Does having a yoke (and accessories) add much to flight sim, or is it not worth the money and it's better to go with a joystick?

Thanks,
boeing247

I have used a CH Yoke (no pedals) but it is out of action at the moment. When I was using it, I liked its performance and I like the way it felt when I was flying. It seemed a lot more precise than my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. I have plans to get it back in working order ASAP so I can use it again.

Mark

That's a good question? Yoke vs Stick.

I've tried a few different types over the years and I believe it boils down to personal preference.

Right now I am using a Logitech G940. It has way more buttons and trims than I will ever use. It is also a force feed back stick and you either like that or hate it. I find it OK most of the time since it has little things like a quick bump in the controls when the gear leaves the up lock on the way down and also when it goes up and the gear doors close. If you get slow you get stick shaker and that is fairly real to the touch. If you like to fly choppers, the stick does a good job of feeding back the vibration of the main rotor.

The G940 is a three piece set with stick, throttle and rudder. The rudder pedal part is fully adjustable for the amount of pressure on the pedal and it has retractable teeth to grip the carpet. The throttle part has 8 buttons with 2 functions per button, plus a whole bunch of other buttons and hats to move around the simulator, and it has two split throttles. OK with 2 engine planes, but I just keep them locked together when flying the 707 or 747.

It's pretty well made - I've had it 3 years and beat the hell out of it!  :o

It would be interesting to read what others think about this subject.

Lou

Good afternoon every body,
I use a Saitek Yoke and rudder pedals when my wife allowed me. I prefer fly with a yoke than a joystick because it feels more Boeing...  A yoke takes more place.
Anyone knows this Yoke ? :
http://www.aviatorsoft.com/PBSCProduct.asp?ItmID=3004000

Friendly

Yannick,

Sacre bleu! Parler de gros sous! Tres Cool  8-)

For me, that's a bit too much like work!!!  ;D  :D  ;)

That yoke costs more than my computer, FSX, and every addon I've bought for it!

Oops, just saw that thread. So my message to Mark could also be placed here.

I'm going on joysticks after trying a yoke once and first all missing the force feedback option there. I saw some FF becoming available later but the prices there are far away from what I'm about to spend.
But I think they were aiming at some homebuilders market, or even commercial ones.

That G940 from Logitech is a nice set, not free of flaws but all of them can be handled. And if you use FF with that additional software from FSForce it will give you at least some feel for your aircraft. Trim, ground impact, sluggish full flap feelings, damping .. it's all there and all adjustable for your bird. FSX has FF implemented too, but misses some options there. So e. g. feeling that you are getting closer to stall speed isn't available there.
As said, ain't no affordable FF yoke around, so you are mainly stuck to joysticks which isn't a downside in my eyes though.

One just has to be aware that the construction of a joystick will always make it more sensible than a yoke because of the smaller distances of axis movement available there. So while you turn your yoke some few degrees by moving your hands around the axis quite some centimetres, that joystick doesn't grab the steering axis at some distance but more spot on (unless you grab that thing at the top end), resulting in far less distance there.
Doesn't need any special setup in FSX though, but e. g. going "full left" to "full right" with a joystick happens really fast while the yoke will give you a more damped experience.
This may be more realistic when flying some (big) birds and far away from that when going on stick steered ones (which isn't an Airbus only thing, but e. g. normal on some GA birds too).

So it depends a bit. FF alone gives me a clear joystick preference here.

If it helps, the 2 throttle setups like on the G940 can be rendered more useful with the registered FSUIPC, allowing some left engines (1,2) /right engines (3,4) setup then. I'm running all 4 engine birds like this.

Alright, you bought the best planes on the market - CS of course  :) and you have either a cool $2,000 yoke or a more reasonable $100 three piece set, now you need http://www.d-box.com/gaming/  :o

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9927/productmainimageen.jpg


D-Box motion code is part of FSX, it's also part of almost every Blue Ray DVD and some 7 or 800 regular DVD's. For a whole bunch of $$$ you can get a game chair with these cool actuators built into the chair to give you pitch, roll, heave and other vibrations in sync with the visual picture.

I would really like to try this out to see how it works.

The one with the most toys...Wins!


Lou



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Godd evening evreybody,

about the D box, the red chair is very flashy... Where is the  white "moumoute" like in Boeing cockpit seats ? The 737 yoke is a little bit expensive for me but it could be amazing with the future 737 Captain... Lou, perhaps have you a real Boeing Yoke in your living room ? Merci beaucoup Lou pour vos quelques mots en français.
Friendly

Yannick,

I think the Boeing yoke is tres cool, but I would rather keep my stick and put the money in a very high res monitor.

No yoke for me...40 years was enough. I think the side stick is the way to go since the yoke is just a big joystick anyway.

Lou

You know, I never really gave this much thought, but whenever I use the rudder with the joystick to control the airplane in flight, the airplane moves and then swings back to its original heading. Forgive the newbie question, but is the rudder supposed to function like that, or is it my joystick?

My guess is that your joystick has a twist grip that is used for the rudder in FS (same as mine). After you release it, it centers itself and so the planes rudder will center itself as well. I try to slowly twist my joystick back to the center so that it isn't a sudden movement for the plane.

Yeah, I have the Extreme 3D Pro, too. I'll try that out and see if I can control the plane.

One other thing that could be causing it to behave like that is that you have Autorudder ON (ALT > Aircraft > Realism), if so, turn it OFF.

Mark

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