07-08-2005, 08:17 PM
This may be out of line here but i just wanted to share some of my experience with pay ware addons for FS2004, so that if
you're interested in buying one of these products, you can get an "objective" opinion. I have a stock Dell Dimension 2.4 GHZ
with a 64 bit video card with 512 memory. Nothing too fancy, but okay. i'm not a real world pilot, so take these opinions as they are. just
opinions and personal expereince. I have purchased all these products through either direct download or through the store.
PMDG 737-600-700-800-900
great, easy to fly, slight frame rate hog with full VC and Cabin model, but allows differnet configuarions (ie with VC and cabin, without VC
and cabin), i converted my PMDG textures to DXT3 (this help a lot) ,excellent FMC, easy to land, plenty of additonal liveries, wonderful
manuals and specs, wonderul customer service.
FSPIC 3.48
I don't know what it does, but it's a must. Plus this Pete Dawson guy who made it is really nice. I had an issue with a program, and
thought it might be FSPIC, I posted a question on his board and he personally help me. I was impressed with his willingness to help me.
Captain Sim 727
This plane taught me how to land. i love it, and still use it. Slight frame rate hog with VC enabled, but without vc smooth as silk. i love the
load configuration tool, and plenty of additonal liveries, and I mean plenty. Unfortunately, no dynamic wing views (there are static
available 3rd party) but it's still an awesome plane. excellent customer service, very, and i mean very professional. Captain sim is one of
the most organized companies to deal with. Great manuals and documentation, and a utility which allows different engine configuations
for the 727-100 and 727-200. Negative also it is not compatable with CIVA INS freeware.
Captain Sim 707
Somewhat of a frame rate hog, but other than that, i can not even begin to describe how much i love this plane. There aren't as many 3rd
party additional liveries available as the 727, but the 707 is a lot newer, so i assume more will come. Great flight model, easy to land,
great documentation, although a tutorial fligth would be nice. This is probably my favorite becasue it's okay mostly on framerates, and i
can fly by the numbers. Good news, it is compatable with CIVA INS freeware.
Carenado 182 RG
This plane is gorgeous, It's Carenado's newest and best. Great on frame rates, and you can fly by the numbers. Better on Documention
than his earlier planes. Great information on specs. Also you can fly with either just one person, or you can change the model to fly with
two people on board. These persons can't be seen in VC mode, but they can be seen on spot plane view. no load manager. Purchased
at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Carenado 210 Centurion
This is also a neat plane and easy to fly. Adequate documentaion and charts. You can also fly this by the numbers with the spec
documentation included. VC panel loads a little slow, in other words, it takes a while to refresh. no load manager. Purchased at Flight
One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Carenad Piper Cherokee
THis is a pretty plane, but not much documentation. Can't fly by the numbers unless you can find Piper Cherokee documetation which i
have been unable to locate. Easy to fly and land. no load manager little documentation. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most
excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Flight One Cessna 172
Gorgeous, lovely, easy to fly excellent documentation, plus tutorial flight with ATC and scoring. It's a slow flyer in a headwing, but for short
hops it's great. Excellent frame rates. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Flight One Cessna 441 Conquest
I love the plane, but it's not as pretty It can be bumpy sometimes at cruise, Excellent documentation, excellent frame rates, and you can
fly by the numbers. Great on take offs and landings. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my
opinion.
Flight One Piper Meridian
I can not even begin to describe the beauty of this plane and how great it flys, You must adjust trim on take off and study the manual and
tutorial carefully. When this is done, you can fly by the numbers. The reality XP GPS is confusing to many. I already own this and was
familiar with it. You have to enter a flight plan manually with the GPS 530, flight plans are not automatically loaded as they are with Reality
XP's newer GPS or the default FS9 gps. HOwever there is excellent tutorials and information available to fully understand the
complexities of this aircraft. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Dreamfleet Cessna 310
This is a different aircraft. it handles great, and is pretty and all. but the old style panel with the default GPS just doesn't look right. I wish
there was a GPS icon button mounted on the panel insteat of a full view of the GPS. Other than this cosmetic issue, i love this plane.
