If anyone from Microsoft is reading this message, direct yourself over to Robert X. Cringley's site for this week's article on a graphics compression technology that effectively compresses graphics and animation by a ratio of 50 to 70:1 (that's no typo). Best of all, ProGATE can be applied AFTER all development is complete. It can even be applied to games that were developed years ago. Seems pretty impressive to me.The implications of the possibilities of this technology, if true, might revolutionize the FlightSim industry.http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030227.html

Ok, time now for Bill G. to launch his personal set of satellites to get us some photographic scenery....for all 4 seasons that is :-)Before I forget: please add 1000+ different cloud textures per cloud type and not to forget multi-million polygon GMAX models :-hahSerious, if this becomes common we're in for some neat surprises!(note: to be run on Cray machines only...)Gideon