Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 First month, a PC upgrade, and WOW!

Installation

Chapter 1 --/o\--

I purchased the Premium Deluxe version via Steam on the release date, 18th August 2020. 10 extra aircraft for a few bucks each, and a bunch of extra hand rendered airports was a no-brainer.
The download (about 92 Gb) took most of the night. Booted up and ran beautifully on my 42" monitor at 1360 x 768 with a GeForce 1060 (3 Gb RAM).

Chapter 2 --/o\--

My appetite for more was whetted, well and truly whetted, so I motored off to JB HiFi to purchase a HiDef 50" monitor.
Inside the store was, strategically placed. a SONY 85" TV. I sat in awe for about an hour, imagining FS 2020 running in all it's glory on this monster screen. I had to have it. A week later the monster was delivered and with a 2 man lift, placed on my workbench, or rather, where a canopy should go, in front of the cockpit. At 1920 x 1080 it ran like a dream (again), the monitor artfully aliasing the half-res input to beautiful effect. Breathtaking.
The house I grew up in. Many happy memories.

Chapter 3 --/o\--

After a week of euphoric flying, some of the most sublime experiences I'd had in a flight sim for years, I was happy.
Happy and satisfied. But yet, a yearning remained.
What if I bought a GeForce 3090, when that landed?
Yea that'd be great - it would push all 3840 x 2160 pixels around, no problem. But those cards weren't here. And Flight Sim 2020 was here.
And it was begging to be driven.
Driven hard.
Driven hard and driven hard NOW!
Well it just so happened that I'd seen s Hewlett Packard OMEN on special.
I'd already decided thst my next PC would be name brand, as I'd suffered stability issues with my previous build. My logic was that the name brands would thoroughly test their builds before sdhipping en masse. And this OMEN had the specs I wanted:
So I got it. On the way home I stopped by the local PC shop and had more HDD installed to the tune of 2 x 6Tb, so a total of 13gb storage. Plenty of space then for scenery caches and my old sims that didn't really benefit from an SSD, having such a small footprint.
Well.
Well well well.
Now FS 2020 decided to run with all the graphics setting on HIGH, and at 3840 x 2160 the effect was another whole level of jaw-dropping.
My old neighbourhood.
The local football club, where ny father was a founder member, and surely one of the few people to win two grand finals in Rugby League... both on the same day!
The house I grew up in. Surely the first pilgrimage for most people on encountering this amazing simulator!
Parramatta, the geographical heart of Sydney.
Parramatta River, which runs all the way east to Sydney Harbour.
Rosehill Racecourse.
Olympic Stadium at Homebush, built for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Iconic, and enhanced in this case with ORBX Sydney scenery.
You don't get to do this in real life. Or, only one time!
Kirribilli on the left.
This building needs no introduction.
Milson's Point on the north-west side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
North Sydney Oval.
Looking east on the ANZAC Bridge.
Pyrmont.
Darling Harbour.
Observatory Hill at the south end of Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Circular Quay.
Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
The Art Gallery of N.S.W. and the domain.
St. Mary's Cathedral.
Fort Denison. Built to repel the expected Russian invasion around 1900.
At the entrance to Sydney Harbour, looking at South and North heads.
Mosman, near Taronga Zoo.
North Head.
Approaching Manly.
Manly beach.
Sydney Kingsford Smith Interrnational Airport.
Sydney at night.
The night lighting in this sim is amazing.
Centrepoint tower.
Exhibit index   Back to the top