Microsoft flight simulator 2000 planes

Since I put a priority on framerate over eye candy, I'm accustomed to having to turn down detail for smooth performance. Even then, the game is far from smooth. When you turn your aircraft or change the view to look out a side window, the game pauses and stutters to load the new scenery. If polygons could blush, they would flush deep crimson in Flight Simulator for being so often caught naked without their textures, which pop in at a leisurely rate.

Sometimes in the external views, the aircraft never picks up its texture and you'll find yourself flying a gray unpainted airplane. And then there are the lockups, which afflicted all three systems I used to test the game, almost always requiring a hard boot. It's beyond me how this was regarded as acceptable performance. I've seen bad code before. This may very well be the worst. Flight Simulator retains the same feel as the previous versions of the game.

Anyone who's played the previous titles can boot up Flight Simulator and they'll find themselves right at home, staring out the cockpit of a Cessna along runway 36 of Chicago's Meigs Field, an old and immediately recognizable standby for people familiar with the franchise.

The interface hasn't changed much, offering excellent online help, including tool tips for each dashboard and easily accessible right click help. The spread of aircraft finally includes some commercial jet liners, including two Boeings and a British Airways Concorde. While the Concorde is a flashy addition, it's actual somewhat tedious, requiring constant nursing to balance its fuel load and reach full speed.

The Bell helicopter is still so twitchy that it's nearly useless, especially considering the lack of situational awareness. If the graphics didn't thrash around so much when you changed views, you might be able to maneuver the helicopter in close quarters such as trying to land on a building. But the framerate makes the finesse of helicopter flight almost impossible. Although the flight model varies noticeably for all aircraft, it's still suspect.

There's a pig-headed reluctance to allow spins so even the most ham-handed pilot can crank up the realism level and yank around a delicate airplane like the Sopwith Camel with no fear of losing control. Microsoft seems to have eschewed their practice of releasing add-on scenery, since they've included plenty of regions with high detail scenery in this box. They are, however, offering two versions of Flight Simulator , a regular edition and a Professional edition.

This latter version contains two additional aircraft and six additional scenery areas. This cynical effort to wrest more money from serious simmers is reprehensible. It's bad enough that this game is so lousy, but it's worse that they expect people who love the genre to pay extra.

There's a good flight planner here, which is a helpful way to explore the world that Microsoft has laid out, but it's not as good as the planner in Terminal Reality's Fly! The air traffic control and interaction that brought Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited series to life like no other civil aviation sim is sorely missed here, since there is absolutely no air traffic control and no interaction with other aircraft.

The big differences in FS's models are the new ground handling, better thrust to weight ratio, new momentum feel, engine rpm changes, realistic flap retract and deploy times and accurate fuel flow and burn rates! Cruising at flight level , at a fuel flow of 3. The autopilot works well, but heading changes are still far too violent.

This is an old FS98 carryover flaw. Shame on them there. Autolandings are supported with the capture of the localizer with the autopilot's approach mode armed. I have done quite a few now and they work great. At the right flare attitude the power levers will retard, the nose will remain up and upon touchdown, the spoilers, reversers and brakes will be activated. With three hours under my belt at the controls of a real Level D simulator, I felt right at home.

When in the , you are in a simulator, minus the systems that a sim like FLY! The panel is very nicely done. Simple, yet effective. This is where FS is not much different than FS However, the overall clarity, coloring, detailing and some new systems make it much better. We now have nice popups for the throttle quadrant, radio stack, compass and best of all the new GPS.

These popups are via toggles already on the panel. I sure am glad we finally have that! While missing all the niceities of FLY! MS went for "big and legible" this time and it works to some extent. Two bad things about the new panels are that 1 they limit more of the outside world especially in the Cessna and 2 they are the cause of the poor framerates and stuttering while in turns.

Rumor has it that a patch will fix the Artificial Horizon and Compass displays that are causing this performance hit. Personally, I think MS is going for IFR certification so wanted totally smooth instrument updates at the cost of outside visuals. The FAA was never big on visuals anyway. That's MY opinion only. I have been able to fly nice takeoffs and landings and turns while in Full Screen W mode to combat this stuttering problem for now.

The GPS is simple, easy to use, very effective and a perfect default addon. No more loading, configuring etc. No need to go into detail here on it, it's so easy and self-explainatory. Night lighting on the panel is so so It won't be long before 3rd party panels come out with all the switches, systems and sound effects missing from the default one. I really wish seatbelt signs and air conditioning switches were included by default, but that's not a big deal is adding them is simple as in FS It doesn't do justice to lump all the other planes together, but in the interest of not tuning this into a book I will hit on the plusses and minuses of the planes I have flown.

For the most part, the other aircraft are equally well built with flight models that range from great to perfect. Visually, each one is accurate and pretty to look at.

Next to the , my favorites are the Lear 45 and Cessna S. They are stunning! All accurate and ready to use. The Learjet's engine sounds are to die for! The prop animation on the Cessna is great as well as the flight modeling on both. The Learjet has really been improved for more stability and realistic hand flying and the Cessna seems pretty close to the real thing as well.

The default CS is much more strong on climb performance now. Each FS airplane has its own sounds, panel and cabin interior modeling. Virtual cockpits don't exist on default FS airplnes.

Unless you have tons of ram, the inside views are hindered by slow-to-load artwork. I don't know why they are such hogs, as the cockpits in FLY! Overall they look good, but not great. I was disapointed in the It looks awkward, gangly and goofy. It doesn't conform to exact dimensions or parts placements like the others. I am upset that more time was not spent on such a gorgeous airliner. However, the animations are still excellent.

The cockpit is as equally good as the 's and actually offers stutter free flying because you can switch to a different EFIS display that does not show compass. The weather system is much improved. Multiple cloud layers, wind layers, gusting winds, windshears, variabilities and randomness are all built in.

The visual modeling on all the clouds is so much better and now you will see detailed forms of cumulous cloud in varying heights. The effects combined with lighting, sun angle and precipitation falling are truly a sight to be seen.

You can still program in areas, but you'll never be able to know that a lurking warm front could spawn some imbedded storms etc. The framerates are not much affected by solid overcast or undercast layers, nor precipitation. That's very good news. They are however, hindered by partly cloudy puffy cumulous variety, or multiple layers of differing cloud models. Then you may find your PIII dropping to a 5 fps count!

No pauses though grin. The weather offers so much to see, I have yet to discover the thunderstorms, snow, icing or other surprises that my addition to real weather has supplied me with. I am flying to Alaska while writing this, hoping to find real snow there!

I just discovered the map! Totally new map for the 21st Century. Just grab and plop your airplane anywhere on it, and place in speeds and altitudes to start flying!

And, yes, the airplane will not start off falling or stalling, it will be stable at the speed you place it at! A big colorful box and a thick, hearty manual that's good for beginners. Good "light weight" content. Experienced simmers will not use it. Boo hoo, no approach plates nor fold out maps included.

You'll get illegal operations. Microsoft Flight Simulator Professional Edition contains more than 20, airports compared to 3, available in Flight Simulator 98 around the globe, 50 detailed cities worldwide, and 3D objects e. Up-to-date weather conditions can be downloaded from the MSN Gaming Zone on the Internet with real-world weather systems provided by Jeppesen.

The simulation translates these conditions into realistic effects such as clouds, precipitation, and lightning and allows the user to customize weather as well.

Enhanced flight planning and navigation tools have not been ignored by Microsoft Flight Simulator Professional Edition. Position updates, ground speed, waypoint targets, route fixes, airport information, latitude, longitude, altitude, airspeed and more are just a few of the in-flight aids offered.