Greg I don't know if you already own COF or not but these concerns are legitimate, not misguided rants about a solid product (issues will need to get address by MS). Though not as bad COF is almost like another FS2000 all over again and I'll be here watching as well to see how all this will shake out.

Sometimes difficult to convey feelings in words in writing... I empathize with your concerns about the sim. Truthfully, I wasn't thinking about you when I wrote of the "rants". The rants I'm refering to are the newbies who throw the sim on their hard drive, and then are unhappy when it doesn't look perfect straightaway.I do own the sim, for a couple days now. One of your earlier posts prompted me to do something I've not done for a few years... fly high (I'm one of those GA guys... low and slow :-)). I took the Lear up to 30,000 ft and studied the sim carefully. I thought what I saw was much better than 2K2 when it first came out. Textures were sharp and the view was great. I did have some clouds growing out of mountains (must be the condensation... little cloud seeds dropped around the world... throw in some water and sunlight... poof!!! clouds growing from mountains :-) ).I urge you not to give up on the sim. Take some time to make sure your hardware is dialed in. Tweak the sim config. You certainly have enough computer to run the thing.Regards,

>Greg I don't know if you already own COF or not but these>concerns are legitimate, not misguided rants about a solid>product (issues will need to get address by MS). Though not>as bad COF is almost like another FS2000 all over again and>I'll be here watching as well to see how all this will shake>out.I have much more than an educated guess, of what will happen. It will be about 40 to one on the positive side. Most will find it a welcome improvement over FS2002 & hardly think about comparing to FS2K. Sure, they're will be those who's video cards have compatibility issues, CPU's are junk, or settings are just all wrong. But I've been dealing with this program long enough, to get quite a good idea of the outcome.I'd even place "bets" on it.... :)L.Adamson

I love this forum. I really do.I've been with it for a long time, (including the failed MS boycott) and it remains my favorite place to to for Flight Sim news.The feeding frenzy at a MS Flight Sim release time is truly something to behold. It is really is an amazing thing. Almost like a time machine in many respects. Oh, I'll get FS2004 (COF) of course; no matter what I read here, as I suspect many if not most of its detractors will do as well. As an interesting comparsion, you might like to visit:http://simflight.com/~fshistory/fsh/acknowledge.htmMost likely you've already visited there. If so, you will have seen what we all "had to have" in earlier MS Flight Sim packages. (I got my first tasted with my trusty Commodore 64 and FSII from subLOGIC) The flight sim evolution is a wonderful thing.Regards,Don Schaaf

Hi, I like much more fs2004 over fs2002, I will NEVER get back to fs2002, there is too many thing bad non fixable in fs2002.BestEric

Heh ahhh the Horizon line. I tried not to look but it IS IN FS2004 with a cirrus layer. Not as nearly pronounced as it was in FS2002. But there none the less. x(

Hi, Bob_DAll clouds in fs2002 having a strong solide line in the fas2002 sky, in fs2004 NON, only sometime the cirrus on reduced visibility, or when your display distant slider is way too much reduced to left, but nothing close compare to fs2002 at all no even 1 sec close, now if you are trying to finding pixels that's are wrong, you can uninstall all software.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Now THERE

To make sure I haven't let the novelty of FS2004 affect my judgement, I have just finished the same flight in FS2004 (stock) and FS2002 (heavily modified with mesh, landclass, textures etc). Jeppesen Real Weather was used for both flights to ensure that the same weather conditions were used. I used to think that FS2002 with the enhanced mesh, landclass and textures was about 'as real as it gets'. After spending hours over the past few days with FS2004 and having become used to it, I was frankly shocked at how badly FS2002 looked and felt in comparison. Even the framerates were better in FS2004. How anyone can say that FS2002 looks or feels better than FS2004 without bursting out laughing is a complete mystery to me.

