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SpiritFlyer

FSX? How are we doing?

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I have been concerned for some time that perhaps the MSFS community may be shrinking more rapidly that I first realized. I have far too much time treasure and emotion tied up in this wonderful hobby to let it dry up without a fight. However, I understand that it is fairly obvious that the shutting down of Aces was critical, as either a prime catalyst, or as a direct result, of the decline, or both. It seems to me that fewer and fewer new people are joining online communities like AVSIM while more and more members are dropping out without saying goodbye. I guess this is natural as MS has ceased to market the title to the general public. Also obvious is that FS addon developers can only market their products to those who remain within the community, as there can be but little or no broader appeal. That leaves a smaller base and lesser economies of scale as time goes by, taking it to an approaching point in time where all new investment of talent and technology, and most of the interest, public and private, will move on to different things. This is all plain to see for anyone that will take even a quick look at both FS9 and FSX as a business model. But, notwithstanding that, I hope we can delay and stall things as long as possible, perhaps even long enough for the bulk of the community to transition, in mass, to something more sustainable. Does anyone have any idea what the objective numbers and statistics that measure MSFS community activity levels actually looks like? Just curious...Stephen

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Since ACES shut down I spend a lot of time now with XPlane, prior to that I never bothered with XPlane. So for me its probably 50% FSX and 50% XPlane, whereas before ACES pulled the plug it was 100% FSX.Give XPlane 9.31 a try, not perfect but not bad either!


Matthew S

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I purchased X-plane in hopes it would be a suitable replacement for FSX but IMO it looks just horrible. I understand its not all about looks and it does give a good sense of flight but after being spoiled with FTX, ASA and REX its hard to compare the two graphically. And yes I have tried some scenery packages and add-on AC and it still looks bad. Currently I share my time with FS9 (heavies) & FSX (GA) as long as developers keep producing high quality packages I can't see myself leaving the MSFS worlds.

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Guest Thaellar

Call me crazy, but I see the Aces shutdown as a positive development. Now the developers can confidently make products for an non-moving target. FSX is just hitting its stride in regards to computers now available with the horsepower to run it adequately. And there are lots of addons on the horizon. PMDG J41 and 737NG, Eaglesoft Cit X, Flight 1 B200, CS B-52, Airsimmer A320.......lots of others for sure.If Aces were still cooking on the new version, it would be announced with a new SDK and all the developers would be saying, "Oh no not again. new coding requirements, that means all our current projects will have issues if we can get them to work at all."FS11 would also guarantee crappy performance on new computers with ANOTHER 2-4 year wait and lots of money shelled out to run it adequately. And buying upgrades and having to replace addons that don't work anymore in the new version.I see a bright future ahead for FSX for several years yet. Thaellar

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I purchased X-plane in hopes it would be a suitable replacement for FSX but IMO it looks just horrible. I understand its not all about looks and it does give a good sense of flight but after being spoiled with FTX, ASA and REX its hard to compare the two graphically. And yes I have tried some scenery packages and add-on AC and it still looks bad. Currently I share my time with FS9 (heavies) & FSX (GA) as long as developers keep producing high quality packages I can't see myself leaving the MSFS worlds.
You're absolutely right on, JohnE; I've been so happy with FSX and the numerous great addons that are now available - and more coming - on my (now) 2-year-old system, that I'm ready to follow Sesquatchtoo with the i7. X-Plane is still waaaaay too immature when compared with FSX. I picked up REX a couple of weeks ago and the sky and water are now reinvented! ASA, GEX, FS Passengers, A2A AccuSim, FSBuild, Radar Contact, all the neat little utilities...... it's just great being a kid again!!! :(


i7 4790K@4.8GHz | 32GB RAM | EVGA RTX 3080Ti | Maximus Hero VII | 512GB 860 Pro | 512GB 850 Pro | 256GB 840 Pro | 2TB 860 QVO | 1TB 870 EVO | Seagate 3TB Cloud | EVGA 1000 GQ | Win10 Pro | EK Custom water cooling.

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Wait until solid state hard drives get even better,and come down in price :( That's my next performance upgrade.


Jim Driscoll, MSI Raider GE76 12UHS-607 17.3" Gaming Laptop Computer - Blue Intel Core i9 12th Gen 12900HK 1.8GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 16GB GDDR6; 64GB DDR5-4800 RAM; Dual M2 2TB Solid State Drives.Driving a Sony KD-50X75, and KDL-48R470B @ 4k 3724x2094,MSFS 2020, 30 FPS on Ultra Settings.

Jorg/Asobo: “Weather is a core part of our simulator, and we will strive to make it as accurate as possible.”Also Jorg/Asobo: “We are going to limit the weather API to rain intensity only.”


