Flight Simulator X Review – Things I Enjoyed About the Game:
Here, we will review Microsoft Flight Simulator X.
What is Flight Simulator X?
Basically, you’re a pilot, except for the fact that you’re flying a computer simulation, and you’re playing it using your keyboard and mouse. Think of Flight Simulator X as a beautiful realization of the Hollywood blockbuster in its elements. You have what amounts to a real cockpit full of buttons, switches, dials, and dials, for that matter. It is both for your aircraft and your co-pilot’s. While you have to select what kind of aircraft you want to fly, you also have a set of flight functions – engine, aileron, anti-gravity, elevators, and rudder control. Each of these can be dynamically selected based on the position and movement of the rest of the aircraft.
What are the system requirements for Flight Simulator X?
The minimum requirements for running the game are pretty straightforward. You’ll need a Pentium 4 2.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5MB hard drive and a VGA-compatible graphics card supporting VGA-compatible monitors. DirectX 9 support is built right into the game.
The recommended system requirements specify a machine running Windows XP with Service Pack 2, 2GB RAM, 20GB hard drive, and a VGA-compatible graphics card supporting VGA-compatible monitors. The game also works very well on the Windows Vista, 8 and 10 OS.
Graphics and Performance:
The beta version of Flight Simulator X had extremely impressive 3D graphics, with a highly detailed cockpit and intuitive controls. We did encounter some frame rate issues with the beta version, but those have been resolved in the final product. This causes a few minor problems for the flight simulation.
Since the simulation often wants to calculate things, for example, aircraft performance, at a frame rate faster than the graphics engine can handle, all that fancy math can cause the simulation to stutter and judder. We also experienced the odd but noticeable effect of ships not being able to fly straight through a target when it was selected in the target drop zone. Sometimes the A-10 was shooting into the ocean, and a helicopter couldn’t see it.
Multiplayer and Scenery:
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the game is the free-for-all multiplayer mode. The first time you access multiplayer, you have a choice of multiplayer modes, including both online play and live-cam support. Online play is surprisingly stable and plays well. However, you can’t seem to get a good picture with live-cam support, and you have to play in a more advanced view mode to see anything at all. After some frustrating attempts, I gave up on live-cam support and now do many flying alone.
The Scenery mode is much more practical. Scenery allows you to create an entire virtual world and fly in it, and each section you fly around is given a unique number, and when you finish that section of the world, you can fly back to that point.
How is the game optimized on most computers?
Flight Simulator X is best played on a system with a powerful dedicated graphics card (like a GeForce 8 series or higher) or on an ATi Radeon X1400, X1600 or X1800 with at least a 256 MB graphics card. If you don’t have a powerful graphics card, you can still enjoy the game, but the time you spend trying to do the easy stuff will be painful.
The beauty of the simulation is that most of the game is plane to plane, plane to ground or runway to runway, and it can get very slow on slower computers. How is the game optimized on older computers? The game plays fine on systems with 512 MB of RAM or less, although performance will be a lot worse. It does not scale well at higher resolutions or at very high resolutions like 2560×1600.
What are my impressions of the game’s graphics?
The graphics of the game are wonderful. The game’s production values are on par with that of Civilization III and subsequent turn-based strategy games, and more than a little inspired by what you find in the Civilization games. The game’s main draw is the incredibly realistic skybox and cockpit, complete with detailed external views, ship-level information, light traffic, weather, day and night cycle, and constant fog to preserve the realism of the experience.
On the software side, you have large floating friendly icons that you can click on to bring up an information window showing where you can land and where you can refuel your aircraft, change your aircraft’s wing, adjust your autopilot settings, etc.
Flight Simulator X Pros:
• World’s most realistic Flight Simulator
• Amazing flight physics
• Elite paint and weather
• Dual screen support
• Extremely configurable
• Leading flight school: Oculus-EA ACCD’s
• Easily one of the best PC games ever made
Flight Simulator X Cons:
• Performance issues in more processor-intensive areas
• Basic texture loading issues
• Automatic movements are inconsistent, very unreliable
• No provision for real (in-game) instrument approaches
• Need for parental controls for players over 13 years of age
What I liked about Flight Simulator X:
Microsoft released Flight Simulator X in late 2006, with Steam following suit in 2014. The game has received a 4.4/5 rating on Google Reviews and a 9/10 rating on Steam Reviews. Prior to making my purchase, I researched the reviews of Flight Simulator X on both platforms and found them to be overwhelmingly positive. My experience with the game was equally satisfying, with seamless downloading and installation, and no need to enter an activation code. Notably, the game required minimal storage space and worked flawlessly on my laptop.
In comparison to its predecessors, Flight Simulator X stands out as a superior choice due to its updated and improved graphics, more expansive variety of aircraft and airports, and the ability to view the plane’s exterior and look around the cockpit.
One of the biggest reasons to purchase Flight Simulator X is because you will enjoy not only having the most accurate representation of airline flight operations but also because it includes over 400 other aircraft from around the world. With an accurate simulation of over 400 aircraft in this product, the performance issues become apparent.
Players with The FSDX driver in the Windows 32-bit edition are quite different from the 64-bit edition. If you choose the 64-bit edition, you will need to be sure to install the FSDX driver separately. When viewing the aircraft window, you can also notice lag, frame drops, and other frame rate issues.
Conclusion:
All in all, Flight Simulator X is an incredible product that offers a whole new level of realism when used with a variety of console game engines and flight simulation software. Microsoft has built an incredibly accurate representation of how aircraft behave in flight, resulting from immense amounts of engineering, development, and testing. However, this makes it easier for inexperienced users to get into the simulation without sacrificing veterans accuracy.
Overall, Microsoft has done an incredible job, and Flight Simulator X is a worthy addition to your gaming arsenal.
This looks like a really fun game. My daughter wanted to be a pilot. Later on she forgot all about it but I’m pretty sure she would have enjoyed the game if I knew about it. That sounds like a really good present idea for Christmas or a Birthday. Thank you for outlining the pros and cons, this is very useful before purchasing the game.
Thanks for the nice comment. I liked this game because it is more detailed and better graphic than 2004 and 2002 version.