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Right, giving it a quick go now as promised...
First, the download process is slightly tricky - I have no real idea what to download. My experience with FOSS and software development gets me to the download eventually, though... I almost got bored and gave up though, this needs to be simplified IMO
Starting up
Okay so first thoughts: the aircraft select page is still too "busy" on the list - maybe collapse the aircraft first, and then let me pick the versions?
Second... two many versions. Like, what's the difference? The B777 variants is obvious enough, but I see 4 Cessna 172P's and two even more identical Beechcraft b1800d's. Not every aircraft has the "ratings" part either?
I'd like to see just 3 or 4 of the best quality aircraft here, I think. Also this C172 has been "Early production" for as long as I can remember. It already feels like I'm being made to compromise on quality and I've not even opened it properly yet.
Just give me a good quality C172 and B777, and an easy "store" to download the rest (with good "quality" filters)
The airport page
Just a list... can I have something visual and a bit less daunting? Maybe again highlight a few of the best airports graphically at the top. KSFO always seems popular, and perhaps a well modelled smaller airfield?
Settings
Resolution... where's 1920x1080p? Surely that's by far the most common resolution nowadays. Default to it, even, I don't mind.
Is this also really the best default set of options? I've selected some stuff quickly by eye, but I've got no real idea what any of it does. I'd like some descriptions here
Loadin in.... looks nasty, honestly. It feels like I've just launched Combat Flight Simulator 2 or something. can this look any prettier? Downloading scenery is slow, even at 4MB/s - I guess most new users wouldn't hit the Terasync button, but even so a description would have helped perhaps, so I knew it would be slower
Overall, though, not much worse than FSX, although I'd put it a level below P3D's newer interface. This could do with some work IMO, although it's not atrocious, it just feels old and "developer-y", not consumer-friendly
Okay, I'm in
The cockpit looks, plasticy (C172P, no idea which one)
First thing I'm doing is looking at the settings because this looks crap. From P3D I'd probably already have quit, but I'm pretending this is me 3 years ago when I first tried FG.
I go to Rendering options, which is already strange because other quality options seem to be under File, and this is under View (I'd like to see both under "Settings"). First I whack the quality up, and it improves the scenery a bit, but then I click custom and when I close that, the whole settings page closes. That's annoying
So I whack everything up to full in rendering settings, and the Runway and clouds are looking nicer at least. The cockpit and buildings not so much.
What else?
Love the right click and drag to view, this is what FSX/P3D need by default. The cockpit, though, damn this looks awful. I'll try another bird in a moment to compare. The radio stack looks nice, and externally it's not bad if low resolution, but the rest is just plastic.
I can't hide the yoke so struggle to get it going, then stumble on the S button to start thing. Not ideal, though - I want to fly the plane with the systems.
I get flying and the keyboard controls are surprisingly nice compared to FSX/P3D. I want to be able to use shift+numpad to look around though, as having to switch to the mouse is a little annoying. Otherwise it seems okay. I'll try my Yoke+Pedals tomorrow hopefully, for a more "real world" test
Somehow I enter a 60x timewarp, but I get that sorted, then I turn to land.. airspeed physics seem a little squiffy, but I might have just come in way too fast. It seems very easy to bleed/pick up speed though, and damn hard to put the C172 on the deck. I run over the KSFO runway into the water which seems to do nothing at first, then I get a red screen telling me I've crashed, I assume.
777
I exit and go for the 777 which looks more "ready to go"
I click go with the same settings, then see "advanced" so I'm exiting back out from Windows.. it doesn't seem to like that and takes a moment, but tbh I'm not using the interface right, I can't blame it for this one. Most of the advanced settings seem to be about setting up the scenario, but I find anti-aliasing and filtering and slap them to full (i7 5820k, 4GB DDR4 and 970 GTX, I'm assuming I can get somewhere high up the settings, but I'm not necessarily expecting perfectly smooth now)
So I run the 777. The load is faster now, even though the 777 seems slower - no scenery downloading, presumably.
