Coolsky DC9 anyone?

[Navy Chief]

Am thinking about buying the Coolsky DC9, but have a question I've not gotten answered.

Has a Navy C9 repaint has been done for it yet? I do know one is not included with any of their DC9 packages.

NC

[Naismith]

No idea but this guy does some pretty in depth reviews which are worth a peek. http://www.youtube.com/user/frooglesim/videos?view=0 I think the DC-9 is in 3 parts.

[Spikehughes]

Not aware of any Navy repaint, but I say go for it if you are interested in a full realized steam gauge tubeliner. I have it and really enjoy it. Flying from VOR to VOR is more hands on. Make sure you read the manual and play the tutorial first - will answer a lot of questions!

[Navy Chief]

Thanks all! I have the skysim DC9, but it is a killer on FPS. Is this one any better? NC

[Navy Chief]

Not aware of any Navy repaint, but I say go for it if you are interested in a full realized steam gauge tubeliner. I have it and really enjoy it. Flying from VOR to VOR is more hands on. Make sure you read the manual and play the tutorial first - will answer a lot of questions!

Thanks Spike,

I bought the Coolsky DC9 this morning; looking forward to checking it out this afternoon!

NC

[Spikehughes]

Thanks Spike,

I bought the Coolsky DC9 this morning; looking forward to checking it out this afternoon!

NC

I am sure you will not regret it - I do hope you managed to view Frogglesims videos as well... great intro review

Spike

[Naismith]

All this talk of the DC9 inspired me to install my very first payware purchase, the Flight 1 DC9 Iron Knuckles, bought for FS2002. A few updates and it still looks and flies very well in FS9. Not the Hi-Fi panel exactly but still competent. Tempted to FSX it but I don't suppose the gauges would work and there are a lot of them. Edit - Short answer is a NO for FSX. The Gauges don't show even though I OK'd them, the VC is Black, and for some reason the wing surfaces were black or missing texture. Flew OK though. I guess the years are unforgiving to the old girl. :-(

[olderndirt]

Thanks Spike,

I bought the Coolsky DC9 this morning; looking forward to checking it out this afternoon!

NC

Well, they made at least two sales yesterday. My first takeoff I had the nosewheel chock still in place and the wing spoilers were deployed. Now I'm reading. Take a look at McPhats HD panels for this and the 33 freeware paints in the Flight 1 library.

[JoHubb]

Looking forward to more reports, Navy Chief and oldendirt. This aircraft has been on my list for a while. I like the stuff this developer made in the past - somewhere between 'lite' and PMDG.

John

[olderndirt]

Flew out of SEA yesterday and averaged 25 FPS with a lock at 30. Reading both manuals really helps. My wheel chock turns out to be an integral part of the nose wheel assembly - to divert rain water and other debris from the engine intakes. I've yet to find any military repaints and there's no cargo version, yet. McPhat's HD panel package gives amazing clarity plus a choice of gray, tan or the default blue. Freeware repaints in the F1 library all seem to be excellent quality - some nostalgic out of business airline liveries. Difficult to find anything that's not clickable and functioning as in RL.

[bstolle]

Thanks all! I have the skysim DC9, but it is a killer on FPS. Is this one any better? NC

I have the skysim and the coolsky DC-9. The skysim version doesn't really hurt the fps on my old i7, but the coolsky is a real killer (as there are much more simulated systems)

[Navy Chief]

Looking forward to more reports, Navy Chief and oldendirt. This aircraft has been on my list for a while. I like the stuff this developer made in the past - somewhere between 'lite' and PMDG.

John

I plan on giving a quick report on it, later this evening. :salute:

NC

[Navy Chief]

Well, the Coolsky DC-9 is, although a beautiful model to be sure, quite a frame rate hog. I will definitely have to play around with my settings on this one. You can see from the screenshot that my rates on landing on Guam were 10.5 Only way to improve that was to lower my scenery settings. And when I did that, all the airport buildings disappeared.....

I did a quick search for threads on other forums about the possibility of migrating it to P3D, and don't believe it will work. Pity. Am fairly certain my FPS rates would improve......

NC

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[olderndirt]

The only reason I checked my FPS over Orbx Seattle is that location seems to be the performance gauge. I did back off the two autogen settings - 1 click from full on, otherwise I got a little red and white message "Unable to load". Otherwise is flies well, using 4096 textures and Rex. My CPU is an i5/3570k with a modest OC to 4.2Ghz.

[Navy Chief]

........flies well, using 4096.

