Just looking for opinions from those that have the new game. I have a lot of addon in FS2k2 and it just appears that there is not alot new with this current release. I have read the list of additions, but also want opinions from others who now have FS2k4 if the new stuff justifies the cost of a whole new game. Screen shots are nice, but with exception of clouds don't see alot of difference there. ALso heard clouds are still 2D up close. IFR has expanded , but only so much. Icing is included but not visually. What do you who have the game think - overhyped upgrade/patch or well worth it and justified as a separate release?

Justified as a separate release....The weather isn't an upgrade--it's a complete rengineering of the weather engine.Airports have been greatly enhanced, and from that angle alone I've seen people pay more for collections of scenery add-ons which give less.Ground textures look great--again, people have paid for texture upgrades and I think FS2004 exceeds what we've seen before.Added detail in Autogen and cities. I call it "extreme" Autogen.Once 3rd party developers get on board, incredible AI potential.I've seen these things first hand, having worked with gold for several weeks. I was so convinced by what I saw, I went out and added to my RAM, and upgraded my video card, just so I could enjoy some of the newer features on a rather beaten system....I've only focussed on improvements--things were also fixed along the way, but its the improvements we pay for, so you decide....:-beerchug

>ALso heard>clouds are still 2D up close. You obviously are not hearing right. Check your hearing ;-)Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

For the real skinny on clouds, go here http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/weather.asp and click on the weather video at the bottom of the page. It tells you how they are made.

But unless you have a monster of a machine...you won't enjoy them...Richard

>But unless you have a monster of a machine...you won't enjoy>them...>Actually you can, but it depends what you're combining them with. I've got some excellent cloud scenes & flying on my Athlon 1900XP/Geforce3Ti500. But I can't combine them with high detailed airports without a large fps loss. It really does vary from scenario to scenario. There are even some detailed scenery areas that just allow a high fps count. So I can always throw more clouds into the mix.L.Adamson

I have only messed around with it for a small while, and agree with all the positives that John pointed out.On the slightly negative side, for those that are interested, is that the landclass accuracy has not been improved that I can see. I bet Justin (FSGenesis) is licking his chops :-lol Allen

I have to say though, the so called 3D clouds is highly overrated. Unless of course you'd think it was normal for clouds to SPIN and do 360 turns while ur flying over them. Kind of a cheat to make them appear like 3D from all sides and not the billboard clouds they are.Switch to "simple" clouds option in weather options actually makes the clods look worse then in 2002.Will be nice to see what FS Sky World can come up with though :)

>But unless you have a monster of a machine...you won't enjoy>them...How true and when this is your main hobby, you got to spend the bucks to get the most out of it. The machine I am getting from Dell is in excess of $4900 but with a 3.2Ghz P4, 2GB of RAM, a 21" UltraSharp flat screen monitor and 120GB HD, surround sound 5.1 system and finally an ATi 9800 Pro card, every slider in FS2004 and dare I say, FS2006 will be able to be maxed out.

What is your cloud setting in the display menu? There is a range of imposters to 100% 3D.In the following pic, I didn't fly at high altitudes over these clouds, but they didn't do 360's either.

You have a huge team (just check the credits) working for two years on this project. "Not a lot new"?What were all those people doing for two years?There is quite a lot new...http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

After 3 hours and not even scratching the surface, I can easily say it's worth every penny I paid (including the overnight shipping cost).There are so many little improvements, and I know I didn't find most of them. The screenshots haven't done the graphics justice. And most importantly, the performance out of the box is incredible. It sets up defaults based on your hardware. The "normal" settings seem to equal the current "maxed" settings of FS2002. With my fairly new machine I surprisingly don't have a lot of room to grow with performance. I flew a bad weather flight into DFW with most of the sliders 70% and 100% AI and the FPS easily stayed about 20. I'll admit it's not perfect. I have the ATI menu text flickering problem (annoying, but no big deal), ATC has the seesaw vectors etc. But in comparision to the significant improvements, it is easily worth the $$$. I'm having a blast with the default addons. Once Ultimate Traffic and some of the other addons work - look out!!FS2002 set a standard for MS FS releases that pushed the envelope, added new features and was playable on most machines out of the box. FS2004 raises the bar.Ed RutledgeKDFWP4 2.8 Ghz/800 FSB1 Gig 3200 DDRRadeon 9500 Pro

>I'm having a blast with the default addons. and what exactly are default addons ?Michael J.

my bad - I meant default flight models (kids - note what happens when you fly with a few Makers and sevens - undoubtedly against some virtual FAA regulation :) )The default flight models are much better. Unlike FS2002, the Lear is very stable. The 737 and 172 and very nice as well.

>>>I'm having a blast with the default addons. >>and what exactly are default addons ?>>Michael J.>ROFL! Probably stuff like airplanes, ground, trees, sky, clouds, buildings, bridges. You know, the stuff added on as an afterthought. (I enjoy a good semantics police roust from time to time! ...as long as I'm not the one in cuffs, of course) *grin*