Not trying to start anything but this is really amazing to me. FS9 is still toping FSX in freeware downloads even on this first day of 2010. When will it stop and the new sim finally take hold across the board? You couldn't have told this community FS9 would still be very much viable in the year 2010 when FSX was released (or even 2 years after it's release). The hard nosed stance many like Aerosoft are taking in not providing dual products makes since in one area (FSX will take hold sometime in the future the question is when. Another 2 to 3 years, my guess would be 2 with the way hardware is going these days) but totally sinceless in another. If you have the majority of people still creating for free out of the love of the hobby for one version it make since to keep selling for that version as somebody must be using it. What's told to us is one version is selling more and not compromised (as much) by pirates yet someone must be using FS9 when not a day has went by since FSX's release that daily FS9 freeware downloads hasn't surpassed FSX downloads. Even when Avsim went down I was expecting when the site came back up FSX would dominate FS9 and here we are the first day of 2010 and FS9 is still holding strong with the 'FS Underground' ('Underground' meaning any movement that's not mainstream with all the publicity and funding behind it. Those that give freely for whatever cause for the love or passion of what their doing)... Again not trying to start anything because mentioning things like this send some in a tizzy. The facts are the facts and I'm commenting because I myself couldn't have predicted this. We all thought by 2010 FS9 would have been a thing of the past. No version of FS has ever held on this long after a successor has been released, I'm amazed...All that being said, Happy New Year everyone...

----------------- We all thought by 2010 FS9 would have been a thing of the past. No version of FS has ever held on this long after a successor has been released, I'm amazed...All that being said, Happy New Year everyone...

I leave the interpretation of statistics to each simmer- The AVSIM Survey responses as of Jan 01 2010 are:Q.- What is your primary simulator? -FS9 1309 or 50.3%FSX 1229 or 47.2%Good fortune to all in the New Year... Alex Reid

Wish I could change the thread title to, "2010, What sim still has the most daily downloads"... :(

Hi Les,I couldn't agree more. Day in and day out FS9 continues to out upload and download FSX. I have a state of the art system running I7 975 overclocked to 4.1 GHz and I still use FS9. FSX sales may have been good in the beginning with customers like me who were working/tweaking FSX, but those days are over (at least for me) and I'm sure there are others. FSX runs OK for me on my system, but I perfer FS9 over FSX, the improvements seen in FSX don't justify me losing all my addons as well as the additional performance hit seen in FSX. My latest FS9 purchase was REX, which has given FS9 its second wind so to speak. The only addon I will purchase for FSX in the future will be Level-D's 757 if and/or when its released. Other than that I will not purchase any additional addons for FSX. Unless we get HD ground city textures, then I will purchase this FS9 addon and remove FSX from my system all-together.If Aerosoft develops a new Flightsim that rivals FSX and is not bogged down by using an outdated/over-bloated engine, we may see a mass exit-is of Microsoft Flightsim all together. If that happens, third party companies will be playing catch up once again.

While I'm getting a bit tired now by this cat and mouse game like affair between FSX and FS9, I will say I do hartily agree. I have both, but ended up going back to FS9, only using FSX occasionaly for testing purposes. The time spent on FSX teaking it just doesn't deliver me what a environment good enough to do what I want: just fly. I end up still having stutters and bad FPS. It's very simple really: my computer isn't up to it. I'll go see if it works on my next computer. Until then, FS9 does it for me, and it looks gorgeous the way it is now.

As with Mike_CFII_MEL, a lot of people have placed FSX back on the shelf after having to go through the aggravation of constant tweaking with it. Yes, FS9 at first needed some tweaking also, but not as much, apparently, as FSX. Add to that the add-ons that are not available to port over and there you go.Now with REX, FS9 has really been turned into a new sim, as other add-ons tried to claim, but didn't live up to.

I said it on day one of the release of FSX and I'll say it again. FSX was the Windows Vista of flight simulators. Vista was a performace dog from the beginning and despite Microsoft's attempts to patch it and advertise it as the best OS ever, the vast majority of users refused to install it on their systems, or did install it and went back to Windows XP. In the end the final patch for Vista is Windows 7! Likewise Aces told us how great FSX was and after SP1 and SP2 and a broken down DX10 attempt the fix for FSX was to be FS11. Even Aces had to admit that FSX didn't turn out so well. Unfortuntately the world got Windows 7 but we didn't get our FS11.Just like Vista users went back to XP in droves, FSX users are still coming back to FS9. Vista offered absolutely nothing to make XP users migrate and neither does FSX. Both offer users a prettier interface in exchange for huge performace losses. Both require the users to dumb down the software by turning off the bells and whistles to get the performace they already had.The irony should not be lost here. FSX was supposed to be the "showcase" game for Vista. Vista was a total and utter failure even Microsoft had to admit. FSX? Well by the time the hardware catches up to it, it will most certainly be obsolute. It took FS9 almost 8 years to get to its current stage of blazing performance. If it takes FSX the same amount of time, the new Cascade Game Foundry or Aerosoft will have released a brand new sim with the lessons learned in FSX of what NOT to release. The final irony, Vista crashed in total and utter discrace...the laughing stock of the software industry. A year later, Aces was fired. Their fates were truely intertwined.I would be happy using FS9 for long term future because FSX doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. I am assuming that I'll stay with FS9 until Cascade or Aerosoft releases their new sims or X-Plane get's a clue. And if developers stop releasing FS9 software, then they simply won't get my money.In the off chance that Moore's law changes and processing power skyrockets to allow FSX to peform at least as well as FS9 without having to make it look like FS98 to use it then and only then will I revisit FSX. For now, my FSX disks sits cold and dead waiting for its Prince Charming of processors to wake it up.

