RealFlight 8 Reviews

It's alright. I fly quads aka drones mostly in real life, and they are... bad to say the least. I'll list why below: -Ever try lowering your P gain to zero? Don't do that. This sim put it low. - Any roll causes them to fall uncontrolable -No air mode BUT! The planes and heli's are great. So 2/3 models are perfect

I'm a beginner, when it comes to flying RC-Planes, but I noticed that the flight-physics in this simulator are quite off. You can fly realy heavy planes waaaay to slow, without stalling them ever. I guess this realy bad habbits and muscle memory in real world. Furthermore, promised and essential features, like editing/adjusting planes just lead to a crash "back to windows". Did not get any errormessage, did not find any logs. So cannot provide more Info. ATM I'm not quite satisfied. Feels as if I invested 100 € into the wrong simulator.

No longer works under the latest Win 10 version and AMD 5700 XT graphics card. RF8 uses DX9 and the current AMD driver doesn't support the old legacy DirectX9. I do like the sim a lot otherwise. EDIT: There's now a workaround - DXVK by doitsujin. It's a replacement D3D9 DLL that I dropped into the STEAM app folder for the sim (replacing the existing file). My RX 5700 XT now runs RF8 under Vulkan - unbeknownst to the program. The DLLs are on GitHub. RF8 is a 32-bit app. so I used the x86 DLL.

Playability The Playability of RealFlight 8 is amongst the best simulators I have used in relation to the realistic physics of the models. From the moment I plug in the Interlink USB Transmitter the SIM instantly maps all the primary channels I require to fly my model. Should I wish to make any channel adjustments I can easily make this in the menu. The Interlink transmitter however whilst is an easy to use product for RealFlight is also is a source of great confusion and frustration for some that are new to RealFlight. Simply put without a RealFlight compatible USB controller or dongle you are not able to use the Simulator. AccuRC or another Simulator such as PhoenixRC maybe a better choice in this regard however as you can simply use a cheaper dongle to connect any transmitter to their software. Once you have however plugged in your controller and take-off instantly the physics of the models becomes a very apparent strong point of this software. From performing Aileron Tic-Tocs to Autorotation’s you can feel the weight of the model as realistically as I would fly a model in real life. Sounds The sounds of the models whilst flying I feel does sound a little tinny and may struggle to capture an absolutely realistic representation of some models, I believe it is still a fair representation for a SIM from the revving of a nitro engine to the flutter of blades as you come in to land an auto. Graphics RealFlight has highly detailed models with reflective canopy's and photorealistic fields all rendered through Direct X 9. Whilst one of the more demanding Simulators on a GPU you will also experience fantastic graphic fidelity through a range of post processing effects including bloom and depth of field. Whilst, these effects create a uniquely gorgeous flying experience I have found some people using the SIM to lose depth perception using too many of these additional effects which can also negatively affect your frame rate and flying. I have previously used this SIM however on a Nvidia GTX 970 4GB GPU pushing well over 60FPS and my recommendations for getting a good experience with RealFlight is to lower the depth of field settings until you have smooth performance, find a suitable camera angle and fly. Mods and Community In relation to the RC and RealFlight community as a whole it is always expanding and if you want to look into downloading additional new Aircraft and Airports you can visit the knifeedge.com Swap pages. Adding an additional aircraft of airport is as simple as extracting the new files into your C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\RealFlight 8 folder and reloading the simulator. Verdict Overall RealFlight 8 is one of the most photorealistic experiences you will have flying a remote-control model without leaving the house. The physics of the models provide a unique sense of weight to each one flown and provides a great training platform for anyone looking to getting into Remote Control Planes, Helicopters and drones. If you are new to RealFlight, as I alluded to before you will need to also purchase the InterLink DX controller for an additional cost to get the most out of the software. In reviewing RealFlight 8 I have used multiple other RC Aircraft Simulators including the early editions of RealFlight, PhoenixRC, neXt and AccuRC. I have over 10 years’ experience in building, maintaining and flying model RC Helicopters from 250 size all the way up to 700. I also have extensive experience in both electric and Nitro models. In taking the above into account I have reviewed the product on Playability, Sound, Graphics and Modding. RealFlight is without a doubt still the premier product for learning how to fly a Remote-Control Helicopter model.

I have found it helpful to stay proficient when I can't fly. The biggest fault that I have with the program is that the plane seems to become smaller as you fly away at a faster rate than the a real plane does in actual flight. Maybe it's just me though. Anyone else noticed this?

