Hobbies - Other Interests

[eTiMaGo]

Nice! I spent far too many hours in MS Flight Simulator and Flight Unlimited II back in the day... Too bad I don't have the time for that anymore :(

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by eTiMaGo

Nice! I spent far too many hours in MS Flight Simulator and Flight Unlimited II back in the day... Too bad I don't have the time for that anymore :(

I LOVED FU2. Wish it had been expanded to cover more territory though. The flight dynamics (yaw modeling absolutely ruled!), performance- on mid level hardware - blew MSFS out of the water. And those rain effects!

Something we always had to be cognizant of in design - especially with larger sceneries- was keeping polygon counts/ 3D model complexity and texture sizes low to facilitate good performance. MSFS's coding engine sucked, even after they went XML in FSX. It would require a beast of a gaming machine to run it with any addons and weather, whereas FU2 would run quite respectably on a Pentium 4. Lol I usually had pretty up to date gear but I was never 100% satisfied with the way the MSFS series ran. Then again, I used heavy addon aircraft, secnery and weather engines.

[DarkShadowFox]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

I LOVED FU2. Wish it had been expanded to cover more territory though. The flight dynamics (yaw modeling absolutely ruled!), performance- on mid level hardware - blew MSFS out of the water. And those rain effects!

Something we always had to be cognizant of in design - especially with larger sceneries- was keeping polygon counts/ 3D model complexity and texture sizes low to facilitate good performance. MSFS's coding engine sucked, even after they went XML in FSX. It would require a beast of a gaming machine to run it with any addons and weather, whereas FU2 would run quite respectably on a Pentium 4. Lol I usually had pretty up to date gear but I was never 100% satisfied with the way the MSFS series ran. Then again, I used heavy addon aircraft, secnery and weather engines.

i liked crashing my plane into the ground.

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by DarkShadowFox

i liked crashing my plane into the ground.

Yeah, except that they didn't have crash modeling. Microsoft had to sign an agreement with Boeing, Cessna, Raytheon etc promising not to 'virtually' explode their planes. So, I guess if you liked bouncing off the ground and calling it a crash, more power to ya. Then again, you could download one of the few addons that made the plane turn into a fireball on impact. Most of those were removed from the flightsim sites, for obvious reasons.

[eTiMaGo]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

Yeah, except that they didn't have crash modeling. Microsoft had to sign an agreement with Boeing, Cessna, Raytheon etc promising not to 'virtually' explode their planes. So, I guess if you liked bouncing off the ground and calling it a crash, more power to ya. Then again, you could download one of the few addons that made the plane turn into a fireball on impact. Most of those were removed from the flightsim sites, for obvious reasons.

That's why I loved Flight Unlimited II, I could take a Cessna as high as it can go, dive until it reaches some crazy speed, then pull up, and leave the wings behind me somewhere

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by eTiMaGo

... dive until it reaches some crazy speed, then pull up, and leave the wings behind me somewhere

AKA, turning the plane into a lawn dart. The Fairchild Metro Liner 3 had that nickname. I knew a guy that flew one and he even called it that. LOL

[eTiMaGo]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

I LOVED FU2. Wish it had been expanded to cover more territory though. The flight dynamics (yaw modeling absolutely ruled!), performance- on mid level hardware - blew MSFS out of the water. And those rain effects!

Something we always had to be cognizant of in design - especially with larger sceneries- was keeping polygon counts/ 3D model complexity and texture sizes low to facilitate good performance. MSFS's coding engine sucked, even after they went XML in FSX. It would require a beast of a gaming machine to run it with any addons and weather, whereas FU2 would run quite respectably on a Pentium 4. Lol I usually had pretty up to date gear but I was never 100% satisfied with the way the MSFS series ran. Then again, I used heavy addon aircraft, secnery and weather engines.

I used to just sit on the tarmac in the rain and listen to it plink plink plink on the fuselage :D Loved that game too, it's one big reason I want to visit San Francisco!

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by eTiMaGo

I used to just sit on the tarmac in the rain and listen to it plink plink plink on the fuselage :D Loved that game too, it's one big reason I want to visit San Francisco!

Yup, Flight Unlimited was a fantastic series, for sure. I had high hopes that the title would be developed more but I don't think the developer deemed the project to be profitable. I liked the graphics, flight modeling, ATC etc and although these were superior, IMO, to the MSFS series, the MSFS series did have more going for it, especially in terms of being open-sourced and encourging of 3rd party development. The Flight Unlimited series was destined to be more of a 'game', whereas the MSFS series was more of a 'simulator'. I did buy FSX, but continued to use FS9 for years after FSX's release, mainly due to the third part addons.