On Feb 13, 7:22 pm, Mark Hansen wrote:
On 02/13/07 16:43, wrote:

Hi All,

I'm a longtime lurker here, but now I have a question I hope the group
can help me with. I am working toward my instrument rating (21 hours
so far), and want to use MSFS to practice (cheaply). I do fine with
holding a heading, but I find it very difficult to maintain an
altitude. The real plane is much much easier.

This is definitely true. What I finally did was to make use of the
auto pilot. I can have it hold the altitude for me and I don't need
to worry about it.

At times, I'll use the auto pilot to hold the heading as well, but
this isn't as much of a problem in the sim, so I usually do that only
when it's a long flight along an airway and I want to just let it
go until things get interesting again ;-)

I also noticed that
even when the scenery flies by smoothly (when I'm in VMC!) the
instruments seem to update at a slower rate. Not quite a slide show,
but harder than it should be to control. I've tried fiddling with
the realism and sensitivity settings to no avail. I have noticed a
number of folks posting on this group use this simulator to maintain
proficiency, and I was just wondering how you have it set up.

I can think of a couple things. First, configure the weather to provide
you with white-out conditions at the altitudes you plan to fly. This will
reduce the work load on the CPU for drawing all the scenery.

Next, look into your graphics card. There may be upgraded drivers for
it that will improve the performance. If not, you may want to look into
a better graphics card.



FYI...I'm using the CH products USB Flight Sim yolk, and the CH USB
rudder pedals. The computer seems plenty fast enough with a 256MB
graphics card. Like I mentioned before, everything is very smooth
except for the instruments refreshing.

Are you seeing this problem with anything other than the AI? I
see this a little on the AI but not on anything else.



Thanks everyone!

Steve

I've found the simulator to be very good at keeping me sharp on the
procedures, etc. Of course, I'd rather be in a real plane, but just
can't get out as often as I would like.

--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA


You know using the autopilot in the simulator to just hold altitude is
one thing I haven't thought about. The only autopilot I have in the
'real' plane is a single axis (heading only) which I'm not using while
learning the rating. Very good idea!

You are right about seeing the smoothness problem mostly on the AI.
This happens with no scenery displayed (in the clouds). I haven't
checked to see if there are any updated drivers available for my video
card, but I will! With everything else so smooth, it seems odd that
the instrument display is the only thing that isn't.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Steve