Aerofly, 4D scenery, and MacBook Pro
 

I've been holding off on Aerofly 5.5 and a Mac purchase for months. It is barely 24 hours after the announcement of new MacBook Pro 15" and 17" laptops with much higher performance ATI graphics processors. Can Mark tell us when/if Aerofly might be tested on these new machines? If the answer is that months will pass before we have updated information, I'll just pull the trigger on both products and live on the bleeding edge!

Tom<br type="_moz" />

RE: Aerofly, 4D scenery, and MacBook Pro
 

Tom, you can find the recommended specs for the mac system and video card here http://www.aerofly.com/requirements_en.html

RE: Aerofly, 4D scenery, and MacBook Pro
 

Thanks for the quick reply Mark!

The recommended ATI 4850 doesn't seem to ship on any Mac and accessing which cards are equal to or faster than the 4850 is very difficult, The specs (GFlops, memory bandwidth, number of shaders, etc.) on the ATI/AMD website are not stated consistently from one product line to the next. The product numbers seem to have no bearing on the actual speed of the products. For instance, the PassMark Software site ranks the 5670 below the 4850 but the 5750 higher than the 4850. This is probably not very relevant in that any benchmark test suite is unlikely to stress the GPUs in exactly the manner that AeroFly does. So I was hoping that direct AeroFly testing could be done eventually. Until then, I suppose it's up to the early adopters to try out the GPU/AeroFly combination, run 4D scenes if available, or back down to the photo scenes if not.

Based on several of the threads here, it seems that AeroFly is compatible with Specktrum transmitters with the proper adapter, but that compatibility and that adapter are not listed on the AeroFly requirements page. Being clear about that on the requirements page would make life easier.

Thanks for all your support on the RC Universe forum.

Tom<br type="_moz" />

RE: Aerofly, 4D scenery, and MacBook Pro
 

I see by the number of views that this thread has generated some interest so I thought I would post an update. I ordered a MacBook Pro Core i7 2.2 GHz, 4 cores, with the Radeon HD 6750M, and with the higher res 1680x1050 anti-gloss display. I ordered and installed Aerofly 5.0.3.5 and downloaded and updated to 5.5.0.7. (Of course I didn't order the laptop solely to run Aerofly; I am replacing my vintage 2003 laptop.)I also ordered the 31036 Y-adapter cord to use my Spektrum DX7 as the controller.

I set up the graphics for full screen 1680x1050 resolution. So far I've flown in the photo-realistic panoramas and in the 4D sceneries. In the 4D sceneries, the GPU provides 40 to 60 FPS with the graphics quality set to "High" and 20 to 40 FPS with the graphics set to "Ultra". I don't really notice that much quality difference between the two so I've left it at "High" for now. Bottom line, the newer 15" and 17" MacBook Pro's do seem to have the graphics capability to run the 4D scenes. This is beneficial to me because some of the viewing modes (follow, cockpit, etc.) only work in the 4D scenes.

I encourage others with newer iMacs to post there experience with Aerofly to help those wondering if their machines meet the recommended system requirements.

Tom<br type="_moz" />