NDA released for FS2004 Gold

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Have learned that the testing team is now free to discuss the details of the final (Gold) version of FS2004. I will be posting some screenshots shortly, and I will also post a brief thread here on configuring FS2004 for a slower system....-John

[michal 44]

John,Pardon for being a bit pushy but right off the bat was there any action on the following long-overdue FS bugs:1. aircraft rolling friction2. ILS - GS (glide slope)3. battery draining too quicklyBest,Michael J.

[Guest edrutl]

At this point, I'm begining to wonder who WASN'T a beta tester or has a Gold copy.Ed

[Azapata87 173]

hi,Hmmm... I wasent aware you were a beta tester ;-) Which is the point of an NDA I guess lol. You did a good job of not letting anyone suspect you as a beta tester lol. :-) Although my system isint really slow, it isint really fast, so I'm looking forward to your tips and advice. :DAndrew

[Guest]

At this point, I'm begining to wonder who WASN'T a beta tester or has a Gold copy.:-lolKil~

[Guest SlimDady]

hmm.. you dont have beta..I do to. U must have been the only oneLOL Jk im just curious how they picked the the testers. I might like to be on next time around

[Guest GZR_Frenchy]

Me!! I am an Fs2006 Alpha Tester. Believe me. Fs2006 is all powerfull. This message brought to you by a few of a very few Fs2006 Alpha Testers.Kindly, treat this message as top priority. -- then on the other hand you can just treat me as another -- Old Geezer.Frenchy -- out.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Saw your questions late this evening Michael.... I haven't had a chance to explore the gold release much since receiving it--Sunday was the first day I could give it a real run through, and I stuck to issues near and dear to my heart--did my landclass tools still work, was it stable, and what performance could I eke out of it? I spent all of about ten minutes in a 737, and none in A/P APR mode. I can only tell you ground handling felt the same as FS2002, but I stuck to third party aircraft, other than spending some time in the Jenny. I can't really relate experiences prior to that, as we are still bound by an NDA where testing prior to gold is concerned. But I hope my response will bump up the thread, and one of the other testers with more time in these areas will respond.As to the three questions I raised above for those interested, Landclass tools do work, as does photoreal scenery. Performance is on par with FS2002--GIVEN THE SAME SETTINGS. But layer on the clouds and real weather, and you can see a hit in performance. I could keep realistic skies and cloud layers and good performance by doing the same thing I had to do in FS2002--keeping the layers thin, and exploiting the features Microsoft has built in to scale the weather engine to lower end systems. Last, the program is as stable as FS2002 has been. I haven't been able to get the gold to lockup. I think that's kudos to Microsoft, considering I am a user from "left field", still running the 21.83 Nvidia driver set, and still running on a Sub 1 Gig system and MB.Many will be pleased to see that the number of 3-d clouds can be lowered--you can sprinkle your 3-d clouds with "imposter" clouds, which improve performance. The other feature is the cloud draw distance--how far out the clouds extend. I find I can fly with a nice layer of cumulus and cirrus, with 100 pct. 3-d clouds and a draw distance of 50 miles, with no visible hit in performance. Most of my shots over the next two days will show examples of that.I am sorry to note that GeForce 2/TI users will no longer be able to enjoy water reflections. It's a piece of eye candy I never used much, but for reasons I don't completely understand, the Microsoft team couldn't implement this feature for this card in FS2004.In keeping with forum rules, I will only be posting screenshots in the screenshots forum. Keep in mind that not every tester will have the answer to every question. Depending on our real flying experience, time available with the gold release, and objectives when evaluating the final product, our answers may be geared in very specific areas.-JohnEdit: Here's a couple of links to the shots I've posted so farhttp://forums.avsim.com/dcboard.php?az=sho...7&mesg_id=60837http://forums.avsim.com/dcboard.php?az=sho...7&mesg_id=60727

[Guest Joshieca]

>Me!!> >I am an Fs2006 Alpha Tester. Believe me. Fs2006 is all>powerfull. This message brought to you by a few of a very few>Fs2006 Alpha Testers.Shhhh you weren't supposed to say anything...oh well...here is a sneek pict of FS2006

[badderjet 181]

Oh well. Looking quite nice ;-) Intersting that we now have ammo indications... :-eek :-lol LOLBy the way, there were *plenty* of Beta testers...Regards,http://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/i...enne_Banner.jpg

[Guest cwright]

John, just one question very close to my heart: Do you see any sign of the dynamic blurred textures problem? Best regards, Chris

[kerosene31 349]

>John,>>Pardon for being a bit pushy but right off the bat was there>any action on the following long-overdue FS bugs:>>1. aircraft rolling friction>2. ILS - GS (glide slope)>3. battery draining too quickly>>Best,>>Michael J.>Good questions. Can anyone answer these? I am guessing that none of them have been adressed.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Do you see any sign of the dynamic blurred textures problem?"Chris--They can still happen, but I believe FS2004 handles them markedly better than FS2002 did. I did not notice as much dynamic blurring close to my aircraft position during flights of any speed, other than for a few seconds if switching views. And using time compression, I was able to move at 16x during one flight. There was dynamic blurring, but the textures did not degrade altogether, and cleared within seconds of my slowing down. I've worked at honing my system to avoid dynamic blurries--they were never a big problem in 2k2. Having said that, gold seems better. -John

[Guest BrianC]

Water reflections are a huge performance killer for me, and I've overclocked the top GeForce2 Pro 64MB. Perhaps they're saving misery from people who get bad performance with these cards due to water reflection.

http://brianc.vip.warped.com/kpwk_sig.gif

[Guest cwright]

John, Many thanks for the info. It's good news to hear FS2004 is better in this respect. If the dyna blurs last just a couple of seconds then it's no big problem. It's when they last for minutes at a time when they get annoying! Best regards, Chris