p3t3rmax

I have the exact same laptop and it's fine, just about all maxed out. I use the latest Nvidia drivers. I ugraded to Windows 11 in the meantime and it seems a tad quicker but no worse. It's great for FS2020 as well. Try to remove all the Lenovo bloatware although mine is out of the box, reinstall if not resolved, upgrade to Win 11 as that would be like a reinstall, etc. I love the laptop.

IMHO- the only worthwhile planes in FC3 are the Migs, mostly the Mig 29 although the 33 is handy for flying off the carrier and has great cargo carrying capacity so can do a bit of dumb bombing as well - 27 is similar apart from not being carrier capable. I do love the Mig-29 though for its trickier flight model. They're all very similar so easy to switch. The F15 is too arcady IMHO so not very realistic. The A10C is not that bad to get going on, just eat it in small pieces as Gainky suggests, has an amazing flight model so do lots of general flying - takeoffs and landings, etc. Pretend you're doing a PPL! Then start learning armaments one by one with easy missions you can create yourself. Key me thinks is a good HOTAS setup and then rerun all the training until you start getting the hang of it, just takes a lot so time so be patient. I always start hot on the runway, don't have time and energy for the lengthy startup, will also cause a divorce. Don't discount the free Su 25t as it is an amazing bomb truck, being faster than the A10 helps too. I regularly jump into dog fights between the two in my own missions. I think the A10Cs AA missile logic is over the top as I regularly get shot down by it when I'm in any of the Migs in single player missions, perhaps I don't know what I'm doing!

Hi Swaps, sounds like you're having fun at least and like me, flying on a controlled budget:-) Also flew small planes in the naughties so DCS is my one of my flying fixes along with FS2020. This is how I do it: I have FC3, KA50 and the A10C and tend to rotate between the A10C and the SU25T mostly with some of the Migs from FC3 and KA50 on a laptop. The Mig 29 in FC3 is awesome and possibly the only reason to buy FC3. I made the mistake of fixating a lot on the A10C which is a marvel but the SU is great fun for free so in one mission I jump between them a lot. I love trying to get it back to the runway or crash landing after its been shot up and before it blows up. It is not terribly manoeuvrable so be gentle on the stick and keep speed up but it should not want to crash all the time. I only play single player missions and build them myself in the builder which is good fun, the missions tend to evolve over a lot of reiterations. Missions are CAS but they often spill over into dog fights between the A10C and the SU25T. You have to get as close to the opponent as you can before firing as the A10's counter measures work well. So if you just have the base SU25T you can have a lot of fun, just do all the training missions, build some missions that are a mix of ground pounding and chasing off A10s, no scripting required. I've even taken out the odd F15, stay clear and try and get onto their backsides. I have a laptop so when I fly I zoom in on the cockpit until I can see the hud well, usually so that the bottom of the screen is on the bottom of the instrument panel. When up in the air I mainly fly with the external view. I tried a free head tracker but I was instantly nauseous so gave up. In the Gameplay options panel I've set Labels to DOT NEUTRAL so that targets display a dot as they can be tough to spot on a laptop, F10 map screen helps too, I reckon in real life someone is giving you radio directions. Have a second screen where I display the TV camera and A10 MFDs which helps a lot with spotting but the external view displays them well too. I use the TV camera a lot to hunt for targets even with bombs. At the moment my favourite layout is a pair of KH29Ts and as many 100kg bombs as I can fit. The Vikhr is awesome too but got a bit bored with it, too repetitive. What joystick do you have? One area you do need a good quality product for - have an oldish Saitek X52 that I love as it still feels as solid as a brick sh*thouse after a lot of abuse. Lots of buttons to configure and these work well on the non-clickable SU25T. Twist rudder is good too. If you're stalling a lot it is possibly because your stick is too sensitive. I have my pitch saturation set to 80 in the Axis tuning settings, set it so that you just start getting the stall warning when you pull back fully on the stick. As said trimming is vital, the autopilot is quite good too so I use that as well. Have fun, it's a great sim but it's not real life so focus on the fun factor.

Hi Flappie You have a point with the AI planes crashing easily into obstacles like mountains. I've often seen that as I like to create big missions, often in the mountains, with lots of planes and armour and often see the planes crash for silly reasons as you say - watching the AI armour fight is interesting as they really clobber each other. I do still see unrealistic crashes though, something that did not happen on older versions. They often crash land and then disappear after a while.

