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08-03-2014, 04:25 AM | #1 (permalink) |
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Join Date: May 2014
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Considering a Sim. Is Real Flight the best?
Hi
I want to buy a sim but not sure which is the best to go for. I only fly helicopters and have a nano cpx and a blade 130x with a DX7s. Any advise welcome, thanks a lot.
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Blade 130x, Blade Nano CPx |
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08-03-2014, 05:03 AM | #2 (permalink) |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Tricky question. It's subjective, I don't know if there's a "best" sim. They each have their pros and cons. Stick to Realflight, Phoenix, or AccuRc. There's some cheaper ones out there, but they'e not very good. Since your on micros still, any of them will help you out for learning orientation and getting a grasp on how maneuvers work. Do some research and see which one fits your budget and has features you like.
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08-03-2014, 05:34 AM | #3 (permalink) | |
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Join Date: May 2014
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Quote:
Thanks a lot.
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08-03-2014, 11:29 AM | #4 (permalink) | |
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RF is one of the best. RF has lots of models and an active model swap forum on Knife Edge. Its a bit hareder to set up passthrough than use the interlink (was designed with a Futaba interface in mind, not Spektrum). Phoenix is also very good (easier to set up a Spekfrum transmitter too). I much prefer the feel of RF over Phoenix when simming in Windows. Learning orientations, consider Heli-X (best training modes). Needs own connection mechanism (but these are inexpensive). See Flight School From tail-in to all 8s and funnels in 6 months . Heli-X works on mac and Linux as well as on Windows. This is my go-to sim in the Linux environment. neXt has really good reviews too (but not as good on training modes as Heli-X). Also a multi-platform heli sim. I have not tried AccuRC yet, but reports are it's very good, but a little finicky to set up initially. May get AccuRC to compare to the others I have. Summary: for Mac environment and learning orientations, my top recommandation is Heli-X. Once you get past the orientation stage (and this will take a good 6 months to master), you can stay with Heli-X or branch out into other sims. Hope this answers questions.
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TRex 700E Pro DFC HV (BD3SX) - Gaui X5 (6S/BD3SX), Blade 130X, RealFlight, Heli-X, Taranis+DSMX |
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08-04-2014, 04:36 PM | #5 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Feb 2012
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Considering a Sim. Is Real Flight the best?
You may also need to look at "System Requirements", does your computer meet the minimum specs?
I have Phoenix (which has been very good to me) and want to experience the RealFlight. |
08-04-2014, 04:43 PM | #6 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
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I'm using Phoenix and find it very challanging. Works well for me.
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08-05-2014, 10:39 AM | #7 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Mar 2013
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May want to consider AccuRC
I posted something similar over on the AccuRC forum but saw your question and figured this might be helpful here as well.
Before AccuRC came out, RealFlight was my favorite heli sim by far. To me it just felt the most realistic compared to Phoenix, Heli-x, neXt (all of which I own... I'm a sim junkie). Now that I've had a chance to play with AccuRC for several weeks it has taken over as my favorite heli sim. In addition to having a great physics feel in flight, I love that you can dig into the FBL / ESC settings on the bench, change blades, servos, and other components and see how those changes impact the heli. So, the biggest advantage of RealFlight at this point is just the sheer number of helis and flying fields available and a huge following of users creating both helis and flying fields for it. AccuRC is just getting started so they are limited in this area, but, they are already adding new models and I'm sure will continue to do so moving forward. So, the short answer is, AccuRC is my favorite right now, but Real Flight is a close second. Pretty sure my RF will be going up for sale soon though... :-)
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08-05-2014, 09:29 PM | #8 (permalink) | |
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Join Date: Jan 2014
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09-01-2014, 08:23 AM | #10 (permalink) | |
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: US
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Currently it can run all three simulators "maxed out" I'm going to build a switchbox to share my Jeti Reciever between the 3 dongles. AccuRC - best physics engine, but not a mature product, and requires more powerful CPU and graphics card. RealFlight - very good physics engine, mature product with lots of models, airfields and good training. Phoenix - I haven't used in a long time. I just got the latest 5.0x release installed but I don't have it all configured. I used to like their Auto-rotation trainer. I'm going to try to use them each for their strengths, however other then for training drills I expect I'll be using AccuRC the vast majority of the time.