 

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I have been concerned for some time that perhaps the MSFS community may be shrinking more rapidly that I first realized. I have far too much time treasure and emotion tied up in this wonderful hobby to let it dry up without a fight. However, I understand that it is fairly obvious that the shutting down of Aces was critical, as either a prime catalyst, or as a direct result, of the decline, or both. It seems to me that fewer and fewer new people are joining online communities like AVSIM while more and more members are dropping out without saying goodbye. I guess this is natural as MS has ceased to market the title to the general public. Also obvious is that FS addon developers can only market their products to those who remain within the community, as there can be but little or no broader appeal. That leaves a smaller base and lesser economies of scale as time goes by, taking it to an approaching point in time where all new investment of talent and technology, and most of the interest, public and private, will move on to different things. This is all plain to see for anyone that will take even a quick look at both FS9 and FSX as a business model. But, notwithstanding that, I hope we can delay and stall things as long as possible, perhaps even long enough for the bulk of the community to transition, in mass, to something more sustainable. Does anyone have any idea what the objective numbers and statistics that measure MSFS community activity levels actually looks like? Just curious...Stephen
First off let me say I first started flight simulators back in the day when SubLogic released Air Transport Pilot before Microsoft bought it and turned it into the Flight Sim. I have seen people come and go for years in the comunity and there have always been times when the market slows. However I believe there is a new aspect to the trend. First of all you have fewer baby boomers and the population is in a bit of a decline just like the economy. There is also the fact that 3D first person shooters can be pumped into the market place with little effort. In my opinion the first person shooters have taken over the game industry and instead of releasing a game that makes you think they release mindless shooting games. RPG and simnulation games are slowly vanishing from the market and just don't sell. How many ways can they think of killing with a gun or chainsaw while tossing in a bit of a story. However people have always dreamed of flight and will always dream of flight. That will never change. Flight simulators in general have a few major advantages in the market.#1 People will always want to fly.#2 The lack of compitition makes a nitch in the market that can be exploited.#3 The game doesn't have a set path to follow or an ending (you can play it forever) while shooters will die and collect dust on a shelf or end up in a landfill.The ACES being gone does being added value to addons for FSX and FS9 however I believe Microsoft should talke a larger role in making patches and putting out expansions adding more life to their game. They never fixed the problems with multiplayer and gamespy. If you make a server on gamespy you can't ban people that cause trouble without taking down the server and trying to find the disruptive player. If the player is spamming over the mic you can't identify who is talking to ban the player. If players have the same tail number it can be hard to use ATC. The host can't change planes without restarting the server etc. The list of bugs goes on and on. However there are options like VATSIM that do solve many of these issues. That brings me to my next bit of a rant. While VATSIM does solve some of these there are some people that want to fly with fewer rules and regulations than what VATSIM and all the other large servers use. Some players just like to fly and chat with friends without ATC constantly asking questions. This can even be a problem in gamespy. With gamespy a server with ATC normaly means people flying patterns around an airport for hours on end. Also the lack of some players having a mic or just being unresponsive can ruin a session with ATC.Next lets look at the Free flight lobby chat. How many times have you gone into the free flight lobby and seen nothing but cursing name calling racist remarks and people talking about sex, homosexuals, porn, etc. I'm sure there are many parents who see this and then won't let them play anymore. There is also a trend of people making servers that say no noobs. I also disagree with this stance. Yes a new player can be frustrating and might not fly as good as someone that has spent years flying however if the player is wanting to learn why exclude that player. If they are being disruptive to the server that is a problem however if they truly just don't know what they are doing then it's better to help them than to kick them till they go away.The last thing I want to touch on is the huge amount of software piracy. Many of the paywhare products flight simmers love are able to be downloaded for free on pirate servers. This makes it hard for developers to make new products as they are unable to pay employees what they should and have money left over for more products. Great companies like Aerosoft and Carenado loose money every month to these people while trying to produce low cost high end products for their customers. The cost of this piracy is passed onto the people that buy the product legit while law enforcement could care less because it's a game. Piracy is so bad people openly admit and even direct people to the web sites in free flight chat where they can pirate as much software as they want and the lobby area continues to go unmoderated adding to the problems. In my opinion there will always be a market for flight sim games however untill the issues above can be resolved the industry will stay in a decline. It's simply much easier to make a game where you shoot at people and they get bored and release a new game 1 month later that is nearly identical to the last one with a slightly different story. Fewer people will learn to think and learn things like VOR to VOR navigation because it's easier to learn to run and pull a trigger than to think about density altitude. Perhaps if Microsoft let you run around the airports cutting up passengers with a chainsaw the industry might grow.Anyhow that's my personal opinion on the subject.

