May I comment to Microsoft concerning FS2002.

[Guest]

Hello: I have been purchasing the FS series since the mid-80's. Times have obviously changed. So has hardware. For example, I have:P4 2.2 NorthwoodAsus P4T-E1 Gig PC800VisionTek TI460019" Asus(total HW costs here, about $1,400.00...not bad, eh?)Everything FS Maxed, no water reflection or detailed textures. Mesh/ATC 90%. 1600 X 1024, 32bits, no AAYoke, Rudder, and Throttle USB.I have all the Add-on Aircraft. Its a fact, they are better than the stock models. But in the end, it all runs in FS2002, and that is the point of my comments.FS2002 team: I am a retired Air Traffic Controller, I am a Computer System Manager. I am a pilot who has not logged real time in 15 years. 4 children, and the costs of aviation vs. my salary could not allow me to continue to fly. Your product, and products like these have kept my love of aviation alive. Always there was hope, always there was the vision of true "flight simulation". Up till now, it has been a dream. And I'm referring to the total package. FM, panels, WX, ground topology and elevation, airports, navaids, etc. The whole enchilada.With MSFS2002, that dream is now realized, at least for me. With the system described above, visuals are crisp, animation liquid smooth, and the suspension of disbelief, total. And just for the record, since the comments are directed to Microsoft. Your ATC is just fine for first pass. Many, many aspects are dead on. Especially the phraseology. Your efforts are noticed.Thank you very much Microsoft. I did indeed get my $70.00 (retail) worth. As I have for every add-on I've bought so far. It is so great to fly once more. It has been my dream. Thank you.btPS...if you are curious as to what motivates this fawning post, check out this screenie of a trip up the Columbia Gorge...

[Guest]

btacon,I'm with you 100% on this one. Just a few minutes ago I made several go arounds at San Fran at night in a light single engine. Thanks to PAI and other contributors, it was a very real experience. I'm sitting in the dark, flying in the dark, and playing chicken with some large United aircraft (breaking every record in the book, but why not, it is a simulator after all). When I would get close enough to hear their engines at say 700 ft it actually made me nervous for just a split second. The graphics at night with the right system are truly amazing. Whether I'm flying for true simulation or just messing around, I always feel like I'm getting my money's worth.The open-ended nature of the sim is both it's curse and saving grace. For the first few months things start slowly, but within a half a year or so there is so much to play with that it gets overwhelming. For the next year things are going to move fast with both payware and freebies, so hang on tight and have a good time.Enjoy,Spruce

[Guest SoarPics]

Well said, Braun, I'll second your feelings.Regards,

[Guest PaulL01]

Great expressions Braun!But for god sakes man! dont let "them" know that, I mean word will spread and the crew that's about to start work on FS2k4 will all be let go! :)Yes, Flight siming as come along way, But there still is more to be done! For starters it would be great to have the rest of the scenery SDK so that better river, road and coastline data can be added to the great new Mesh areas that are now available. Hint, Hint, hint! :)Best regards,

[Geofa 108]

100% agree. What a great tool for real flying-I am convinced it has saved my bacon already for its practice value.Speaking of such:http://ftp.avsim.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboa...rum=DCForumID47And I want to than Microsoft for doing the Oshkosh scenery-it is payware quality-they gave it to us for free.Obviously they are not in it only for the money....http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.gif

[LAdamson 240]

I'll "third" this then. Although the product can be nit-picked for it's shortcomings, I think it's by far the best overall simulation for the love of flight......... that's available for home PC's. Between the core structure & add-ons, FS2002 has something for just about everyone. L.Adamson

[Noel 4,483]

Braun, tell me what situations degrade that liquid smooth performance. What would the Falcon 50 coming into KSFO at dusk in variable clouds do insofar as degrading performance? I run my machine at 1792 x 1344 and in taxing situations she'll drop to about 8-9 worst case, probably 9-10 at 1600 x 1200 x 32. I'd really love a system that could maintain 20+ in virtually any situation, high res mesh, etc.I'm seriously considering a major upgrade to all system components and at this point I'm going very close to all out, but I won't pull the trigger until I can get a Northwood to run at very close to 3GHz with stock cooling. Additionally I'm going to spring for the PC1066 RDRAM at 1GB on a Win2000 platform. The final huge expense will come with a dual Seagate Cheetah X15 SCSI160 file system for the ultimate in relieving the CPU of any burden for I/O work. I'm sure there will the situations that overload even this system, so I'm curious how your system handles situations that tax machines like my current P3 at 1GHz, with 512mb of PC100 ram, and a Radeon 64 DDR card. Right now the sim is generally quite good but bogs down in heavy clouds or complex airports, and I find aircraft like the Falcon almost unusable as I'm spoiled with smoother flight with the default aircraft.Tell me what taxes your machine Braun if you would.Noel