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Mark Dusty Shelf queens: TDR2, TDR, Protos Max, Logo 550SX, Protos 500, Jeti DS-16, etc.... |
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09-02-2014, 06:59 AM | #11 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: US
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I've been flying Phoenix, Real Flight and AccuRC back to back and what I'm seeing is the following:
Phoenix feels more like a video game with a lot less helicopter feel. Everything is too perfect and it doesn't seem to have any real world feedback. Autorotations seem too easy. It almost builds a false sense of security. Real Flight is a definite improvement and seems to have a more accurate feel. The TT E700 model I'm flying has a realistic floaty feel to it, and the ability to blow out the tail and other feedback feels more realistic than Phoenix. I still think this is a very good simulator, and I definitely like it better than Phoenix. AccuRC's physics engine is a noticeable improvement over Real Flight. Both Phoenix and Real Flight seem to have a little too much hang time when on edge and the dynamics just don't feel quite right. Flying the sims back to back makes this a lot more noticable. AccuRC makes me think of how my helis fly at the airfield more than the other two. There are a lot of subtle differences, like how the differences in head speed feel. I think AccuRC is the hands down winner in terms of realism. However if you configure too much tail gain, you will get tail wag and the FBL settings need to be setup well. For a first simulator I would still recommend Real Flight. The orientation drills and other training tools can be very helpful and it has models that fly well without a lot of adjustment. It can be configured to emulate self-level and bailout and there are a lot of very good models available for it. Phoenix 5 has a very nice wizard for custom mapping your transmitter and it has online flying, instant restart after a crash and free updates forever so it is less expensive to own long term. I'm finding even with 5.0r I have no interest in flying Phoenix. If you have been flying for a little while and have some skill and have a computer that can run it well I would recommend AccuRC. Fortunately there are some good models that other people have tweaked on the AccuRC forum which takes some of the time out of configuring it. What you are buying is a Physics Engine. AccuRC has a dongle with adapters for SBus/Jeti, DSMX, and most other receivers so you can easily get flying wirelessly without any soldering. Running against your real transmitter only makes sense when trying to get everything as realistic as possible. AccuRC has free upgrades as well, but it still has some filling out to do before it will be as full featured as the other more mature products.
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Mark Dusty Shelf queens: TDR2, TDR, Protos Max, Logo 550SX, Protos 500, Jeti DS-16, etc.... |
09-10-2014, 12:51 PM | #12 (permalink) |
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personally i think realflight is over rated.
what nobody has said is how generally poor it is as a program. it looks like a free sim, like it was designed in the mid 90's or something. it needs a complete overhaul to make it anyway near as slick as phoenix. its ugly, clunky, confusing, SLOW, and the windows do very odd things when navigating the program. did i say its slow?. it takes literally minutes to start up, and it pauses for ages whenever you try and access something from the menus, while phoenix is like a mac program in comparison, like it was designed by someone who had an overall plan rather than something that just evolved without much work on its structure. setting up a spektrum tx is a complete nightmare in RF. its totally insane. as for the tuning menus...i gave up and went back to phoenix as i couldnt find the important settings i wanted amongst all the ridiculous windows like esoteric settings. i downloaded a goblin from the swop pages and it wouldnt fly and literally fell apart. i had no idea what settings to change to make it work. it was quite funny actually. the phoenix helis might not have such a 'raw' and impressive feeling as a realflight heli, but the program has many good points to make up for it, and just works well and is a generally a non frustrating experience. the graphics, both of the fields and helis themselves are MUCH better, its relatively simple to set up a dx6i and the online feature is very well designed and there is a very large community. apart from that its not as if the helis are unrealistic. they can be set up to be as challenging as you want them to be and the range of helis in the program are far more current. i definitely think of the two programs, phoenix is a more rounded and developed product overall.
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PHOENIX SIM. GOBLIN FIREBALL. SPEKTRUM DX7S |
09-10-2014, 05:38 PM | #13 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: US
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Interesting. I see your priorities and your points.
