Gaming FlightGear 2.4.0 is out...

[cljohnston]

...and it's still a piece of crap compared to Orbiter!
They promised all manner of improvements, but it still takes up about 800G of HD space, the scenery still doesn't look like any recognizable landscape, 7 out of 10 add-on aircraft still are only half-finished, etc.
I just can't believe this thing's been in development for three years longer than Orbiter, and it's still in such a shoddy state.

I remember when I first found Orbiter back in 2001: The graphics needed work, but the potential was immediately obvious, due to the realistic physics and things like the Orbit MFD. The improvement in just a couple of years was astounding! But even at the beginning, it was a much more refined package than FlightGear is even today!

I don't own a PC anymore, so I can only run whatever freeware gets put out for the Mac (Mine was a gift).
Really wish someone would port Orbiter for the Mac.

 

[Jarvitä]

If you hate it so much, ask for a refund.

Oh wait...

 

[garyw]

I took a look at the screenshots and thought it looked pretty good.
I pefer FSX because of the addons and tailoring I've done to it but Flightgear looks fine to me.

 

[Cras]

To be fair, Orbiter is payware quality.

 

[cljohnston]

I took a look at the screenshots and thought it looked pretty good.
I pefer FSX because of the addons and tailoring I've done to it but Flightgear looks fine to me.

Oh sure, the clouds look great at 30,000 ft, but try flying low & slow, especially over your home town.
The only recognizable landmarks in my neighborhood are the Hollywood Sign, some of the buildings Downtown, and LAX. Everything else is completely random buildings and generic surface tiles.

Guess I'm just spoiled by Google Earth.

 

[Spacethingy]

My smallish town has a very recognizable radio mast. Sort of.

Oh yeah, and a lighthouse.

I'm biased against FlightGear 'cos my hardware ain't good enough to run it... :facepalm:

 

[Izack]

800G of HD space

:WTF:


On another note - can anyone recommend any aircraft addons which are in a decent state of development? Any to avoid?

 

[cljohnston]

:WTF:


On another note - can anyone recommend any aircraft addons which are in a decent state of development? Any to avoid?

Well, the ones I've had the most fun with, for just toolin' around and checking out scenery (I'll admit, some cities (Paris, NYC) are way better than others (L.A.)), are the TNG & SG-1 ships at Stewart's Hangar.
The guy did a good job with the Runabout, Type 6 Shuttlecraft & X-305 Daedalus, with lots of nifty features to play with (almost like an Orbiter add-on!).

Also, I can recommend most of the aircraft at Helijah's FG Hangar, my fave being the Bell 222 X, which you might recognize from somewhere.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the F-14B Tomcat is hands-down the most accurately detailed model in FlightGear, as far as I'm concerned! You could spend an hour just sitting on the tarmac flipping all the cockpit switches!

 

[JMW]

Has anyone tried the Concorde on FlightGear?

I think it's AWESOME !! (again, if you've got the kit to run it)

 

[cljohnston]

Well, I decided to have a little adventure, so first I looked up my destination in Google Earth, a little place called Lukla (LUA) (although in FlightGear it's listed as VNLK).
Chose the Type 6 Shuttlecraft, climbed to 29,029 ft, pointed my nose at 32º, and waited to see what came out of the mist...

When I set her down, I was a little disappointed to see that my altimeter was a tad off...

But I let that slide when I zoomed out a bit on the externals...

 

[Dambuster]

Has anyone tried the Concorde on FlightGear?

I think it's AWESOME !! (again, if you've got the kit to run it)

+1,000,000,000,000

That Concorde is utterly superb. Sure, it may not be the prettiest model in the world, but I love it - and the functionality is epic! Nothing makes for a better FG scene than watching Concorde on final approach into KSFO out of the fog (looks even better on autoland, since you don't need to do anything ) :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[ky]

Surprising, uses almost the same controls as Orbiter i.e: 8/2 down and up, 4/6 roll left and roll right.

 

[Izack]

Hmm, getting weird graphical errors, and all the aircraft meshes are garbled, as if my card doesn't support OpenGL. The strange thing is that I used FG with no problems around two years ago on this system.

Anyone else getting something like this? The FAQ and support sections of the website aren't very helpful.

Surprising, uses almost the same controls as Orbiter i.e: 8/2 down and up, 4/6 roll left and roll right.

I think that's a pretty common control setup on PC games. Mechwarrior uses a similar scheme too.

 

[Hielor]

When I set her down, I was a little disappointed to see that my altimeter was a tad off...

Did you adjust your altimeter setting before landing?

 

[cljohnston]

Did you adjust your altimeter setting before landing?

Ummm, no, the Type 6 doesn't have an adjustment for the altimeter.
But it's not that big a deal... it was just cool to hunker down on effin' Mt. Everest, baby! :woohoo:

 

[Linguofreak]

Hmm, getting weird graphical errors, and all the aircraft meshes are garbled, as if my card doesn't support OpenGL. The strange thing is that I used FG with no problems around two years ago on this system.

ATI card?

 

[Blacklight]

I use FlightGear. For a free, open source, flight simulator, it's the best one out there. Yeah, it's no Orbiter, but then again, Orbiter has been around a lot longer and has a larger community of modders and a LOT more addons.

 

[cljohnston]

Orbiter has been around a lot longer...

According to Wikipedia, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlightGear"]FlightGear[/ame]'s "David Murr started the project on April 8, 1996. The project had its first release in 1997", while Orbiter "was first released on 27 November 2000".

 

[Coolhand]

Every time i look at a screenshot of Flightgear, I wonder why no one ever bothered to remove the outlines from around the clouds. Its so neatly trimmed out around the outline it almost appears as if its been intentionally left in... I know its free and i'm sure someone has worked really hard on them and its just a superficial thing, but I just know within 5 minutes i'd be in an image editor and improving them - and once i start that process it kinda ruins it for me.

I think Orbiter wins out in the battle of the freeware sims because while there are lots of commercially developed atmospheric flight sims, some which cost next to nothing to buy and even have free addons - spoiled for choice really... Orbiter obviously stands alone with its focus on interplanetary flight.

 

[Cairan]

Still, sims such as FlightGear have two important things Orbiter lacks out-of-the-box: water bodies and terrain elevation. That's what bothers me after a while in Orbiter, but I don't make much of a fuss... I play FGFS when I want to fly close to Earth and Orbiter when I want to go in orbit