There aren't many repaints available, and people who are hostile to religion may have problems with the Isaiah scripture reference. But
as a Chirstian myself, i have no problems with this and think it's pretty cool. Great on Frame Rates. Purchased at Flight One, who are
the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
.
MAAM-3
O I love these guys who make this. Excellent, fly by numbers, documentation, several 3rd party addons (no Ozark unfortunately), both
passenger and cargo models included, with amphibian options. Cargo appears and disappears with the key stoke "/' in vc mode, great
on frame rates. Called the museum personally and ordered the CD. Made a donation. The lady i spoke to was very friendly and helpful,
please give to this museum if you have some extra money.
Active Sky 4.5
great weather program with little impact on frame rates. Several patches and updates can be a litlle confusing. Great customer service
who are willing to help when issues arise. With active sky, you have to clear the weather, then load active sky, download weather,
process flight plan, load it into the weather radar. Takes time to start up, therefore, system crashes or untimely phone calls can become
more stressful since it takes such a long time to set up a flight. For me, it's worth it because i know what the weather is at my arrival
airport long, long in advance. so i can plan my approach. For me it's a must. however, without broad band internet connection, this
could take too much time to be worth it, but i have broad band and i never tested download times on a modem, so i could be wrong.
Active Camera
this is a must have for those who love walking around in the cabin or playing your landings over on the instant replay, especially the
passenger views of landing and cruise. This is an easy program, no frame rate hit, but if you updated FS9 with the patch, you need to
update Active Camera or it won't work. Easy to preset views. Only thing negative is external view looks wierd, sometimes trees float
above ground. to help this go to vc mode, and raise you eye point, then go to external view in active camera. This helps alot, but not
altogether. Excellent Customer service.
FS Passengers
if your new to this forum or are a guest, i'm not employed with FS Passengers in any way shape or form. in all honesty this is a must
have program, it takes FS 9 to another dimension. no frame rate impact, great options to tinker and configure, very much to play around
with. You can fly like a pro, or just intentionally crash to work off frustration. Great customer service, and friendly message board. The
cream of the crop in the Flight Sim community.
Iron Knuckles DC 9
i like it but it's a little dated. no dymanic wing views, they need to do a new one. I think SGA has the best DC9 and MD80 aircraft and they
are free ware. But in all fairness to Iron Knuckles, it was top of the line when it came out, but the flight sim buffalos keep running to newer
and better things. I love the cabin pressure feature, but SGA gives me frame rates, dynamic wingviews, and more 3rd pary livery options.
Purchased CD, postal delivery.
Eagle Soft Citation X
Gorgeous, slight frame rate hog, pretty 3d girl in vc mode that moves and stuff, fly by numbers, lean on documentation, allows different
model options (with or without vc), working apu, Reality XP doesn't confiure with panel. Eagle soft Citation X panel doesn't display REality
XP numbers correctly. The solution is to purchase REality XP Jetline 4. Which i did. But i currently have My Citation X with defaults
because i get tired of manually entering my waypoints on a long flight. wish it had a fully functionaly FMC, but it doesn't. Good customer
support and website.
Feel There CRJ 200, 700, 900
Nice, but a frame rate hog. Wilco uses high resolution texture. i converted all mine to DXT3. This helped tremendously. Realistic flight
model, the 200 is easy to take off and cruise and tricky to land. The 700 and 900 will tail strike on take off if your not careful, and i mean
really careful. The fmc is good but not as good as PMDG. You cant use airnav, for instace you can's enter BKW J147 CSN, instead you
have to type in every waypoint. I think that's unfortunate. offeres different models (with, without vc, and or wing, etc) but still frame rate
intense unless converted to DXT3. Mid range computer owners must convert textures to DXT3 or it ain't worth it. Purchased CD postal
delivery. First CD was blank, but they fixed it quickly, I was impressed with Wilco's support of their product.