Phoenix is owned by Horizon Hobby so Spektrum radios should be effortless to set up. However Phoenix does have the best wizard I've seen that has you grab your sticks and go in a certain direction first allowing it to automatically figure out if your control is reversed or not and to assign channels. Phoenix does seem to require a bit less horsepower than Real Flight does. Phoenix also is a pay once and get free updates for ever model compared to Real Flight where you pay for every major release. Real flight does have clunky menuing. However Real Flight loads very quickly on my computer. Just a few seconds and it is ready to go and it does have a more realistic physics engine than Phoenix does. So in a nutshell Phoenix sets up easier, requires less hardware and is less costly long term. So why would people get RealFlight if Phoenix is easier and cheaper? Because Real Flight does fly more realistically once you do have it all configured. In the beginning this is not a big deal, but over time that additional realism is very noticeable. AccuRC requires a LOT more CPU than Realflight or Phoenix but it has an even better physics engine. With all 3 loaded on my computer I'm flying AccuRC almost all the time unless I'm trying to be comparative with them. I used Phoenix 3 and 4 for over a year and then Real Flight 7 for about 10 months and I've been using AccuRC as my main simulator for only a few weeks. I did update to Phoenix 5.0r and RF 7.0.036 and AccuRC 1.1 at the moment to compare all of their current versions.
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Mark Dusty Shelf queens: TDR2, TDR, Protos Max, Logo 550SX, Protos 500, Jeti DS-16, etc.... |
09-11-2014, 01:24 AM | #14 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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The one thing that is very unrealistic about Real Flight is the crashes
If you take a 450 heli and slam it into the ground onto its skids nothing breaks. Try that in real life and see how you go |
09-11-2014, 07:42 PM | #15 (permalink) | |
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Despite the looks, I prefer the feel of RF to Phoenix. Ease of setup to controller is not high on my priority list for a sim (as I seldom do this). Looks is also not the highest on my list either (happy to turn down the detail to almost cartoonish if it flies well). How configurable the helis are and how it flies are my main criteria. For me RF scores well on these marks. AccuRC requires serious horsepower to run well, but I can "feel" the difference in how it flies. If only my laptop did not overheat after 15mins of AccuRC. The home PC does well, but I am overseas more than home. (24 weeks since Jan 1).
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TRex 700E Pro DFC HV (BD3SX) - Gaui X5 (6S/BD3SX), Blade 130X, RealFlight, Heli-X, Taranis+DSMX |
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09-23-2014, 08:54 AM | #16 (permalink) | |
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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RF has the closest physics when doing auto rotations all the other sims fall well short in this department. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD |
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09-23-2014, 09:27 AM | #17 (permalink) | |
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The 6 months was taken from From tail-in to all 8s and funnels in 6 months If you have a background in RC planks, mastering moving orientations will be shortened considerably (but heading hold on rudder may cause a few nervous moments and backwards flying will always be tricky to learn).
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TRex 700E Pro DFC HV (BD3SX) - Gaui X5 (6S/BD3SX), Blade 130X, RealFlight, Heli-X, Taranis+DSMX |
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09-23-2014, 11:33 AM | #18 (permalink) |
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2014
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Thanks for all your help on this. im leaning towards Heli-X. This is because at first Im interested in oriantation more than anything else and it looks like I will be able to wire it up to a macbook. I couldnt go for the AccuRC as it is to hungry for the macbook and the RF seems it could be a headache for me to set up. Does anyone know the cost of Heli-X as all I can find is the free download and I assume you make the full purchase from within the app.
Thanks a lot.
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Blade 130x, Blade Nano CPx |
09-23-2014, 05:00 PM | #19 (permalink) | |
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Download of the full application happens from the web site. Activation removes the 10 minute nag screen and unlocks the ability to fly more helis (and use extra training modes like ball trainer). Extra helis can be downloaded within the application. If you can run the download in demo mode, you can be sure the full application runs.
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TRex 700E Pro DFC HV (BD3SX) - Gaui X5 (6S/BD3SX), Blade 130X, RealFlight, Heli-X, Taranis+DSMX |
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02-20-2015, 03:09 PM | #20 (permalink) | |
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: San Diego, Calif
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Excellent breakdown of the sims |
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