FS9 Essentials

**Desert Rat** · October 15th, 2009, 14:06

Okay guys we have a Freeware Gems thread which deserves a perma-sticky, how-s-a-bout a thread for those little things you couldn't do without if you had to re-install from scratch, you know the kinda thing, little apps or modules that enhance the experience.

Stuff like Autotower or the F1 view thingy, stuff you couldn't do without, no matter how little, there's bound to be folk out there who don't know about them.

Bring it on,
Jamie

**Z-claudius24** · October 15th, 2009, 14:10

Hi,

For the Hollywood wanabee ... FSrecorder is a must (freeware)

http://www.fs-recorder.net

And FRAPS (freeware version limited amount of time sequence)

http://www.fraps.com

***Willy*** · October 15th, 2009, 14:23

AFCAD, Travel Tools, yRoute, FS Panel Studio, an air file editor, Air Wrench and I don't know what all else...

***Dangerousdave26*** · October 15th, 2009, 14:31

FSUIPC

***OBIO*** · October 15th, 2009, 14:44

ACM, FSUIPC, FSMetars, Snapper (for grabbing tons of screenshots), the HDE Clouds package, Golden Wings and Silver Wings, Rhumbaflappy's LOD5, 7 and 8 mesh sets, Lawdog's sound packs and the ones I have 'created" using Lawdog's packs as the ingredients.

OBIO

***Cazzie*** · October 15th, 2009, 15:11

Best little scenery add-on you can get. Works in FSX too. You'll wonder how you ever did without them.

FS2004 (ACOF) - Misc. FS2004 Revised Radio Tower Lights
[ Download | View ]
Name: rdotwrl2.zip Size: 66,857 Date: 03-31-2004 Downloads: 3,951

FS2004 Revised Radio Tower Lights. Makes stock radio towers visible at a greater distance. By Matthew L. Purcell.

**Wing_Z** · October 15th, 2009, 15:21

First essential is to get replacement textures - for earth, water and cloud.
There are plenty of freeware offerings, my personal preference is payware:
- Ground Environment Pro
- Flight Environment
These allow an almost infinite variety of earth/water/sky/cloud combinations which makes every sim session different.

If you know the area you are to fly in, a good mesh addon is also pretty much essential.

**TomSteber** · October 15th, 2009, 16:03

Ground Environment Pro
Ultimate Terrain
Real Environment Pro

***Mick*** · October 15th, 2009, 17:01

Terrain mesh, decent water textures, Arrestor Cables, Active Camera, FSUIPC, DXTbmp, yRoute, Traffic Tools, AFCAD, MDLmat, BGLcomp & BGLxml. That's what comes to mind right off the top of my head.

**aeromed202** · October 15th, 2009, 17:19

Yep, Arrestor Cables, Flight Deck, Ambient Sounds by José Oliveira and
Jorge Filipe, UT, and all the magnificient stuff available out there-water,clouds,flying machines... At lest we not forget, back-ups of all the finished product after the hair-tearing figiting and tweaking. Saved my sanity time and again.

***WarHorse47*** · October 15th, 2009, 18:06

Oh boy, this is going to be interesting... :ernae:
ACA2005 and ACA2007 Light
AircraftCfgTool
BBQHideAI
DXTBmp
EditVoicepack
FSUIPC
ArrCab 2.5
FS Panel Studio
FS Sound Studio
Parking Manager
Scenery Align

--WH

***modelr*** · October 15th, 2009, 18:59

ScanAFD for finding duplicate afcad files
Nova & VOD textures
AIP210 & ASD21 textures (not used for newer sceneries, but used in a lot of older ones)
EZ files

**Wing_Z** · October 15th, 2009, 20:14

Originally Posted by WarHorse47

Oh boy, this is going to be interesting... :ernae:
ACA2005 and ACA2007 Light
--WH

WH I am still using ACA2005 - what's the benefit of ACA2007?

**Wild Bill Kelso** · October 15th, 2009, 23:01

Pete Dowson's freeware AutoSave.

AutoSave: Automatic flight saving for FS98, FS2000, FS2002 & FS2004 Place AutoSave.dll in your FS98 Modules folder. It will save flights ("STN" files) at regular intervals, so you can retry that crashed landing or quickly recover from other problems. File size 10K. Pete Dowson

http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloa...4-details.html

Very useful for any kind of accident reviews (what did go wrong?

) or CTD/freezing research...

**java2srv** · October 16th, 2009, 04:33

Flight Simulator 9 SDK
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555857
Microsoft Knowledge Base article lists all the SDK parts, there is a text link for each that you can cut-and-paste into your browser to download.

The Scenery Hall of Fame website also hosts the FS9 SDK files.
http://www.scenery.org/tutorials_fs2k4_SDK.htm

The SHOF includes the original Microsoft descriptions for each SDK including a file list. The links on the SHOF point to the Microsoft hosted SDK files (download.microsoft.com).

N.B. the disclaimer way at the bottom of the page that says, "...additional SDKs are scheduled..." is from the original MS site. The SHOF has all the SDKs that were published by MS. (The SHOF web page actually reproduces the original FS9 SDK page from the old MS FS2004 ACOF web page.)

Also note: the GMAX gamepack SDK appears to be no longer available from Microsoft. I believe it ought to be available from other sources though.

**java2srv** · October 16th, 2009, 04:55

For a reinstall you'd also want to have the FS 9.1 update:

Flight Simulator 2004 Update v9.1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911208

The link is to the knowledge base article at MS with a link to the update at the MS download center. The d/l center link is pretty long so I didn't include it.

The file name is: fs91upd.exe

***Motormouse*** · October 16th, 2009, 08:04

All of Rob Barendregt's (sp? sorry if I got it wrong Rob)
handy gauges.

ttfn

Pete

FlyTexas · October 16th, 2009, 08:40

Originally Posted by Cazzie

Best little scenery add-on you can get. Works in FSX too. You'll wonder how you ever did without them.

FS2004 (ACOF) - Misc. FS2004 Revised Radio Tower Lights
[ Download | View ]
Name: rdotwrl2.zip Size: 66,857 Date: 03-31-2004 Downloads: 3,951

FS2004 Revised Radio Tower Lights. Makes stock radio towers visible at a greater distance. By Matthew L. Purcell.

Ahhh, interesting. Downloading now. Thanks Caz.

Brian

**strega13** · October 16th, 2009, 08:49

there is also a freeware alternative to trackIR .
the site also provides informations on the way to build the hardware easily using webcams and LEDs .
http://www.free-track.net/english/

**rich12545** · October 16th, 2009, 19:39

I'll add Ultimate Terrain.

**Ascua02** · October 20th, 2009, 07:04

Pretty interesting all of them!!

Something else ??

**PHo17** · October 20th, 2009, 23:43

"Scruffy Duck's" Airport Design Editor 9X now works with FS9 too. An alternative for Lee Swordy's AFCAD.

***Tom Clayton*** · October 21st, 2009, 05:55

Good idea Jamie!

**awj112** · October 24th, 2009, 06:14

FS Real time for those who love real time flights.

http://www.3dsoftworks.net/products/fsrealtime/

USA and World Extreme Landscapes

Or

FS Golbal 2008

Just Flight's Traffic AI packages (I'm using 2005)

**edmoore235** · October 24th, 2009, 07:57

If I had to start over and re-install FS9, then six fixes for default problems would be a needed file: http://flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=99725 - take care.

Ed