Real Flight G3

Okay, so I bought the new Real Flight. The G3 version. What a mistake.

Real Flight version 1 was their best effort. How many years ago was it when they introduced that version? It was easy to get the helis going in 3D mode. The models flew reasonably well, considering that it is a simulation.

Changing various models was fun and easy. You could actually learn something about trimming using the simulator and its features.

G2 wasn't better. It was different. Now the helis are a pain to set up for someone that is not a heli person and just wants to screw around. Lost my heli ability, but modifying the airplanes was a bit easier. The physics were not any better than version 1, just different.

G3 is the worst yet. The physics suck. If any of my models flew the way these simualtions fly, I would have trashed them.

Yeah, there's lots of computer crap for the geeks in the crowd, but the purpose is to simulate flying models as close to the real world as possible. No bullseye. In fact, they didn't even hit the target.

Why change something if it isn't for the better? It makes no sense to me.

On top of the bad physics and higher video requirements (for what?), the labels on my add-ons fell off except for two of them. I have three CD's that I paid for that are not usable because of no serial numbers. Serial numbers on add-ons? This paranoia has gone too far. I won't be back, Real Flight. This tears it.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger
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Wow, sorry that you're having such an experience Ed. I bought G3 a couple of months ago with the first two Add-On volumes and I've been really happy with it. I'm a video game nut, and my PC can dish out all of the graphic rendering that G3 asks for and then some. I've been quite happy with it.

I thought the physics and flight models were pretty good for the planes I've actually flown at the field. G3 doesn't model slow flight particularly well, I'm glad it's so much easier to fly ovals at half throttle with a Nexstar or PT40 in real life than it is on the sim. Overall though, I've found it to be a useful tool.

One of my friends who is a flight instructor at one of our clubs came over and tried out some of the helicopters a couple of weeks ago. He has G2 and an older PC at home, and he thought the G3 helicopters moved faster and handled more realistically. Overall he seemed impressed with G3's feel, but my extra processing power might have simply removed some of the sluggishness that his computer adds to the experience.

Another buddy from the local flying club came over to check out some of the planes I'd recommended he look at from The World Models. We fired up the G3 after he did some browser shopping and played around with some of the competitive features like pylon racing and spot landing. I hooked up my 4YF to the Interlink USB controller and we played in 2-player split screen mode for a while, too. We had a ball.

It sucks you can't use 3 of your Add-On volumes. I'd hope that Great Planes' tech support folks might be able to issue you new cd keys if you were to send them your original discs as proof of ownership. They're pretty good about helping with most everything else, it might be worth the phone call.

I'm running G3 on an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU with 1Gb (512Mb x 2) Dual Channel DDR PC3200 RAM and a Radeon X800XL 256Mb PCI Express video card. It runs quite smoothly most of the time at 1600 x 1200 resolution, but even on my machine G3 will stutter a bit during a crash. Your frustration with G3 might be more of an indication that you need to upgrade your PC rather than a direct indication that Real Flight is getting worse instead of better.

You've already spent a couple of hundred bucks on the flight sim. If you think you might benefit from upgrading your computer, I'd be happy to recommend some top bang-for-the-buck components that might put the snap back into your simulated snap rolls.

Reply to
Ed Paasch

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I'm running an AMD 64 3200+ with 1 gb of RAM, a Radeon 9600 video card and a

160 gb hard drive.

Once you get within several feet of the ground, when passing through the center of the virtual world (where you stand) the model dives into the ground for no reason. Real models do not do this.

When I pull back the throttle on most models, the model then climbs severely, as though it had too much positive incidence and too much engine downthrust. Stock models, built according to the instructions, do not do this at all.

The program decides you have crashed before you contact a solid object. Not so in real life.

The models do not bleed off airspeed in a realistic manner and shoot far past where they would land in real life.

The shadow of the model, which were very useful in past iterations of this program, are nearly useless now in helping you decide where the model is in relation to the ground.

These things did not happen in past editions. Why now?

This is just a few of the things that I have found disappointing. I could go on, but why bother?

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Your computer system should run G3 plenty smoothly. You should be able to enjoy the eye candy without any kind of performance hit.

I'd agree that the collision detection system is less than perfect. Your comment about planes not bleeding off speed in a realistic manner also rings true to me.

I didn't own G2, so I can't really say whether G3 is a step backward from G2.

I can tell you I've flown Aerofly Professional Deluxe, and after trying it out I was glad I had purchased G3. APD looks nicer and flies worse than G3 does.

Still, you ought to get Great Planes to help you use your own CDs that you've bought and payed for previously. Copy protection should never get in the way of a product owner's ability to use the software.

Reply to
Ed Paasch

Ed, Sorry the see that you are having troubles. I'd had very good luck with my G3 on my P4 with a GeForce4 Ti 4200. You can use the S/N from your G1 disk set for the add-on S/N's.

Good Luck

Reply to
Double Ace

Gone is the easy interface used to alter models. I've changed the engine to a four-stroke, but I still have the two-stroke sound. The stock models control surface defections are set in unrealistically. A newbie buying this simulator to learn how to fly the Nextar would have no idea as to what the problem is or how to cure it. The Nextar does not have enough elevator excursion to be flown safely, much less train a new pilot.

With time and some help from our newsgroup friends, I can probably get it to a usable state.

My pet peeve in life is if something is working well, do not change it for the sake of change. At this level of my experience with G3, it appears that that is exactly what has been done - to the detriment of the program.

I do not have a bone to pick with Real Flight. I have enjoyed using the previous versions of Real Flight. I am just a little puzzled as to why it was changed away from a modeler's perspective and moved toward a gamer's perspective.

How many gamers fly R/C?

How many that fly R/C are computer nerds? I'll bet not many.