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I tend to agree with all of the above.I noticed a 2005 review of Captain Sim's C130 generated at least ten pages of commentary. It may be my imagination or the summer vacation season, but I seem to remember AVSIM discussion boards having a mugh higher churn rate in the past (I haven't always been a member here under my current screen name). The FS9 - FSX split no doubt contributed, and the hack may have caused some attrition, too. Perhaps the English-speaking world is showing a decline that may not be the case elsewhere. I bet per capita Germany has more flight simmers than the U.S. Whatever the cause, my impression is that there are just not the numbers there were four or five years ago. I am one of those who gave X-Plane a fair shot (because I am a Mac person) but found it lacking in many respects. Believe me, I would love to have a native Mac flight sim because I happen to think that OS X is much better platform and I could junk my PC forever. But as well-disposed as I was to X-Plane, it just wasn't for me, especially for big jets. And how are devs supposed to stay up with all the changes being made constantly?The only problem I see with FSX at this point is that my computer, decent though it may be, still is not good enough to run it perfectly. I expect that to change with my next computer, which I'll probably get next year. New products like the Albatross show that developers can still get more out of FSX, and the mission system has been really neglected with a few exceptions. And the old stuff will only work better. FSX is good enough. Now it is just a hardware issue.Some of the more casual simmers might drop off in favor of the latest shooter, but I think the hard core is here to stay and FSX will remain the platform of choice unless something better comes along. Aerosoft has two: the for-sure one a very limited airline pilot sim, and the second is still iffy the last I heard. We complain about FSX, but I marvel at a simulation of the whole world, with nearly every place you can land an airplane, along with weather, and all the great add-ons we have to choose from. When we're all using computers that allow us to have 100 FPS with everything maxed out, I don't think there will be a whole lot to complain about.Even right now, I have been experimenting as an end user. With no disrespect intended to all those who have shown us how to get the best out of our systems, I no longer think there is a magic bullet. I can get three times the frame rates I ever thought possible by experimenting with sliders. When I want to focus on the airplane, I don't need great-looking scenery. Other times, the looks are what I want. The "received wisdom" of others is no substitue for finding what YOU want on YOUR system for the way YOU fly.I, too, am quite happy not to have to wonder what add-ons the next iteration of FSX will render obsolete.


 

 

 

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Guest ArtieLange
There is also the fact that 3D first person shooters can be pumped into the market place with little effort.
Little effort ? GTA4 took 500 people and $100 million dollars to make, Half Life 2 was 5 years and $40 million dollars to make. Any GOOD game, be it RPG, FPS, etc takes lots of time, money and people to make. Compare those numbers to FS9 and FSX and you'll see way more time, money, and effort is put into todays FPS games than was ever put into flight sim.

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..... However, I understand that it is fairly obvious that the shutting down of Aces was critical, as either a prime catalyst, or as a direct result, of the decline, or both. It seems to me that fewer and fewer new people are joining online communities like AVSIM while more and more members are dropping out without saying goodbye. I guess this is natural as MS has ceased to market the title to the general public. Stephen
I found there was a general decline ever since FSX came out with no really great addons becoming available until much later, the decline was already a dedicated path.And then there was incompatibilities with FS9 "everything"The closing of ACES was a deep cut, and then the hacking of AVSIM was a big cutOnly things like ASA, Mustang, UT2, UTX, FEX, REX etv etc and Aerosoft's treasured artistry (amongst many others now) is keeping us from all leaving.

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Here's a graph of Flight Simulator X interest on Google :http://www.google.com/trends?q=flight+simu...=all&sort=0
Looks level for 2008 and 2009 to me. If you type 2004 in place of X you get a gragh that shows level intrest for FS9 since 2008 also. Hard to chime a death knell for either sim. How many games are selling as much as they were 3 years ago?Bob

Bob

i5, 16 GB ram, GTX 960, FS on SSD, Windows 10 64 bit, home built works anyway.

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I see FSX retaining a core fanbase like Falcon 4 (and its various offshoots) has retained a core fanbase. One difference is that Microsoft will NOT let the IP leak or otherwise become available as was the case with MicroProse. However, I am under no illusions that FSX was the last of its breed and will get longer and longer in the tooth. Whatever "flying game" MS throws at us may or may not be worthwhile, but I'm sure the "simming" aspects will mostly die while the "gaming" aspects will prevail. As to X-plane, I agree with all those who say that it is a wet noodle compared to MSFS.


Jeff Bea

I am an avid globetrotter with my trusty Lufthansa B777F, Polar Air Cargo B744F, and Atlas Air B748F.

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I believe whoever enjoys FSX will continue to and anyone looking for a "simulator" experience will look into FSX. I don't think Aces Studio will make a flip of difference in that.Developers will now explore the width and depth in using FSX as a base for their sims. You should see a trend to run outside programs alongside FSX that expand its potential and present limitations, like A2A is doing with AcuSim (and actually Vertical Simulations has done with its SuperBee in FS9).X-Plane (in a year or so) is going to kick in gear with the release of some scenery and airline simulations that may surpass what we now see in FSX. Don't underestimate X-Plane.I just loaded it on my new computer, along with FSX (and FS9) and expect to see some great things available for it in the coming months.If Microsoft has chosen to turn its back on the flight simulation community for the gaming cash cow, the flight simulation community will not turn its back on their addiction. Flight simulation enthusiast will continue to spend lots of money on new scenery and aircraft to fill up their T-bit+ harddrives and attract the interest of the curious outsider into their web of hopeless addiction.

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