i see 2010 a year where FS9 is still catching the attention both for addons and for flight simming. REX definitely gave it a major lift. Guess what happens with the PMDG NGX? fingers crossed

What you also have to considder is the fact that many of the FSX downloads, infact are FS9 stuff that is working in FSX,...but still FS9 files.

Ye im still on FS9 and see I will stay that way untill I get my next PC. This one runs FS9 at a locked 29FPS and never drops less than that even with the Maddog/ASV/Gary Summons EGLL and REX running. I get 10fps in FSX no matter what I do.

I own both FS9 and FSX. I actually get decent frames on my older dual core, for FSX that is.However, I rarely fly it. I have FS9 set up perfectly for how I want to fly, and the framerates are great.

I said it on day one of the release of FSX and I'll say it again. FSX was the Windows Vista of flight simulators. Vista was a performace dog from the beginning and despite Microsoft's attempts to patch it and advertise it as the best OS ever, the vast majority of users refused to install it on their systems, or did install it and went back to Windows XP. In the end the final patch for Vista is Windows 7! Likewise Aces told us how great FSX was and after SP1 and SP2 and a broken down DX10 attempt the fix for FSX was to be FS11. Even Aces had to admit that FSX didn't turn out so well. Unfortuntately the world got Windows 7 but we didn't get our FS11.Just like Vista users went back to XP in droves, FSX users are still coming back to FS9. Vista offered absolutely nothing to make XP users migrate and neither does FSX. Both offer users a prettier interface in exchange for huge performace losses. Both require the users to dumb down the software by turning off the bells and whistles to get the performace they already had.The irony should not be lost here. FSX was supposed to be the "showcase" game for Vista. Vista was a total and utter failure even Microsoft had to admit. FSX? Well by the time the hardware catches up to it, it will most certainly be obsolute. It took FS9 almost 8 years to get to its current stage of blazing performance. If it takes FSX the same amount of time, the new Cascade Game Foundry or Aerosoft will have released a brand new sim with the lessons learned in FSX of what NOT to release. The final irony, Vista crashed in total and utter discrace...the laughing stock of the software industry. A year later, Aces was fired. Their fates were truely intertwined.I would be happy using FS9 for long term future because FSX doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. I am assuming that I'll stay with FS9 until Cascade or Aerosoft releases their new sims or X-Plane get's a clue. And if developers stop releasing FS9 software, then they simply won't get my money.In the off chance that Moore's law changes and processing power skyrockets to allow FSX to peform at least as well as FS9 without having to make it look like FS98 to use it then and only then will I revisit FSX. For now, my FSX disks sits cold and dead waiting for its Prince Charming of processors to wake it up.

Mike. You've spoken for many . . . me included. I couldn't agree more!

Rumours are that new i9 with turbo-mode CAN do miracles without system OC. Actually, I'm agree with MIke. One thing that potentially will "force" me to switch to FSX is the approach that has been chosed by PMDG and Leved-D (top FS designers by the way) to move into FSX direction. I suppose that even despite evasive and politically correct manner by which PMDG is trying to convince the public that there is still a chance for FS9 version of 737NG, it has become pretty obvious that FS9 version is rather myth.The other thing is the brand new army of simmers that has joined to the community in recent 4-5 years. They have never been aware of FS2004, so FSX is the primary (and only) sim for them. Honestly speaking, a simmer with more than 5 years simming history is a rare animal these days, and those who still remember FS2000 and FS2002 days could be numbered by heads and cannot be considered as potential market for PMDG and Level-D (unfortunately).

those who still remember FS2000 and FS2002 days could be numbered by heads...

Fortunately you're wrong. :(

...and cannot be considered as potential market for PMDG and Level-D

Unfortunately you're right. :( Anyway, not to repeat myself again and again (and to avoid FSXers who will come here and say we are just more vocal and do no flying):NO reasons for me to move to FSX. And all the HARDWARE/FPS point makes no difference to me. Even if I had the fastest Cray, I'd stay with FS9. It's just my choice.

Since many if not most FS9 downloads will run in FSX, but no FSX downloads will run in FS9, I don't think the numbers can tell us much about the target sim for a download.scott s..