If anything, the program should have been made more accomodating to non computer types, focused more on R/C and designed for the typical computer owned by most R/C enthusiasts. This would not be the latest and greatest gaming machine, but instead would be a machine running a P4 at around 2 GHz with an average video card.

Am I going to be able to get the four-stroke sound that I want from the Nextar or PT-40 Trainer? Can I adjust the power of the engine as I could in G2? All of this remains to be seen, but it doesn't look good from my perspective.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Hi Ed, I'm one to say I told you so (I really am ;-)) But way back when you asked about the G3 and I explained in detail that you should stick with G2. . I had two early versions of RF + G2, G3, Aerofly Pro and MRC Reflex. G3 was such a poor sim that I returned it after a few months of total frustration. Sure you a\can tune all the models so they fly properly but only after a huge time expenditure. I told .............Arghh - I just can't do it . I hope you can return it - Good luck.

Reply to
Ed Forsythe

Yep, you did, Ed. I forgot.

I don't know if Tower would take it back or not. I would gladly return it.

Now that I've got you online, which one turned out to be best of the ones you tried?

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Does your pussy hurt? You must be a real dweeb not to be able to make this piece o' cake work. Suggest you call a 12-year-old girl to help you.

Reply to
Ted Dawson

You didn't ask me, but I'll put in my 2cents anyway. I like AFPD best. The physics feel right to me. The downside is the included planes are mostly European, whereas G3 planes tend to be common in the US(The fact that they're distributed by Great Planes/Tower surely couldn't have anything to do with this). On the other hand there are tons of downloadable planes available for AFP/AFPD. It does take a fair amount of firepower, but not too unreasonable. Did you mention what your video card is?

PCPhill One of the computer nerds who does fly RC, and frequently crashes both ;)

Reply to
PCPhill

I haven't done a lot of customization with planes yet, Ed, but I do know you can change the sound. It's odd that the engine sound isn't tied to the engine selected, but I guess the Real Flight folks wanted to give you more options.

Go to edit aircraft under the aircraft menu. Select airframe then fuselage then engine. You change engines by highlighting the "torque generator" and opening the submenu. You change engine sound by highlighting "sound profile" and opening the submenu.

Once you edit any aspect of a "stock" airplane, you have to save it as a custom airplane and fly that custom airplane setting to use the changes.

Hope this helps.

Reply to
Ed Paasch

He has a Radeon 9600, an Athlon 64 3200+, and 1Gb of RAM. He should be able to run any sim on the market quite easily at 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024.

Reply to
Ed Paasch

I did all of that, Ed. I changed it to 4C and the damned thing makes a couple of notes of the 4C and then reverts back to the 2C sound. Maybe I have a bad install.

A torque generator, huh? Sounds like they have moved from glow model orientation to electric model orientation. I guess I know where their heads are at.

I will say that the helis fly better than I expected and some of those are set up pretty good for a non heli person such as myself that doesn't want to waste days programming a software radio.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

The video card won't allow the graphics to be cranked all the way up, but with the settings on G3 taken off max quality that should be fine... I haven't played with G3 much (don't own it), but in any of the sims cutting the smoke and/or exhaust off will greatly improve framerate. The particle generation can really eat up CPU/GPU time.

PCPhill

Reply to
PCPhill

My computer is not having a video problem, Phil. It is having other problems which point to either a programmer that doesn't fly writing the code, or to just flat out making bad decisions - foregoing realism for flashy, purty-purty graphics that do not add up to a hill of beans when trying to extract maximum flying experience from said product. They have lost sight of their mission and why folks buy simulators in the first place.

I'll give G3 the benefit of the doubt and I'll do a fresh install again. But many of the things that I find objectionable will remain, I'm sure. The program has been "dumbed down", to borrow an expression.

It cheers me up to praise people when they do a good job. It makes me feel down to have to warn others of a less than stellar effort on a producer's product.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Got it Ed. I agree withyou which is why I don't own G3. In it's favor, it is easier to change certain things, like motors. In AFPD, which I own you can't just specify the motor. You have to input the specifications instead. As I understand it, this is because of copyright restrictions which G3 avoids by being under the Great Planes umbrella. I really REALLY wish the big three sim developers would publish demo versions. They are too expensive to risk a mistake buying them.

Hope you can work out a return and try the other two.

Good Luck, PCPhill

Reply to
PCPhill

FYI, there is now a demo version of RealFlight G3 available for downloa

at the realflight.com website.

Ji

-- jbourk

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Reply to
jbourke

Hi Ed, I spend about 97% of my sim time on Aerofly Pro Deluxe. G2/USB is OK but I prefer AFPD. The photo-realistic fields are great and there are many free birds online. I haven't spent enough time on Reflex for a proper eval because it won't work with my JR Quattro and I refuse to use my JR 9303 on a sim - runs down batteries and excessive wear. I can send my Quattro in for a "fix" but I've procrastinated for months. I downloaded a video of Chip Hyde flying his Ultimate on the AFPD and you can hear him remarking that it actually flies like the Ultimate. IMHO, that's a pretty good endorsement. BTW, AFPD works with my G2 USB controller. That's another plus.

I bought G3 as soon as it became available and there were tons of bugs. I kept it for about two months and my LHS was good enough to take it back along with dozens of other returns from dissatisfied users. It got so bad that the LHS returned his stock and refused to order any more. The LHS had a similar problem with the MRC Reflex because it required too much computer to run properly. So many returns that they refused to order one for me. I had to go online. A good friend of mine who turned into a decent 3D pilot said that AFPD was far a much better 3D sim than G2/USB or G3. Another friend (chopper pilot) prefers AFPD to G3. I guess it's all subjective but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it ;-)

Reply to
Ed Forsythe

Thanks Jim,

That's new since last time I visited.

PCPhill

Reply to
PCPhill

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