Would you please explain what 4096 textures is? Am assuming you mean a certain level of texture complexity, but how is this chosen? Thanks, NC

[Daube]

[SIZE=2][B][I]Well, the C[SIZE=2]oolsky DC-9 is[SIZE=2], although a be[SIZE=2]autiful mo[SIZE=2]del to be sure[SIZE=2], quite a frame rate hog. I will defini[SIZE=2]tely have to play around with my settings on this one. You can see from the screenshot that my rates on landing on Guam were 10.5 Only way to improve that was to lower my scenery settings. And when I did that, all the airport buildings disappeared.....

I did a [SIZE=2]quick search for threads on other forums about the possibility of migrating it to P3D, and don't believe it will work. Pit[SIZE=2]y. Am [SIZE=2]fairly [SIZE=2]certain my FPS rates would improve......

NC

What kind of video card are you using ?
IF (and only if) it's an NVidia, you could try to define the 30 FPS limit in the driver settings and let FSX run at unlimited FPS.
This technique gives sometimes very good results and improved smoothness with very complex addons. However, it can also lead to ground textures blurries. Won't cost you a penny to test, though...

[olderndirt]

Would you please explain what 4096 textures is? Am assuming you mean a certain level of texture complexity, but how is this chosen? Thanks, NC

I believe it's a 'pixels per inch' value - currently the highest resolution available on FSX so, if you're using High Definition scenery or aircraft, it's recommended you change it. Found in FSX.cfg, the default value TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD is 1024 but there are numerous little tools available without having to open .cfg each time 'cause it does revert to default. The three values are 1024-2048-4096.

[Navy Chief]

What kind of video card are you using ?
IF (and only if) it's an NVidia, you could try to define the 30 FPS limit in the driver settings and let FSX run at unlimited FPS.
This technique gives sometimes very good results and improved smoothness with very complex addons. However, it can also lead to ground textures blurries. Won't cost you a penny to test, though...

My card is a ATI Radeon 5870......NC

[Navy Chief]

I believe it's a 'pixels per inch' value - currently the highest resolution available on FSX so, if you're using High Definition scenery or aircraft, it's recommended you change it. Found in FSX.cfg, the default value TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD is 1024 but there are numerous little tools available without having to open .cfg each time 'cause it does revert to default. The three values are 1024-2048-4096.

So....the default is 1024, therefore providing better frame rates at a lower resolution? NC

[Daube]

Exactely.
Even if the plane has 4096x4096 resolution textures, the maximum resolution displayed by FSX when its settings are set to max is 1024x1024. Thus a lower resolution of the texture is shown on the screen, leading to slightly better performance, usually. The maximum displayed texture resolution can be pushed higher than the max by editing the FSX.cfg and setting the parameter TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD to 4096. Then the sim will load the textures in full res and the result will be spectacular. But there might be a FPS hit on older video cards.

I don't know the ATI cards at all, I believe the drivers do not offer the FPS-limit feature, right ?
Then forget that technique. If you just try to set FSX FPS to "unlimited", you will get better FPS average, but you might also get a lot of blurries I think.

[olderndirt]

There's an item on the CoolSky site saying McPhat is working on a cargo model.

[Navy Chief]

McPhat studios did, indeed, release a DC-9 cargo version, but still no USN C-9 repaint.

A little surprised no one has created one yet. Coolsky posted a notice on their Facebook site of a Steam update to their models. Downloaded and installed it with no apparent problems, but did notice one anomaly.....the ailerons (visibly) do not move, and remain fixed..one up, the other down. Aileron trim tabs work normally, and animation is correct.

Needs to happen! NC

[odourboy]

McPhat studios did, indeed, release a DC-9 cargo version, but still no USN C-9 repaint.

A little surprised no one has created one yet. Coolsky posted a notice on their Facebook site of a Steam update to their models. Downloaded and installed it with no apparent problems, but did notice one anomaly.....the ailerons (visibly) do not move, and remain fixed..one up, the other down. Aileron trim tabs work normally, and animation is correct.

Needs to happen! NC

IIRC this is normal behavior for the DC9. I believe the ailerons correct themselves as you gain speed.

[Navy Chief]

IIRC this is normal behavior for the DC9. I believe the ailerons correct themselves as you gain speed.

Well, I took off in a DC-9 a little while ago, got up to 350 kias, and no change in the ailerons. Still the same; left one down, right one up. I'll figure this out. Probably something simple, as usual. NC

[olderndirt]

Looks like full deflection - should have been inverted by the second shot.