FS2004 Opening a can of worms

[michal 44]

>For me, it's all about the weather. and the sky, sunsets. As someone stated who saw the game at E3 "sunsets sell the game".>"floating wigs" as Richard Harvey he, he, I had no idea Rich coined this expression. Pretty good one !Michael J.

[Guest Tim13]

He mentioned it during the developement of FLY2 as a thinly veiled poke at the MS franchise. It was something to the effect that FLY2 wouldn't have floating wigs like other sims. Ironically, because of FLY2 being forced out the door by the parent company, FLY2 ended up with more "wigs" than FS. It still cracks me up when I think about it because it is true. Even the best weather tweaks created by Chris Willis still look like "floating wigs". LOL. Bring on the new weather!!!! Frames be dam**d!!!! LOL.Tim13

[1mikel151 71]

"Bring on the new weather!!!!Frames be dam**d!!!! LOL.Tim13"LOL! :-lol :-lolRegards, Michaelhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpgCalVirAir International VAwww.calvirair.comCougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviationwww.cgrmtnhelos.com

[Guest]

Yeh, same simulator "rehashed" with improved weather that sucks your framerates down. Dont get me wrong, it's a great sim, thanks to the 3rd party add-ons, but is M$ gonna revamp this game into the ground like they did CFS? Whats next MSFS2005 or 6?It's like their spinning their wheeels throwing in a few improvements along the way, like 'Skoup' said, it's like buying the "bug-fixes" when M$ should just come up with totally new ideas, like a modern combat flight sim. :) Now i'd love to see that someday.

[Guest]

They is little comparison between FS2002 and FS2004. I know one guy whom Im pretty sure is a tester and he s already binned FS2002 off his system and they are not done yet with completing FS2004.FS2004 will be stunning especially in areas like the weather engine which was sadly lacking in FS2002 despite the heroic efforts of thirdparty developers.Roll on FS2004 as I cant wait to bin my version of FS2002Peter

[LAdamson 240]

>Yeh, same simulator "rehashed" with improved weather that>sucks your framerates down. Dont get me wrong, it's a great>sim, thanks to the 3rd party add-ons, but is M$ gonna revamp>this game into the ground like they did CFS?Nope............ >Whats next>MSFS2005 or 6?Probably the 6Anything else?L.Adamson

[Guest]

Whats next?....lol. A modern combat flight sim thats what else :)Now if MS is gonna possibly make MSFS2006, what could people expect from that, what they haven't already done? I guess animated traffic and pedestrians? Maybe tarmac vehicles that actually drive to your plane to service it. I will wait on buying FS2004 till all the crying and complaining stops, if there is any, then see how many people really think it's worth the bucks. I just dont want to buy the same exact sim again.=Swiv=

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, I have yet to see anything to convince me that it will be significant improvement over FS2002. There does not seem to be any major departures from FS2002 as there was from FS98 to FS2000. And I don't see that FS2004 is even going to be a significant 'bug fix' for FS2002 as FS2002 was for FS2000.Because you did not try it, Example (I don't like this guys, But I never saw it and talked before but I trust anybody on the streets)"And to have native 'Real Photographic' scenery where you can pick out actual landmarks you still have to go to Flight Unlimited III.LOl all pixel pastel photo + small limited area with , this is called a flight sim, or my home Sim? Remember haw the frame rate was very poor at the release of FUIII :-eekYou can get a real photographic scenery add-on (the Los Angeles basin only) in a download for Fly 2 and I have a real photographic scenery add-on of San Diego for FS98 (which is usable in FS2002 but doesn't work as well as it does in FS98 which is why I still fly FS98 since I live in San Diego) but that's it.humm, there is many available in high quality!And unless I'm misinformed the 'Landclass' stuff isn't real photographic scenery either. But in any case I don't see Microsoft providing real photographic scenery even though they have satellite photos of the entire world on their 'Terraserver' which could be converted to Flight Sim scenery. I saw better Satellite scenery in the News coverage of the Iraq war than I've seen in any Flight Simulator."Having photo sat, with many detailed area in a flight sim + landclass will require big video card memory to load from the start with many multiple DVD. This is why Flight Sim have called: Generic Texure, repetitive texture to save the memory of the Video Card available in the market! Look how 3rd party scenery, aircraft decrease alot compare to default. Reinstall fs2002 from scratch without 3rd party, you will see your frame rate increased!ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Francois_Dumas 10]

>I will wait on>buying FS2004 till all the crying and complaining stops, if>there is any, then see how many people really think it's worth>the bucks. I just dont want to buy the same exact sim again.>=Swiv=LOL.... about 2.000.000 people I would guess, as usual. That includes most of the crying and complaining people. Also as usual ;-):-outta Francois :-wave[table border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0][tr][td valign=bottom" align="center]"At home in the wild"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:avsim.com/alaska/alaska_052.htm]Don's Alaskan Bush Charters]"Beavers Lead the Way"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][br][tr][td valign=top" align="center]http://www.fssupport.com/images/moose4.gif[/td][td valign="top" align="left" colspan=2][/td][tr][/table

[Guest JonP01]

I must be a very easy person to please. I would have bought FS2004 even if the *only* change whatsoever had simply been the new historic aircraft. As it is, the screenshots have indicated to me that there are some subtle and not-so-subtle changes that I am also very much looking forward to. Firstly, the fact that the taxiways at the airports are now smoothly joined together (or "rounded"), unlike in FS2002 where they were a series of straight bits that looked quite amateurish imo. Secondly, the lens flare. OK, other developers have been using this for years, but it's nice to see that FS is now doing it as well.As far as functionality goes, I am tremendously looking forward to the new ATC. It had always been an emormous frustration for me to fly to a rural aerodrome, for example, in an aircraft perfectly capable of landing on one of the shorter grass strips. But the old FS2002 only gave me two runways to choose from. It always felt wierd saying I was landing on one runway when I was actually landing on a completely different runway. Certainly I could have spent many hundreds of hours customising FS2002 to work properly in this respect, but now I believe this problem has been fixed at any and every airport that has a tower and more than two runways. I would hope I have the same choice of runways at non-controlled aerodromes as well.I think all the new features I have mentioned above are worth far more than the asking price, especially when I compare the cost of the new basic simulation with how much payware add-ons cost (no disrespect for payware developers intended here - they usually don't have the massive volume marketing advantage that MS has with the basic simulation itself).

