Heatwave Diversions

Whilst it's been hot, I've not had much interest in model railways - but another hobby has taken hold!

From an early age, I was obsessed with another mode of transport - airplanes.

I remember going many times to the visitor centre at Manchester Airport growing up, watching planes arrive and depart. Classics like the PIA 747,  Delta 767s, BMI 737s and everything in between. I was obsessed.

Naturally when we first got a computer (a big beige box running Windows 95 gifted by my granddad), one of the first things I installed was Flight Simulator 95, and with some horrible late 90s Saitek joystick, I was hooked.

New versions came and went, and I remember one Christmas getting FS2000 in the big box with that amazing picture of Concorde on the front. Then FS2002, followed by FS2004 and later FSX.

Of course, MSFS 2020 and 2024 have come and gone. And I enjoyed them for a while, when I could stand the problems with mapping controls, internet connectivity, making my PC sound like a hoover - but they never quite captured the enjoyment that came with the earlier versions. Not to mention the cost of all the addons.

So I recently bid and won an auction for a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick. I was never lucky enough to have one when it was contemporary, I had made do with the inferior Precision Pro 2 for many years before upgrading to a Thrustmaster T16000. Sadly I recently discovered that was basically broken (throttle slider didn't work, no rudder).

After giving the FF2 a good clean up, tested that it all worked, I set about picking a new simulator. I tried MSFS 2020 and 2024 again but they were a pain in the ass. X-Plane 12 looks great these days, but again makes my PC go into overdrive even with FPS limited. So back to FSX I went initially, until all the problems with that came back to. Then I found my boxed copy of FS2004 again. 

Installing it on Windows 10 was surprisingly straight forward, and within minutes I was enjoying flying again.

Then I started installing some addons I had from decades past, which were less than happy with Windows 10.

So within a few days of that, I'd bought some more stuff from eBay to build a FS2004 Windows XP machine:

• Vostro 270s (i3-3220, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD) - £25
• NVIDIA Quadro 600 (1GB DDR3) - £5
• New Dell USB keyboard + mouse - £10
• New Philips 19" 5:4 LCD - £15 

It later turned out that the Vostro actually had 8GB RAM and a 500GB HDD installed, but neither here nor there for these purposes. Most of the above has arrived, but I'm still waiting on the monitor to delivered - when it is and I've set everything up, I'll be reviewing some of the classic addons from the time that I own.

I may also do some reviews of my other XP-era games from my collection: C&C Generals, Rise of Nations, etc. I was big into strategy games around that time!