Have been re-flying the previous mission without any weird AI crashed but just had this older mission do it - started mission, flew for a while till I had a CFIT, let the mission run for a while with AI planes then took the screenshot of the crashed AI plane. Updated to the latest stable version before I started, installation is only a few months old as the laptop is quite new. I reran the track to see where this crash happened but it did not happen again in the track - checked it a few times. I noticed before that the crashed plane would disappear after a while. PlanceCrashTrack.trk

I will try to get a track when it happens again. Here's a screenshot. That is not realistic. I often try to crash land when shot up and this is not survivable. Attached one of my missions. There is no scripting, just bog standard mission editor. I try to build nice big battles and jump from side to side into different planes, depends on where the most fun is PMS-BeslanMountainAttack02.miz Another one

I have a lot of missions that I build myself without any fancy scripting, just use regular mission builder features. Since a release or two ago many planes that get shot down do not crash but rather perform quite unrealistic crash landings onto the terrain and then lie on the terrain, sometimes half buried. They then seem to disappear after a while.

I recently bought a Lenovo Legion 5 laptop with a RTX 3060 Laptop GPU and Ryzen 5000 Series 7 CPU with 8 cores and 32gb RAM to replace an ageing i7 and old Nvidia 970M graphics card and am pleasantly surprised. Bought it on a refurbished type sale at a very good price with balance of warranty. Screen is 1080 and getting about 75-90ish FPS with settings on max. FS2020 is great on max settings as well. I think the better CPU makes a huge difference as well. There seem to be plenty of these types of laptops around and you can PC-ise it by hooking up a big screen and keyboard. Also has space for an additional SSD so added a 1tb to the existing 512gb. So far a great upgrade.

I think a good quality HOTAS makes a massive impact on your enjoyment and the Thrustmaster T flight X looks a bit plasticky IMHO. I've had a Saitek/Logitech X62 Pro for a few years now and it is magic, solid, clunky, great feel, great for Microsoft Flightsim 2020 as well, just about enough buttons too if the budget goes that far. The layout is not exactly like the Warthog stick but getting that budget past the wife did not work for me either. I've tried to program the stick to be the same across all the planes I fly so that it is easier to remember - Su25t, A10c, Mig29, KA50, etc. I map trim to the main trim hat and use keyboard keys to look around and it works fine. I do fly only single player though. I tried one of the cheap track things and got instant vertigo although I never got it while flying small stuff in real life, so rather spend the money on TrackIR if you go that way IMHO.

I also read the negative reviews then bought an X52 Pro about 2 months ago and have not regretted it yet. Quality seems great and have had no funny software glitches on Windows 10 64 bit with USB 3. Has made a massive difference to my SIM enjoyment. The T.16000M FCS Hotas looks interesting but seems to be a bit plastic, won't know until trying it.

Rather buy the A10C I so agree that that it is better to buy the A10C and not FC3. I downloaded DCS 1.5 a while ago, bought a cheap joystick and tried out the SU25T, running through the tutorials and just doing general flying, lots of touch and goes, had a private pilots licence in my previous life and miss general flying a ton. It flies like a tank but has quite good weapons systems and the tutorials are great, better to get to know it well before moving on. I then bought FC3 because I wanted to try the A10 as we all want to. Tried that for a while but got frustrated with the old avionics. Tried some of the other FC3 aircraft but did not like them much. Bit the bullet and bought the A10C. It is a totally absorbing exercise once you get over the initial shock of the complexity. The systems are so detailed and complex but the key is getting to grips with the HOTAS so focus on that. Bought a Saitek X52 Pro and despite some negative reviews I love it, great feeling and although it does not have the same layout as the A10 you can match it quite closely. It has great tutorials and general missions. I'm still learning but can do nice touch and goes with the HOTAS, wack stuff with the gun, Maverick and some other iron. The flight model and realism is awesome, it will suck you in and own you!

I find that the AGM-65K locks on easier to armour than the D too, so tend to switch to that. Pausing overhead a target and having a good look around helps too! Been trying to finish the first mission (bit of a newbie) of the campaign but tend to get slaughtered by the AAA low down. Is fun to limp back to base with half a plane though. The A-10C has better avionics, starting to feel that it would have been better to rather have spent the money on that than FC3. The SU25T is a bit of a dog to fly but has better weapons systems too. Do love the A-10A's flight model though, feels like a real plane.