[Guest]

I would venture that possibly there is a fatal flaw in the arguments of those who are against the upgrade from 2002 to CoF. But first, let me state my opinion on why I will be purchasing my copy of CoF.1) Historical AircraftAm I a historical aircraft junkie? No. In fact, my aircraft class of choice is the business and commercial small passenger jet. However, the cost alone of purchasing a number of historical aircraft for use with my current copy of 2002 exceeds the cost of an upgrade to CoF. Will they be as accurate as payware models? Perhaps not. Then again, though, perhaps they will. It makes little sense to proceed on the assumption that the new aircraft will be innacurrately modeled, seeing as how there is no proof currently of this fact.2) Dynamic WeatherI am greatly looking forward to having the pleasure of flying in dynamically generated and forming weather systems. From the screenshots (which is all most of us have to go on, I might add) it would seem that the quality of the cloud systems rival and exceed the quality of the various weather addons I have tried so far. In addition, the cost of a weather addon is close to half the cost of upgrading to CoF.3) Upgraded Scenery Textures and AutoGenThe argument has been made that because the current scenery is not up to some people's accepted standards, then we should assume that the CoF scenery design operated on a similar principle as the previous 2002 version. Judging again from the screenshots, it would appear that the detail in the terrain is very nice indeed, and up to this author's standards. Also, the argument that since Microsoft's TerraServer contains the current US Geological survey map data that they should put this information into CoF is ludicrous. The amount of data space required for the storage of this information would most likely exceed the storage space of over 10 DVD discs. Obviously, current hardware prohibits accurate VFR flying over the entire world, or even a whole state/province. Take into account the fact that most scenery addons incorporate a smallish metro area and still manage to weigh in at 150-300Mb, and still VFR flying is difficult at worst, and merely acceptable at best.4) Air Traffic Control.Yes. We have Radar Contact. Is this an integrated part of FS2002? No. While Radar Contact is an absolutely excellent program by excellent developers, the fact is that it doesn't interact with FS world AI aircraft. The new ATC will support that. In addition, Radar Contact and other comperable ATC simulation addons are again near half the cost of Cof alone.To conclude, in my estimation the cost of purchasing the bare neccesary addons to make your sim experience similar to CoF's out of the box would cost roughly:$50+ For Aircraft$25 For Weather Addons$25 For Scenery Addons$25 For ATC AddonsAs you can see, a low estimate such as that puts a $125 hole in your wallet, whereas CoF will only cost around 60 USD. No doubt other arguments can be made, and no comments here will be made as to their rationality, but it is hard to deny simple facts. In my view, case closed.Matt NischanProject ManagerProject Gulfstream

[spilok 1,133]

Absolutely RIGHT ON! Stanps. I will be first in line at my Electronics Boutique AS IT OPENS in mid-July. I think most of these negative comments are from people who are so cheap, they "squeak". The value for the new sim has been shown many times over by what has been shown and written. Hey...if you can't afford to be in the game, get out of it! I'll enjoy the new experience while you just "lust for it"!

[Chris Willis 8]

Matt, Only Logical and Adult people can understand what you have said , this is the real problem :-lolCheers!Chris

[maxter 0]

Excellent reply Al,I totally agree with you.I got into this hobby around 1983 on a PC XT clone which cost me just over $4000.00 here in Australia. Since then I have purchased 4 additional machines and numerous incremental upgrades.With the announcement of FS 2004, I started planning for a new machine and ordered it last week. Guess what, it cost about the same as my first XT. Here are the specs...Intel Pentium IV 3.0GHz (800FSB) Socket 478 pins CPU w/Hyper-Thread Technology MSI 875P NEO FIS2R, AGP 8X, i875P+ICH5R Chipset with Gigiabit LanKingmax 512MB PC3200 Double Data Rate (DDR) RAM CAS-2.5- 400MHz Rated x 2BUILT By ATI (Original) Radeon 9800PRO w/TV Out & DVI 128Meg DDRTEAC DV-W50E, 4x DVD-R/ 2x RW, 16xCD-R, 8xCD-RW, 16xDVD, 32x CD-ROM Internal Drive Only Western Digital Raptor 36.0GB HDD IDE, 8MB Cache, 5.2ms, 10,000rpm , S-ATA, w/DataLifeguard Three fans ATX 470W Pentium IV Power Supply CE, C-Tick ApprovedSkyhawk Jupiter Aluminum Case with multi-function LCD Light Module ( No Power Supply )Oh and I am also getting a fairly standard WD 40Gig HD for data, reserving the Raptor for the OS and FS.Also using my monitor and kbd and existing MS Optical mouse and Sound card. The sound card is a Hercules Game Theater XP, 6.1 speakers Dolby

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, "ANY new software is released it will take primary advantage of the high end technology that is currently available"This is what's I have said before many many time, actually you said excatly, what's I have said in my previous post before lol"Unfortunately technology is moving to fast"Yes, if you don't follow the technology ou are outdated and can't buy latest gamesAt the release of fs2002:System market:High end computer was:1.3ghz gforce 2 64 meg availableYou have all your anwser!Cheers!Chris