[Guest]

What a sensible post.There isn't any product in the world that you can't nitpick if you really try hard enough. As far as I am concerned Microsoft have created an excellent flight simulator which continues to give me maximum enjoyment every day. Well worth every penny, cent, euro or whatever :-)David

[Guest]

setup.When FS2002 came out, I had a P3 800, 512megs, Geforce 3. Soon afterwards, I upgraded to a P4 1.7 Willamette. That was a BIG difference. Then, about 3 months ago, to upgrade the PC in the children's Home-School Classroom, I made the ultimate sacrifice :) and gave up the above P4, and replaced it with the Northwood board and proc I mentioned in my original post. Using stock 2002 scenery, almost ANY aircraft, anyplace, I get absolutely fantastic performance. One place where I really notice it is during taxi operations. Previous systems, even the 1.7 Willamette, would see some paging or stutter with AI Aircraft in vicinity. No more. I love to taxi now...its part of the total package!So...if you were going to wait for the system you mentioned in your post,a. You will have absolutely stellar performanceb. You won't have to wait long. Intel just announced a 2.8 I believe...just around the corner. Do you realize just 18 months ago or so we were just breaking the 1ghz barrier...and no one was confident just how far that would go!Best,bt

[Noel 4,483]

Braun, did anyone ever tell you you are downright inspiring? You got me feeling a strong sense of committment to this crazed goal of mine. I've got a plan for this installation which I can't wait to try:I live in Northern California and it gets hot up here this time of year. My house has a generous sized crawlspace under it, and when it's 95 degrees outside it's about 70 under the house. I let the inside of my house get up to 80-84 degrees during hot weather. So . . .I'm going to house the twin Cheetah X15's in an external SCSI drive enclosure, and locate the enclosure UNDER the floor in my PC room, to both keep the drives cool (gets to 40F in the wintertime), AND to eliminate the harddrive noise. With a Lian Li case (interior sprayed flat black) and no hard drives in the main PC case I think it should run quite cool. If for some reason the Lian Li needs additional cooling I will alter the air flow in the Lian Li to allow for a 4"-6" duct to carry cool air from in the crawlspace under the floor, and have the exit ducts vent the air outside the house via an outflow 4"-6" duct. By having two very low noise fans, one operating at the opening to the inflow duct under the house to push air towards the Lian Li intake port (using a 4"-6" PVC or ABS plastic collar), and the second fan located AT THE END of ducting carrying Lian Li exhaust air to the exterior of the house. The would assure a continual flow of 40 degree to 70 degree air throughout the Lian Li case. By locating the two fans remote from the PC case the noise in the main case is minimized dramatically to just the one lone CPU fan and one small GPU fan. The retail Northwood P4 fans are apparently very very quiet. And if it's done right, you can probably significantly reduce premature thermal injury to in particular the Cheetahs that run very hot, and also to the mainboard, memory, CPU and video board.Wish me luck!!Noel

[Guest]

Good Luck!Sounds like an inspired project!!!Let us know. Come over to the hardware forum...its where i "hang."Cheers,bt

[alastairmonk 0]

> I run my machine at 1792 x 1344 and in taxing situations >she'll drop to about 8-9 worst case, probably 9-10 at 1600 x >1200 x 32. I'd really love a system that could maintain 20+ >in virtually any situation, high res mesh, etc. >Noel,You might like to try decreasing your screen resolution. 1792x1344 is pretty high, and will be using up resources. You could try reducing this to say 1024x768 or 1280x720 and see if you gain some frames.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I agree with everything said bt....I still run FS2002 on a P3/800.... By running light on Autogen, and light on AI, I achieve my target fps of 25 almost everywhere, but perhaps that drops to 18 or so around "gated" airports like LAX and Vegas... But the visuals at those airports are worth it.The new KOSH scenery, which I just installed yesterday, is fantastic. There, I meet my 25fps with ease. So much detail is included in that gem, that I feel like I'm part of it when I buzz the field in my ultralight gyro.This shot--one of three I posted in the screenshots forum Sunday, sums up my feelings about the sim. For me, it can't get any more real than this, flying in the twilight and watching the dance between the landscape and evening shadows...-Johnhttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3d321ff53edf75d4.jpg