Feel There Cessna Caravan Deluxe
also frame rate intense, conveting to DXT3 helped tremendously. Easy to fly, tricky to land. I cut and pasted a bathroom door and sign,
as well as some posters to the vc cabin. really cool, totally flyable, and easy on frame rates once converted to DXT3. Comes in two
purchase options, Deluxe (with Reality XP new GPS, flight plans automatically loaded on FS9 flight planner, no more manually entering
waypoints, very cool), and stock without reality XP. I have deluxe and i love it, but i had to work at it to get it to run like i like it. Purchased
direct download. 3rd party repaints very rare, but it's new and they'll come i'm sure.
Lago's Scenery Enhancer 2004
neat program, but terrible customer service. I wish some one else would do a payware MD80. Anybody but Lago. I refuse to buy stuff
from them. Now in their defense, they created a wonderful program, FSSE 2004 is excellent in what it can add. However, if you do
buisness with them you better make sure your e-mail accepts mail from everyone. My e-mail apparently would not accept mail from them
and i never got my key code. after a month, i finally got my code, however there are other codes and things and rules that are so
confusing, i finally gave up. I use the freeware RWY 12, which is not as convenient, but still easy.
Dream Fleet Cessna Cardinal
nice in it's time, but now somewhat outdated. Great flyer and lander, Easy on frame rates, etc.Pretty, plenty of repaints available. I still
use it, but not as much. Dreamfleet 2000 is great at backing up their product and offering customer support when needed.
Dream Fleet Piper Archer
The crown achievement of this is that you can fly with 1,2,3, or 4 pax that can be viewed in spot mode. Great documentation, but like the
cardinal, it's getting outdated. Slow flyer like the Cessna 172, but still neat. Excellent frame rates and gorgeous plane.
Reality XP 530
nice, nice, but the newer one is better, which i'm not going to buy now. I'm going to wait. I'll purchase it eventually, but i still use the old
one. At times i like to manually enter waypoints, but at other times i don't like too. Great customer service, and an easy configuration tool
which allows you to add the Reality GPS 530 to any plane with a click of the mouse. A bit confusing on the GPS 530 or 430 and some of
their other programs. A bit expensive for my taste for what you get, but worth it. I guess reality XP is like a cult movie, some love it and
others hate it. And it's really hard to expain. I like it but i can't say why. it displays roads and cities, etc while the default GPS doesn't. It
has a v nav feature which helps you calculate your descent rate. i'm glad i bought it, but eventually i'll probably buy the new one.
Good customer support, and good web page with additional retro fits. A little confusing to newbies.
Reality XP Jetline 4
I'm sure some like it but i never use it. I'm too lazy to study how to add it to my plane. They have a lot of retro fits on their web sit, but most
of these are for plans that i don't have. I think i'm out of sink with Jetlner 4, the planes that are retro fitted are the ones i don't won't, but the
one's i want and have are not retro fitted. it must be something about me, like i said i'm out of sink on this one.
Reality XP Weather Radar
Good but i only purchased it to fill in the blank spot on the Flight One Piper Meridian panels. I also have my Flight One Cessna 441 retro
fitted with the radar. I never use it on any other plan, and i don't know how it works. I just bought it becasue it looks pretty. The radar i use
for actual weather information is Active Sky's Radar
.
FSD Commander 115TC
I love the plane and the guys and girls at FSD are wonderful and helpful. Unfortuatley i have a system specific issue with the load
manager, it doesn't do damage and fligth hours. I've updated it and all, but the support people told me that there were about ten other
people that had this issue and it must be system specific. I understand this totally, and appreciated their help. I don't feel we should
hold people accountable for system specifics as long as we do our best to help. This is what they did, and i am planning to purchase
their new Cessna 337 Skymaster when it comes out. Back to the 115TC, it handles great, great documentation, load manager and
damage manager (that works on most people's system 99%), great on framerates. Easy configuration tool for Reality XP. Getting a little
out dated.
