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With election duty over, now have time off in rest of march to finally build that Home Cockpit I always wanted! Building a G1000 cockpit to replicate Small Single/Twin.

i7 based core computer with Arduino based MEGA interface for the controls. No SaiTek shit for me: building my own yoke & throttle quadrant.

i7 7700K 4.2 Ghz with ASUS 270 PRIME-A motherboard. That motherboard can handle 3 displays simultaneously. Plan to run 2 10.4" LCD displays for the Garmin PFD/MFD and the HDMI port to run the main Scenery screen in HD. Not settled on the Main screen yet: was thinking of getting a not to expensive LED HD projector like we had in our flying school. Gives more immersion and Not too bad if room is kept dark when in use.

Question about the FSX Scenery addons: And any add-on scenery packs worth having? I like doing mountain/STOL flying in singles most. Loved flying around Idaho in a real C172 - would love to find some nice scenery like that to replicate in FSX.

Seen some amazing addons that seem to help with more realistic rendering of textures & stuff. FSX Orbx and FS Global. Are these useful addons to have? Worth the $$$? Can we have FSX Orbx and custom airport scenery running at the same time? How does it work.

(clueless about how the scenery engine in FSX).

Just a question but have you considered VR? That decision would change your build drastically.

VR? As in with those goggles?

It gives an immersive experience, but its not very realistic. You dont sit in a real cockpit with a goggle like that - not yet anyway?

I am building this more for practising the Garmin G1000. Right now I fly only 5-10 hours/year - just enough to keep my license current. And its a challenge remembering everything.

Yes, I recently rebuilt my home sim with Oculus Rift and flyinside. If you haven't tried it, you should before you build.

You do sit in the cockpit, and its much more realistic than you would expect. I feel like i get many of the same sensations as when I'm in a real airplane. It's really something you need to experience to understand.

Anyway back to the question, my new machine is an i5 7600k, overclocked to 4.9ghz, but I'm not sure if you will get any benefit from 8 threads, most software right now sticks to 4 threads. I'm extremely happy with it. I don't know if you've tried xplane, but if you're a real pilot you will appreciate the ability to fly real approaches and many other ways it is superior to fsx. I had fsx before and i was unimpressed.

If you are going multi screen you will need at least a 1070 gtx, youd need more processor to utilize a 1080 in a flight sim.

Hope this helps.

I tried out Samsung VR goggles yesterday. While the immersive effect is awesome, i just dont feel the experience is realistic with that thing strapped on! Planning to use either my old 40" Sony LCD TV or an inexpensive LED HD projector

njxc500 wrote:

Anyway back to the question, my new machine is an i5 7600k, overclocked to 4.9ghz, but I'm not sure if you will get any benefit from 8 threads, most software right now sticks to 4 threads. I'm extremely happy with it. I don't know if you've tried xplane, but if you're a real pilot you will appreciate the ability to fly real approaches and many other ways it is superior to fsx. I had fsx before and i was unimpressed.

If you are going multi screen you will need at least a 1070 gtx, youd need more processor to utilize a 1080 in a flight sim.

Hope this helps.

Is an i5 sufficient? I used to run FSX single screen on my old i3 desktop with no addons. It used to be a drag even with Textures, scenery & realism set to minimums!

Not getting a dedicated graphics card as of now. Might in the future. The Motherboard i selected ASUS Z-270A Prime can run 3 video outs simulateneously. Planning to use the HDMI out for the Terrain view (LED Projector), and the other 2 VGA/DVI outs to run the 2 10.4 inch LCD's on the Cockpit panel.

I am building the Cockpit panel out of 8 & 2mm MDF wood. Completed Panel will have 2 of these units seen in the picture.


2 x Arduino MEGA boards for the various switches on both PFD & MFD, as well as TPM quadrant (built using Slide Pots). Building Yoke ground up using One Slide Pot & One Rotary Pot. That will be hardest part to build.

I think yuh should look further into the resolution of the screens when you run three off the same gpu, usually the displays need to be similar resolution.....might not be too big of a deal but the displays may end up being a different aspect ratio.

I also wonder whether it's realistic to expect to run 3 screens off integrated graphics, regardless of the resolution.....I'm not sure that will work.

I'm also thinking that this is what held back your i3, integrated graphics. My machine is running a gtx 1070, and yes my cpu seems to set the pace, but I'm still getting 50fps in VR, I'm not thinking there's much to gain with an i7, considering most current software doesn't use any more than 4 threads simultaneously.