6 ms·

I wonder what games people play with these joystick setups. I haven't had once since Commodore 64, and my PCs have always been too low end for flight simulators

• pmoriarty 10y ago
  I have a pretty low-end, old laptop and I play FSX (Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition). My frame rate is pretty low (around 4 FPS) but it's still quite playable, if you can believe that.
  • Already__Taken 10y ago
    I wish that game worked over steam streaming better/at all. I'd love to cast my gaming rig down to my dad's laptop for him.
    • sergiosgc 10y ago
      Use a steam link. They're cheap, and work as advertised.
  • jhanschoo 10y ago
    To be honest, I can't imagine landing a plane at 4fps.
    • exDM69 10y ago
      Depends on what kind of flight simming you're into. If you're into instrument flying, there's not much need for decent framerates because you can't see anything but clouds or blue skies out of the window and 4 fps is enough to keep track of the instrument readings. For landing, you come in using a VOR or GPS route, then intercept the ILS glide slope, manage the aircraft and the engines and just a few seconds into landing take the controls and flare a little. This can be done with a mouse. It's arguable how much flying you do in this, but radio navigation, communication, planning and aircraft management are pretty interesting on their own.
      • pmoriarty 10y ago
        I'm just learning to fly, and 4 FPS is plenty for me to land most of the time using VFR in fair weather (but even with some wind and realism settings turned up). I fly only small, one or two prop planes and gliders, and do so pretty much by the seat of the pants -- no GPS, even an altimiter is not really that critical. I mostly just look out the window and use an airspeed indicator to make sure I'm not coming in too fast or slow. I was just landing Piper Cubs this way all day today. Now steering those things on the ground is a real pain, even with real rudder pedals. My taxing skills are pretty weak.
    • nsxwolf 10y ago
      I used to play Flight Simulator on the Apple II and it ran at about 4fps, and it was a blast.
• mastazi 10y ago
  If you like combat flight sims I suggest the DCS Series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Combat_Simulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Combat_Simulator If you want small planes or airliners then you might look into the new X-Plane 11, it has very realistic physics and looks really good even in the basic configuration, i.e. without add-ons, thanks to its last-generation graphics engine. If, on the other hand, you plan on buying many add-ons (e.g. because you want to fly specific planes or fly to/from specific airports) then I suggest Prepar3d or FSX Steam Edition which are both based on Microsoft Flight Simulator X, which means they are compatible with a large number of add-ons. Their graphics are not on par with X-Plane 11 though (unless you install scenery add-ons), since they are based on a 10-year-old graphics engine; you can see a comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtEqgDjjJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtEqgDjjJU
  • errantspark 10y ago
    Notably X-Plane 11 has extremely bad perf on all but the highest end CPUs. It's currently badly limited by single thread peformance. My 4Ghz AMD 8 core can barely top 20 fps o on minimum settings (and also on maximum settings since it's badly CPU bottlenecked)
    • mastazi 10y ago
      Yes X-Plane 11 is demanding in terms of CPU but as per comment above, parent is getting a new PC, so I assume the CPU will be at least on par with mine (I have an i5 6500, which is pretty much the minimum for a current gaming PC) and on my machine the game runs smoothly. I agree with you that on slightly older CPUs it might be a bit heavy to run.
      • mlonkibjuyhv 10y ago
        A high clocked i5 is probably optimal for most flightsims.
        • Filligree 10y ago
• RiceMunk 10y ago
  On the space side of things the two big games now are called Elite:Dangerous and Star Citizen. Elite:Dangerous is the newest installment of the same series as the C64 game, and is a sandboxy-sort of online multiplayer thing. Star Citizen is another (in dev; currently you can buy into the public alpha-sort-of thing) one, produced by Chris Roberts of Wing Commander fame. It's being sold as a "first-person universe", because you can also leave the cockpit of the space ship and run around places, optionally shooting things in an FPS sort of manner. Of the two E:D can be played on slightly lower-end PCs, but SC is pretty demanding of a computer, especially in its current mostly-unoptimised alpha state. Both of the games are pretty fun, but have their problems too. E:D can be a lot of fun in small doses once you get your feet wet, but can be pretty grindy to start out with and gets kind of shallow and repetitive later. Also it's super-amazing to play in VR, if your computer can handle it. SC is looking hugely promising and the current alpha gameplay is a lot of fun if you can deal with the bugs, but has a lot internet drama surrounding it. Said drama is mostly related to the game taking forever to develop, and the fact that you can currently pay (sometimes rather insane sums of) real money for getting your hands on the space ships currently available. The devs are insisting the buy-ships-for-money thing is only happening during development to help fund the process and will no longer be possible after proper launch, but we'll see how that works out in practise.
  • ajacksified 10y ago
    SC-wise, It's easy to stay away from the drama, especially if one notes that they spun up a team from 0 and have been at it for four years, compared to the 8+ years of other major MMOS. But yeah, it's pretty taxing - it takes a gtx 1080 to play @ 4k with mostly 60fps. [Hellion](https://www.playhellion.com/ https://www.playhellion.com/) looks promising as well - it should be out for prerelease soon. I expect that to take up my time while I wait for SC.
• TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I bought a joystick to play Kerbal Space Program. Planes are obviously better to fly with a stick, but it's also fun to use with your spacecraft. KSP, in its unmodded state, isn't very demanding GPU-wise, so as long as your CPU isn't 20 years old, it should run fine.
  • exDM69 10y ago
    What kind of setup you have for KSP controllers? Do you have something for translation/rotation control for maneuvering in orbit? Two joysticks or a secondary joystick/hat in HOTAS or something?
    • TeMPOraL 10y ago
      I play on one rather cheap stick with built-in throttle. Throttle is mapped to main engine controls, XYZ to standard movement (I rarely fly planes, but I reverse yaw/roll if I need it). For RCS translation/rotation I use joystick hat (+ 2 buttons for forward/backward), and one button is reserved to toggle between translation and rotation modes using external program to remap keys and - for extra nostalgia points - it plays the "traaans-lation <beep>" / "roo-tation <beep>" sounds I stole from Orbiter.
  • ashark 10y ago
    > KSP, in its unmodded state, isn't very demanding GPU-wise, so as long as your CPU isn't 20 years old, it should run fine. In fact, it runs acceptable on low-medium settings on my 2014MBP with integrated Intel Iris(!) graphics.
• exDM69 10y ago
  Combat: DCS World is popular. Warbirds is still alive. Rise of Flight for WWI simming. IL-2 if you want single player. Falcon BMS for modern, detailed aerial warfare (weapon systems, radars, etc). Civilian aviation: X-Plane, Flight Simulator X Steam Edition, Prepar3d. With IVAO or VATSIM if you want multiplayer with real humans doing air traffic control. Space: Orbiter or Kerbal Space Program for simulation. Elite for combat.
  • NTripleOne 10y ago
    Elite for exploration and space truckin' too.
  • digi_owl 10y ago
    I seem to recall War Thunder offering a simulator mode for its scenarios that can be pretty realistic.
• ionised 10y ago
  Elite: Dangerous
• bb611 10y ago
  Il2: Cliffs of Dover is what you want if you're looking for WW II multiplayer.