USA Roads
i like this and use it all the time. some roads go over grass runways, but other than that it's fine. i can't tell much of a frame rate hit, i
purchased this for cosmetic reasons. also sometimes i get in the mood to fly the Ford Trimotor and i need a little visual help and usa
roads is right on the map exact for the most part. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my
opinion.
you're interested in buying one of these products, you can get an "objective" opinion. I have a stock Dell Dimension 2.4 GHZ
with a 64 bit video card with 512 memory. Nothing too fancy, but okay. i'm not a real world pilot, so take these opinions as they are. just
opinions and personal expereince. I have purchased all these products through either direct download or through the store.
PMDG 737-600-700-800-900
great, easy to fly, slight frame rate hog with full VC and Cabin model, but allows differnet configuarions (ie with VC and cabin, without VC
and cabin), i converted my PMDG textures to DXT3 (this help a lot) ,excellent FMC, easy to land, plenty of additonal liveries, wonderful
manuals and specs, wonderul customer service.
FSPIC 3.48
I don't know what it does, but it's a must. Plus this Pete Dawson guy who made it is really nice. I had an issue with a program, and
thought it might be FSPIC, I posted a question on his board and he personally help me. I was impressed with his willingness to help me.
Captain Sim 727
This plane taught me how to land. i love it, and still use it. Slight frame rate hog with VC enabled, but without vc smooth as silk. i love the
load configuration tool, and plenty of additonal liveries, and I mean plenty. Unfortunately, no dynamic wing views (there are static
available 3rd party) but it's still an awesome plane. excellent customer service, very, and i mean very professional. Captain sim is one of
the most organized companies to deal with. Great manuals and documentation, and a utility which allows different engine configuations
for the 727-100 and 727-200. Negative also it is not compatable with CIVA INS freeware.
Captain Sim 707
Somewhat of a frame rate hog, but other than that, i can not even begin to describe how much i love this plane. There aren't as many 3rd
party additional liveries available as the 727, but the 707 is a lot newer, so i assume more will come. Great flight model, easy to land,
great documentation, although a tutorial fligth would be nice. This is probably my favorite becasue it's okay mostly on framerates, and i
can fly by the numbers. Good news, it is compatable with CIVA INS freeware.
Carenado 182 RG
This plane is gorgeous, It's Carenado's newest and best. Great on frame rates, and you can fly by the numbers. Better on Documention
than his earlier planes. Great information on specs. Also you can fly with either just one person, or you can change the model to fly with
two people on board. These persons can't be seen in VC mode, but they can be seen on spot plane view. no load manager. Purchased
at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Carenado 210 Centurion
This is also a neat plane and easy to fly. Adequate documentaion and charts. You can also fly this by the numbers with the spec
documentation included. VC panel loads a little slow, in other words, it takes a while to refresh. no load manager. Purchased at Flight
One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Carenad Piper Cherokee
THis is a pretty plane, but not much documentation. Can't fly by the numbers unless you can find Piper Cherokee documetation which i
have been unable to locate. Easy to fly and land. no load manager little documentation. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most
excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Flight One Cessna 172
Gorgeous, lovely, easy to fly excellent documentation, plus tutorial flight with ATC and scoring. It's a slow flyer in a headwing, but for short
hops it's great. Excellent frame rates. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Flight One Cessna 441 Conquest
I love the plane, but it's not as pretty It can be bumpy sometimes at cruise, Excellent documentation, excellent frame rates, and you can
fly by the numbers. Great on take offs and landings. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my
opinion.
Flight One Piper Meridian
I can not even begin to describe the beauty of this plane and how great it flys, You must adjust trim on take off and study the manual and
tutorial carefully. When this is done, you can fly by the numbers. The reality XP GPS is confusing to many. I already own this and was
familiar with it. You have to enter a flight plan manually with the GPS 530, flight plans are not automatically loaded as they are with Reality
XP's newer GPS or the default FS9 gps. HOwever there is excellent tutorials and information available to fully understand the
complexities of this aircraft. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
Dreamfleet Cessna 310
This is a different aircraft. it handles great, and is pretty and all. but the old style panel with the default GPS just doesn't look right. I wish
there was a GPS icon button mounted on the panel insteat of a full view of the GPS. Other than this cosmetic issue, i love this plane.