[Edited after 150hs of usage] Physics are good. Graphics are good. Plane editing is somehow complicated. Plane selection is uncomprehensible, many classics are missing: For instance, Top Flite warbird 60 models, Great Planes Extra 40/60 size, Spirit 2M sailplane. Helis ? No Trex 450, no Hirobo Shuttle, Sceadu nor Eagle, no Kyosho Concept nor Nexus, no TT Raptor 30/50. Come on ! I mentioned some of all-time best sellers ! I've had a hard time dealing with graphic card drivers until I can reduce significantly the number of crashes at start

For years, and I have been using Realflight for years and many versions, it could have been considered a high quality marketing arm for Great Planes. As other manufacturers began to dominate the RC world, I chaffed at the bit at being stuck in the RC world of the 90's. I can't even count the number of times I paid for same basic aircraft models. There have always been nods to changes in the RC industry, but I can use up an entire hand for the times I paid for the next Realflgiht version and got the same models. I jumped at the Steam version to avoid yet another set of CDROMs. The fact that Realflight has opened the door to the dominant players in today's RC world is good, but for this price, Horizon Hobbies should not be an addon. In fact, Horizon should be looking at inclusion in this sim as a marketing strategy for selling their products. Switching Great Planes for another corporate overlord is not ideal for the users and potential Horizon customers. That said, this is the best RC flight sim available, and I've tried all of them. This is the one that allows you to show up at the field ready to fly. When you consider the cost against the number of expensive models you would crash, it's a relative bargain. When you consider the cost of the controller and the sim itself, it's easy to make the opposite argument. I'm not saying the devopers don't deserve the money, and I'm not saying the hypothetical aircraft models aren't worth your money, but I am saying that what Realfight has always been, apparently, is a marketing system for the manufacturers of RC models. Those manufacturers should not only be supporting the developers, they should be standing in line to offer the users as much free content as possible. If I like to fly a model in this sim, my odds of purchasing the actual model have gone up sharply. I do recommend Realfight for the quality of the simulation, but I also suffer from buyer's fatigue. For this money on Steam, and the need for new users to aquire a controller, and after buying so many disk copies, I think they could have started with every model they've ever sold as core or addon and built from there. It's great deal against crashing aircraft, and a poor deal against their longtime users. If your goal is to fly real world RC and you are looking for way to become proficient, this is the way.

Physics seems to be so far from real life. Gosh! Really, SO FAR! You can make a sequence of loopings with a giant B-25 without feel stall, for example. In pre-stall speeds, ailerons (in some airplanes) works so nice as if you were at 200 miles per hour. It's not like this in real life! Come! All airplanes seems so much heavier than real life, by the way. Some quads physics are bizarre. Really! It used to be the best R/C sim in the past. This version make me feel down. I compare it just like some kinds os RC sim you can get at App Store or Google Play to play on your mobile for free. If you have never tried piloting a RC plane, this GAME can just offer you some fun moments. Just this. If you are a veteran piloting RC Planes, you're gonna feel frustrated with it. Really! Beleive me! Tried to use a Flysky control and also my Futaba. All the same. Bad experience. Real Flight used to be a good simulator. But became some kind of poor game, witch you can challenge yourself on, play in multiplayer mode and that's it.... It's a really arcade game. You have a list os more than 50 airplanes. The only one you can feel like, 40% that it is in real life, is the Big Stick. I was excited when you put Real Flight on Steam. But now frustraded!

Be aware This is a RC Flight Training tool NOT a game!! Downloaded installed runs perfectly!! Very happy customer.. since rf5 6 7 7.5 and now RF8 VR. combined old Interlink controller tethered to Optima 9 Tx with my HP Windows reality VR headset & GTX1070 Predator laptop this combination just simply ROCKS!!! Guys, when RF8 is used with reasonably decent hardware it is well worth the effort. However there are significant scale issues with some of the models especially when in VR mode and blurring of small models when u flypast. pixelation of heli models in VR mode is very disappointing. I hope knife edge take this seriously an fixes these fundamental software issues!! Otherwise we are a happy RF family.

Do not works and too many bugs. 1.Freez when you shift "alt", and shows "Error:D3DERR_INVALIDCALL" "File: DXDevice.cpp" "Line:118" 2. cannot change resolution (after changing it all the time goes back to various resolution but not to which you choose) 3. Anti-alaising and post anti-alaising doesnt works - straight limits/lines of models shows with a HUGE stages and like from 90s Do not recommend it to buy until they will fix all the bugs and issues.