eMko

Yes, the lowest amount of VRAM which Carenado wants for C90 is 1GB, but don't expect that it would be enough with some huge 3rd party sceneries. It's also a good idea to set up the texture compression and lower texture resolution, it can save you a lot of VRAM. But of course - the more the better so if you can (or want) spend money for at least 2GB graphic card, go for it. Also 32 megs of RAM is quite a low amount, get at least 64 for office work or 128 for playing games like Need For Speed III or FIFA 2000 ... No, seriously - if it's a typo and you have 32 GIGS of RAM, it's more than enough. I can run C90 with a ton of 3rd party sceneries, can have open the Plan-G and Firefox with maps and all that with 4GB RAM.

:-D Turboprop engines for climb out and low-level flight, jet engines for high-level flight. And some reserve wings in case one breaks off (in the car you also carry a reserve wheel, don't you?). What more to ask for?

After the very first IFR flight on IVAO to LKPR

Yes, it is possible. On my computer the F9 key works for hiding the panel. But I don't remember if it's a default setting or I had to map it - I'm not at home now so I can't check.

Which however won't be that easy... I doubt that somebody will tell you that he is to blame.

Not only military. Even in aviation the metric system is used (speeds in kilometers per hour, vertical speed in meters per second ...), a bit confusing. Luckily in European Union we (even the post-communit countries) use the imperial units...

I added them as hyperlinks to the text.

Yes, I also like the DC-3 and I fly it quite often. It's a pity that it does not work on grass or gravel runways - I bought it (and also the Cessna 185) for flying around Alaska where there is a plenty of unpaved runways, so it was a bit of a disappointment for me. Therefore I categorize it as "I'm glad to have them, I like to fly them, I'd definitely buy them again, but they're not my favourite" - the same category as other Carenado GA planes or Felis' An-24 or IL-14 (now freeware). And +1 for liking the steam gauges. Before I bought the SAAB 340, I was thinking if it has "too modern" avionics for me or not :-) . Now I have the same dilemma between FlyJSim 737 and IXEG 737 (not released yet). May be I should buy both of them (when the IXEG one is finished).

FlyJSim 727 & Leading Edge SAAB 340 (sorry, I don't have 737 yet, so it can't be my favourite ;-) ) Then I like JRollon Jetstream, Carenado Cessna 208 and Carenado Cessna 185 Bush. These 5 are the planes which I had most fun with.

Looks like in Lugano.

Even the new GNS 430 works perfectly.

It's a ScenicFlyer plugin. http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=10022

BTW sorry, I forget to answer your first question (I'm just not a native English speaker so understanding somebody who also has far-from-perfect English is not that easy). The video shows what the graphics really looks like in the X-Plane. It shows reality, it doesn't lie. But ... I suppose that the Madeira airport is some paid 3rd party add-on like most of the best quality stuff. However I don't know it for sure - I've never flown there - may be that it is included in the base install or can be downloaded for free, but I wouldn't expect that. Next thing is that the guy who filmed it probably has extremly good computer. If you expect that stunning graphics from your computer, say goodbye to the performance. Graphically astonishing videos look good at youtube, but you really don't need it for actual playing - this is a flight simulation game where the accurate flight model is top priority, unlike shooting games like Soldier of Fortune, where the top priority is photorealistically-looking guts and brains of your enemies on the wall after being hit by a shotgun. Good thing on X-Plane is that you can really fine-tune graphic options and even if you select low details it still looks good - better than the MSFS X with similar settings while giving more fps. I've even played it using the Radeon graphics integrated in the APU chip for about 2 monts because when I was buying a new computer I wasn't decided yet whether to buy NVIDIA or ATI graphic card and I also wanted to wait for better prices. It worked reasonably well.

What is "3.4ghz processor"? If it's an AMD Sempron X2, then no, it won't even run Windows 8 smoothly enough to play the new Minesweeper. If it's a six-core Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition, then it's way more than enough to run 3 X-Plane games simultaneously :-) . Rest of your computer looks good. I have only 4GB of RAM and GeForce GTX 660 and with the HDR lightening turned off it works pretty well (normal planes (Carenado or DreamFoil stuff) 60-70 fps, birds like FlyJSim 727 or LeadingEdge Saab 340 around 20-30 fps). Of course no computer is good enough to run that greedy b*tches, which flight simulation games certainly are, with performance which you would like to have. So ... if you have money to spend for better graphics card, then it's worth considering.

Yes, it works very well :-) . But in this plane the CIVA tells you where you are and where to go, nothing more. But beware that the autopilot can not be coupled with CIVA (or any other navigation system) - it just holds attitude somewhat. If you want preceise navigation, it's better to use gps - either the KLN90 or the new GNS430 works well with this airplane. But again - no connection with the autopilot. The CIVA system is definitely worth the money, but it's pointless to use it with DC-3.

Ad 2 The right light switch has 3 positions - off (centre), taxi light and landing light (up or down, I don't remember exactly). Left light switch has only 2 - off (centre) and landing light on (up). Could the confusion be the cause of the problem? Ad 1 Sorry, I can't help with this, I have never tried to move it by a mouse (and probably never will :-) ). But the keys F1 and F2 works reasonably well - I sometimes disable the throttle controller during long flights and use a keyboard for small adjustments just in case I accidentally moved the throttle, which is not that hard because it has no friction lock.