There aren't many repaints available, and people who are hostile to religion may have problems with the Isaiah scripture reference. But
as a Chirstian myself, i have no problems with this and think it's pretty cool. Great on Frame Rates. Purchased at Flight One, who are
the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my opinion.
.
MAAM-3
O I love these guys who make this. Excellent, fly by numbers, documentation, several 3rd party addons (no Ozark unfortunately), both
passenger and cargo models included, with amphibian options. Cargo appears and disappears with the key stoke "/' in vc mode, great
on frame rates. Called the museum personally and ordered the CD. Made a donation. The lady i spoke to was very friendly and helpful,
please give to this museum if you have some extra money.
Active Sky 4.5
great weather program with little impact on frame rates. Several patches and updates can be a litlle confusing. Great customer service
who are willing to help when issues arise. With active sky, you have to clear the weather, then load active sky, download weather,
process flight plan, load it into the weather radar. Takes time to start up, therefore, system crashes or untimely phone calls can become
more stressful since it takes such a long time to set up a flight. For me, it's worth it because i know what the weather is at my arrival
airport long, long in advance. so i can plan my approach. For me it's a must. however, without broad band internet connection, this
could take too much time to be worth it, but i have broad band and i never tested download times on a modem, so i could be wrong.
Active Camera
this is a must have for those who love walking around in the cabin or playing your landings over on the instant replay, especially the
passenger views of landing and cruise. This is an easy program, no frame rate hit, but if you updated FS9 with the patch, you need to
update Active Camera or it won't work. Easy to preset views. Only thing negative is external view looks wierd, sometimes trees float
above ground. to help this go to vc mode, and raise you eye point, then go to external view in active camera. This helps alot, but not
altogether. Excellent Customer service.
FS Passengers
if your new to this forum or are a guest, i'm not employed with FS Passengers in any way shape or form. in all honesty this is a must
have program, it takes FS 9 to another dimension. no frame rate impact, great options to tinker and configure, very much to play around
with. You can fly like a pro, or just intentionally crash to work off frustration. Great customer service, and friendly message board. The
cream of the crop in the Flight Sim community.
Iron Knuckles DC 9
i like it but it's a little dated. no dymanic wing views, they need to do a new one. I think SGA has the best DC9 and MD80 aircraft and they
are free ware. But in all fairness to Iron Knuckles, it was top of the line when it came out, but the flight sim buffalos keep running to newer
and better things. I love the cabin pressure feature, but SGA gives me frame rates, dynamic wingviews, and more 3rd pary livery options.
Purchased CD, postal delivery.
Eagle Soft Citation X
Gorgeous, slight frame rate hog, pretty 3d girl in vc mode that moves and stuff, fly by numbers, lean on documentation, allows different
model options (with or without vc), working apu, Reality XP doesn't confiure with panel. Eagle soft Citation X panel doesn't display REality
XP numbers correctly. The solution is to purchase REality XP Jetline 4. Which i did. But i currently have My Citation X with defaults
because i get tired of manually entering my waypoints on a long flight. wish it had a fully functionaly FMC, but it doesn't. Good customer
support and website.
Feel There CRJ 200, 700, 900
Nice, but a frame rate hog. Wilco uses high resolution texture. i converted all mine to DXT3. This helped tremendously. Realistic flight
model, the 200 is easy to take off and cruise and tricky to land. The 700 and 900 will tail strike on take off if your not careful, and i mean
really careful. The fmc is good but not as good as PMDG. You cant use airnav, for instace you can's enter BKW J147 CSN, instead you
have to type in every waypoint. I think that's unfortunate. offeres different models (with, without vc, and or wing, etc) but still frame rate
intense unless converted to DXT3. Mid range computer owners must convert textures to DXT3 or it ain't worth it. Purchased CD postal
delivery. First CD was blank, but they fixed it quickly, I was impressed with Wilco's support of their product.