Anyway I load in and this looks more like it. Still not incredibly high quality, but much nicer than that Cessna. Make a Cessna this quality and just make them available at the start.
And first really nice thing - the camera. I turn to look backwards and it moves the camera position sideways, I like this! It feels really natural. That's properly nice, I want that in other sims.
Systems
Okay, I can't work a 777 at the best of times, but I get it started before I realise there's an autostart. That's cool, I like to start it myself. The views are pretty nice, too, but it would be nice to be able to "pop" things like the FMC and charts thingy out like I can with the MFD, but that's not the end of the world. Also, I can set the flaps and spoiler with the mouse, but I can't work out how to retract them! The flaps I manage with the keyboard... my spoilers are still deployed. This is a much nicer experience, though, and the systems feel pretty good. I've not fully explored the FMC though, and it seems to have something missing regarding positions: as I said, not my strength at the best of times.
I still can't retract the spoiler, this is annoying. Why can't I drag or click it? Google is no help initially but eventually I find it's shift+B or ctrl+b. This shouldn't be this hard.
So a quick look round the plane - the exterior is a bit shiny but passable, and the runway and cockpit (the most important bits) look decent. Let's take her up.
Flying the 777
First, this camera again - I like it. Right click to view, it works really well especially with the combined zoom from the scroll wheel.
I arm some things for the autpilot - the text "Captain, the auto-throttle won't arm below 400ft" type of alert is a nice touch, I like that too. The PFD is a little cartoony, but I can live with that, it's not bad.
So I set flaps etc, no FMC today, I can't be bothered figuring it out... just a few circuits I think. I go to take off and... nothing. No throttle. Strange, 9 worked in the C172, what gives? I try stopping and using the autostart, but still nothing. After 5 minutes of this I'm a little bored and thinking of closing the program but in the interest of fairness I plug in my yoke.
Nothing immediately, but I remember seeing a Joystick Configuration menu so I open that and hit refresh, and there's my Saitek Yoke and Throttle. The flight controls immediately work (I'm not sure about the pedal toe brakes) and work pretty well... apart from the throttle. I have an option of pulling my throttle all the way back to the stop, which says "Thrust reversers on screen" but actually gives me full thrust... and that's my only option, any other setting is off. There's no "reverse/invert" option in the joystick configuration screen, and no way to set the scale... even though FG appears to recognise the difference between +1 and -1 when I move the lever. I get a zoom in/out on my Joystick though, which is again nice, and the hat works fine. My Saitek multi-panel (autopilot etc) doesn't seem to be recognised, but I've made no attempt to configure it.
I take off using full thrust and the flight model again seems a bit offf - too light and "fidgety", with a tendency to roll even at flight speed. I can't say I've tested that heavily though. I fly up a little but the inability to have anything other than full/no throttle makes a landing attempt seem pointless and I end my session.
Performance
On my system good. The GPU never hit more than 50%, the CPU seemed load balanced to some extent, and no core went over 92%. This presumably demonstrates the lack of graphical power, though, as I don't appear to have hit a bottleneck on what I assume were pretty close to max settings (I maxed everything I could find). Loading is slow but not unreasonably so, and I had one or two stutters when changing view but nothing too bad (and usually just after loading - once going it seemed better)
Summary
Overall I think it's an improvement over the last time I used FG, particularly in the cameras which are better than FSX/P3D at default, but it still feels like I'm fighting against the program rather than having the ability to plug in my yoke, fire it up and start playing. The graphics are better than before, but still below recent FSX/P3D etc.
For free, I really can't complain too hard - and I can see the work that's gone into it and the undoubted substance the fundamentals and "sim" have... but it badly needs some "polish" to bring that substance out and let me see it.
Oh and as an aside, I used FG as part of my dissertation on UAV's (the UAV interfaced with FG via an auto-pilot thing someone else made), so I owe you guys a big thanks for that one. If anything, I found it worked better as a modelling tool for that purpose, than as an actual "I fly planes around with a yoke" game.
I replied to many of his concerns, but I made a mistake and lost is all.
I reccomended the download the new Cessna and / or a newer version later.