Thinkpads Forum

I'm finding myself having the itch to dust off the copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator that I bought a while back, but never got around to playing.

I'd like to try and run it on my T20 but I'm wondering how easy it is to fly with a laptop keyboard.

Anybody have any advice on how to enjoyably run Flight Simulator on a *Pad (or any notebook, for that matter)?

Thanks...

jruschme wrote:I'm finding myself having the itch to dust off the copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator that I bought a while back, but never got around to playing.

I'd like to try and run it on my T20 but I'm wondering how easy it is to fly with a laptop keyboard.

Anybody have any advice on how to enjoyably run Flight Simulator on a *Pad (or any notebook, for that matter)?

Thanks...

FS 98 runs beautifully on my machine, with all settings at max. One more reason to run a '98 game on a '01 machine
Do you have a mouse? If so, use "mouse as yoke" and enjoy.

[quote="MustiFS 98 runs beautifully on my machine, with all settings at max. One more reason to run a '98 game on a '01 machine
Do you have a mouse? If so, use "mouse as yoke" and enjoy.[/quote]

Funny that you should mention FS98 as that is exactly the version that I have. (I bought it a couple of years back.) I started eyeing cheap copies of FS2004, not that FS-X is out, but wonder what the advantage, if any, for a beginner would be. After all, it's not like the laws of physics changed between 1998 and 2004.

Thanks...

Yes, true...lol.
But more eye candy and a lot of cruft has been added. I've also heard (cannot verify right now) that after FS98 the flight model has been changed, as that version was used by the hijackers.
I don't imagine running FS-X on my TP. The graphics chip leaves a lot to be desired, among other things.

Anyways, for more info, here's a link for ya:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... _Simulator

rgds.

I don't imagine running FS-X on my TP.

I don't expect FSX to run on my P4 3.4C, 2G RAM, ATI X800XT, so I know it won't run on 99.9% of the laptops out there. Heck, it won't run on most of the PCs in service today. The computer that will run FSX at 30 FPS is still a year away.
I played CFS2 on a PIII 850, 768MB RAM with a Radeon 7500 at about 30 FPS, playing FS9 on a similar rig would probably run about 20 FPS, depending on your graphics settings.
With flight sims, 30 FPS is kind of what you'd like to have. New owners of FSX claim that it looks good with framerates in the teens, but I don't buy it.

An old version of FlightSim would run, but I would not suggest using the keyboard. I tired it two years ago, ended up using the mouse to manually move the stick in the cockpit window
Bought a cheap joystick, made all the world of difference.

If your laptop has USB, a joystick is the only way to go. It's hard to find a gameport stick anymore. You can also get a USB game controller and configure the joystick and buttons to use with the sim. Controllers can be had for less than $10.
I saw FS9 at Walmart for $24.95, I almost bought it. I was kind of waiting for FSX(since I have CFS2), pretty bummed I can't run it on my two year old computer.