are very fun, everything within is just awesome. Monster game–two double-layered DVDs, 15 gig’s of space. It took me an hour-two to install it, and it always 40 seconds to turn on every time from the start menu. I have a new dell, AMD 64 3800+ x2(dual core 2.0 ghz) with 1024 meg ram, pleanty hard drive, nvidia geforce xfx 7600gs 256 meg graphics card, and it performs
  
  very well… but I could upgrade a bit for it… but I don’t have to. I recommend it as it is fun and worth many hours of flying time, and will
  
  last through generations of computers and versions like XP and Vista. The demo is not much fun. Great game, keep the graphics over medium overall and it will be good, tweak settings for max performance. Microsoft did not mess this up! Flight Simulator X, I have had it since christmas–
• 

  S-9 Pilot
  August 23rd, 2010 on 10:00 pm

  Rating

  On a P4 3.0GHz HT 2GB DDR2 RAM GeForce 6600 system I am getting 30 fps reliably outside city areas, and 20 fps in the cities major airports. Turn off ‘Light Bloom’ to get a big performance increase. Also turn off cars/trucks on the highways to get another big performance increase. I leave Autogen on normal, and put everything else in the ‘high’ bracket. Hope this is useful to you, I thoroughly recommend the game, and as my PC spec improves over time, this game will look better and better. Oh nearly forgot to mention that the planes seem to fly with much improved characteristics, esp. reaction to turbulence and wind gusts, stalls and spins are superb. Rain effects look amazing, night flying is really seriously impressive.
• 

  Anonymous
  August 24th, 2010 on 2:01 am

  Rating

  I pre ordered this game and was so glad i did! This game has AWESOME GRAPHICS!!! The Water is SO REAL and Missions ROCK!! On my gaming computer which has a 320GB Hard drive Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2GB of RAM and dual SLi 512mb nVidia graphic cards FSX Runs FLAWLESSLY with all slides at Max. But I know not everyone can afford a high end gaming computer so I also tried it on my low end secondary computer with a 2.93ghz intel celeron D processor 512mb of RAM and a ATI graphics card. Flight Simulator runs pretty good but not great. If you have a computer like my seconary computer I suggest getting Flight Simulator 2004 or 2002.

  - Pilot Derick
• 

  Brian K. Unruh
  August 24th, 2010 on 10:55 am

  Rating

  Flight Sim X Deluxe is an incredible simulation not really a game, although you can have alot of fun with it. If you are the type of
  
  person who needs instant gratification for anything, this won’t be
  
  for you at all. Playstation or XBOX is the way to go. FS is something you really have to work at and be interested in to find satisfaction from the program. If you are interested in aviation or becomming a pilot you will spend hours exploring the world from your office or bedroom. No other program lets me drop into the Grand Canyon in my 172, flying slow over the river, turning left then a quick right to keep from hitting the canyon walls. What a rush. The scenery is intense and very realistic.

  Most of the reviews initially on a new release of flight simulator will be nasty. For me, a new release of FS means some type of hardware upgrade in the video card or memory. This is because a new release is a true upgrade in graphics, features, and realism. FS has always been ahead of the hardware. There are many features to tweek and play with to
  
  get the Sim to run on your computer nicely. Google FS forums and you will find many sites to help you get the most from this sim.