Feel There Cessna Caravan Deluxe
also frame rate intense, conveting to DXT3 helped tremendously. Easy to fly, tricky to land. I cut and pasted a bathroom door and sign,
as well as some posters to the vc cabin. really cool, totally flyable, and easy on frame rates once converted to DXT3. Comes in two
purchase options, Deluxe (with Reality XP new GPS, flight plans automatically loaded on FS9 flight planner, no more manually entering
waypoints, very cool), and stock without reality XP. I have deluxe and i love it, but i had to work at it to get it to run like i like it. Purchased
direct download. 3rd party repaints very rare, but it's new and they'll come i'm sure.
Lago's Scenery Enhancer 2004
neat program, but terrible customer service. I wish some one else would do a payware MD80. Anybody but Lago. I refuse to buy stuff
from them. Now in their defense, they created a wonderful program, FSSE 2004 is excellent in what it can add. However, if you do
buisness with them you better make sure your e-mail accepts mail from everyone. My e-mail apparently would not accept mail from them
and i never got my key code. after a month, i finally got my code, however there are other codes and things and rules that are so
confusing, i finally gave up. I use the freeware RWY 12, which is not as convenient, but still easy.
Dream Fleet Cessna Cardinal
nice in it's time, but now somewhat outdated. Great flyer and lander, Easy on frame rates, etc.Pretty, plenty of repaints available. I still
use it, but not as much. Dreamfleet 2000 is great at backing up their product and offering customer support when needed.
Dream Fleet Piper Archer
The crown achievement of this is that you can fly with 1,2,3, or 4 pax that can be viewed in spot mode. Great documentation, but like the
cardinal, it's getting outdated. Slow flyer like the Cessna 172, but still neat. Excellent frame rates and gorgeous plane.
Reality XP 530
nice, nice, but the newer one is better, which i'm not going to buy now. I'm going to wait. I'll purchase it eventually, but i still use the old
one. At times i like to manually enter waypoints, but at other times i don't like too. Great customer service, and an easy configuration tool
which allows you to add the Reality GPS 530 to any plane with a click of the mouse. A bit confusing on the GPS 530 or 430 and some of
their other programs. A bit expensive for my taste for what you get, but worth it. I guess reality XP is like a cult movie, some love it and
others hate it. And it's really hard to expain. I like it but i can't say why. it displays roads and cities, etc while the default GPS doesn't. It
has a v nav feature which helps you calculate your descent rate. i'm glad i bought it, but eventually i'll probably buy the new one.
Good customer support, and good web page with additional retro fits. A little confusing to newbies.
Reality XP Jetline 4
I'm sure some like it but i never use it. I'm too lazy to study how to add it to my plane. They have a lot of retro fits on their web sit, but most
of these are for plans that i don't have. I think i'm out of sink with Jetlner 4, the planes that are retro fitted are the ones i don't won't, but the
one's i want and have are not retro fitted. it must be something about me, like i said i'm out of sink on this one.
Reality XP Weather Radar
Good but i only purchased it to fill in the blank spot on the Flight One Piper Meridian panels. I also have my Flight One Cessna 441 retro
fitted with the radar. I never use it on any other plan, and i don't know how it works. I just bought it becasue it looks pretty. The radar i use
for actual weather information is Active Sky's Radar
.
FSD Commander 115TC
I love the plane and the guys and girls at FSD are wonderful and helpful. Unfortuatley i have a system specific issue with the load
manager, it doesn't do damage and fligth hours. I've updated it and all, but the support people told me that there were about ten other
people that had this issue and it must be system specific. I understand this totally, and appreciated their help. I don't feel we should
hold people accountable for system specifics as long as we do our best to help. This is what they did, and i am planning to purchase
their new Cessna 337 Skymaster when it comes out. Back to the 115TC, it handles great, great documentation, load manager and
damage manager (that works on most people's system 99%), great on framerates. Easy configuration tool for Reality XP. Getting a little
out dated.
USA Roads
i like this and use it all the time. some roads go over grass runways, but other than that it's fine. i can't tell much of a frame rate hit, i
purchased this for cosmetic reasons. also sometimes i get in the mood to fly the Ford Trimotor and i need a little visual help and usa
roads is right on the map exact for the most part. Purchased at Flight One, who are the most excellent people to buy FS Addons in my
opinion.