By the charts of max cruise (performance charts pdf page 77), ecs on, eng a/i off, at FL160 and 22 000 lbs should give 218 knots indicated airspeed. I've never been able to get more than 190 from it. Edit: flaps and gears were both up.

If it's an really illegal conversion, please delete it from here. Internet is full of nice and friendly places where you can share the illegal stuff, please keep this one clean and unfriendly to anything illegal and law-breaking.

BTW does somebody fly the pax/cargo version on high speed cruise settings? I was not able to meet the speeds even if I fried the engines. I wonder if somebody else also have this issue. However the long range settings works for me perfectly.

I am the professional software developer with experience either in C/C++, Java and (unfortunatelly mostly in) .Net. No, the clock speed is absolutely not on par with the performance, not anymore :-( (used to be 10 years ago). I have AMD Vishera with 4.5 GHz, which is roughly on par with 3.5 GHz Intel Ivy Bridge. Very roughly. I3s have no less single-core performance than i5 or i7 - they are the same chips*. Memory sizes, which can affect the overall performance a lot, vaires, so most expensive i3 can be more single-core performant than cheaper i5 or i7 (with same amounts of L1 L2 and L3 cahe). What varies is the number of cores, i3 being dual core, i5 quad and i7 quad but to the operating system the i7 will announce they are 8 core. Having i7 has no advantage in X-Plane over i5, so save your money ;-) . The "virtual" cores (called hyper-threading in the Intel's slang) is great for office/server use, but pointless for number-crunching. And heavy number-crunching is what the X-Plane does. It's a simulation and every simulation is about math. Very advanced math. Intel processors could be a bit better for X-Plane - they have better single-core performance and have the L3 cache. L1 and L2 caches are tied to a processor core, they are small but very fast memories. L3 is shared between cores, a lot slower than L1 and L2, but way faster than RAM. If a processor needs to acces a value in L1, it's almost immediate. L2 is a bit slower. L3 is slow. But to get it from RAM ... the processor can walk to India, select a tea plantage, collect the best leaves, dry them, return back to Europe and make a very good tea before the RAM will provide the value. So having money, opt for i5 with newest architecture (not Sandy Bridge, but Ivy Bridge) and biggest caches. If you can't afford i5 (or don't want to spend the money), I'd go for AMD Vishera, the faster, the better. Get the black edition (unlocked multiplier) + aftermarket cooling (if you are from Czech Republic or Slovakia, you can shop for this one http://www.alfacomp.cz/php/product.php?eid=1051400000000002MYM or get it from your local reseller if you are lucky enough not living in our little afghanistan - in EU it's roughly 18-20 GBP) and overclock it as hard as you can. I'd definetely choose 4 core Vishera over 2 core Ivy - Windows and other programs just don't understand you are playing a game and want best performance from you computer. Even X-Plane can use more cores than only one, that's different from MS Flight Sim. But ... asking questions on the internet is something like asking questions on the streets of London. You never know who will answer. I'm not developing X-Plane and I have it solely for entertainment, because getting pilot license is not cheaper here than in western europe, but GBP 7k yearly is average salary here. May be it would be not bad asking the X-Plane developers directly - and if you do and they tell you something different than I did, please let me know - you will help stop spreading bullshit over internet :-D . * There's a joke that they make i3 form the exactly same silicon as i5 and i7. But the natural silicon is not perfect, so if some of the cores are FUBAR level one (FUBAR lvl1 = f***ed up beyond any repair, FUBAR lvl2 = f***ed up beyond any recognition), they just disable two most FUBAR cores and sell it as i3.

If you can't afford or don't want to pay for at least i5, then go for one of the more expensive AMD series. Even that would be cheaper or on par with the i3, but you can get better performance. I've bought the A8-6500K and I have no problems with performance (or overclocking) and it was priced similar to the lower performing i3 (but I don't remember which model exactly). I saw some tests and read some reviews - the i3 has same single-core performance, but was performing about 25% worse in other tested aspects. Generally speaking Vishera vs Ivy Bridge - AMD is a bit better in multitasking, Intel has better single-core performance, up to 1/3 for similar processors, depending on exact models which you compare. Intel is more expensive for similar performance for buy, but consumes much less power therefore produces much less heat. I've never bothered if price + electricity for running and cooling are worse for AMD or Intel, may be I should start. This is actually my first AMD processor - I had only Intels before it. I have never had much problems with cooling (only when doing aggresive overclocking), but the AMD processor was overheating even when not overclocked and during winter (temperature in the room was 18°C). So calculate witht he decent processor cooler when considering buying the AMD.

And please mind also that 6 hour in a small airplane are not that low amount of time. If not anything other, you'd need to use at least some "range extending" tricks - not for extending a range of an airplane of course but the passengers ;-) http://www.chickenwingscomics.com/?p=775

I don't know actually, but the DC-3 works with KLN90, if I remember correctly (I haven't tried to fly with GPS for quite a long time). The GPS can be shown on the screen, shows your position and route.

In X-Plane it should be the whole number even if it has decimal frequency on Jeppesen charts. RR has frequency 404KHz, GV 364, PS 369, STD 386, ROT 350. I always check the frequencies using Plan-G which gives me the frequencies from X-Plane database - this can be different than official charts.

It looks very nice. I'm looking forward to the public release and hope that JRollon will approve it