Funny how this post went from a subjective review of legitimate issues in FS9COF to generalities such as "opinions are like bums..." and how "..reviewers, wined and dined by MS..." will give a lush review. Let's face it - the thread started with facts from owners of FS9COF, commenting on real issues based on THEIR experiences. It seems that to some, either we awe and gawk over FS9COF or we are in the "unattractive butt" category. I'll bet that at least some of the people - in this thread alone - drive either a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord...why? Because they are both basically the best selling sedans in the U.S. Why are they best sellers? Because...the buyers don't have to take them to the shop right after they buy them to have the doors aligned, the engine tuned, the wheels balanced and leaks sealed before they can start to enjoy the car. Unfortunately, the FS series still has no real "Honda" or "Toyota" competition, and until it does...some of the users posting here will continue to blame the issues on the computers (in some cases legitimate), or find it acceptable to have to upgrade to Windows XP when the box says Windows ME is compatible, or accept the fact that FS9COF has "new and improved" multi-monitor support, when in reality it is crap, and so on. As long as those opinions continue to persist, Flight Simulator will continue to roll off the presses and faithfully every two years, the purchasing line will form weeks before the CD's cool off. Problems or not, Flight Sim is guaranteed to be a success regardless of quality or lack of and those of us in the unattractive bum crowd will just have to keep our mouths quiet so that all of the potential buyers can uncautiously plunk their $54.95 down because all the reviews are lush.

I dont understand the comments about how 'us' the users have had too high expectations of what FS ACOF was gonna be like. OF COURSE we'll have high expectations with months and months of previews and reviews praising it and static screenshots to tantalize our eyes with.Include in this also the fact that we were oiled up with comments such as "..will run as good if not better then fs2002 with ur current hardware" and that kind of bollox. Little did we see in reviews that this meant turning weather completely OFF or run with minimum of (default) scenery.I dred how addon scenery will affect this. To me i pretty much lost trust in flight sim reviewers and beta testers as i believe they themselfs got blinded and let their enthusiasm about having a new version take hold over reality.I agree with the poster who said that it cant be right to go out and buy a new version of a flightsim and be forced to run it at minimum or much lower settings just to survive a flight.Having said all that - it will probably only be the clouds and weather that people will have huge problem with, so hopeful that it will get fixed by someone in near future.I will try to forget little things such as closing ATC screen disables zoom in spot view and that B737 default panel still hasnt got reverser lights lol :D

I'll bet that at least some of>the people - in this thread alone - drive either a Toyota>Camry or Honda Accord...why? Because they are both basically>the best selling sedans in the U.S. Why are they best>sellers? Because...the buyers don't have to take them to the>shop right after they buy them to have the doors aligned, the>engine tuned, the wheels balanced and leaks sealed before they>can start to enjoy the car. Excellent point----------- All my vehicles have been Toyota's since 1985.As to the sims you mentioned----MSFS 2002 --- very few problemsMSFS 2004 --- very few problemsFLYII --- lot's of problems --but worked out (most of the time)X-Plane 6.70 --- very few problemsX-Plane version 7 -- been very buggy on my machine. Guess I need the newest update, but heard it's buggy too!Guess I'll stick with FS2004, as I trust it.L.Adamson

I guess as a beta tester I do have trouble understanding because:fs2004 does run better on my machine than fs2002 did-and I do run with real weather exclusively. I do not turn the clouds off-and in fact I have almost all the sliders to the right-and I get the same performance as I did with fs2002-even with all the new features of fs2004-something which I frankly find unbelievable.Therefore-I can only conclude based on my experience that "...will run as good if not better than fs2002 with your current hardware".I am not biased-I am basing on my experience-and it seems that are many who are also verifying this. For the persons that are having problems-perhaps they need more time to verify drivers, settings etc. before making pronouncements-or perhaps they are also the unlucky few that the sim for one reason or not just will not run on their setup well.I think people know from my years of being an avid flight simmer and being present on this board-I call it like it is. I think the majority of users will be verifying-it does run better, and it is a vast improvement.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

Don't let the (newbie) flag next to the name get you, I been around here for years, just haven't posted in awhile and had to resign up.Anyway, lets look at this calmly and logically.Yes the weather system in FS2004 is much better than FS2002, enough said on that.But really, that is the ONLY thing really new. Everything else in this sim are just bug fixes that should have happend in patch for FS2002.Microsoft's biggest selling point for this in the "Century of Flight" thing and the older plans it comes with. That is where MS's main focus for this release is. Personally, I couldn't give a rip about them planes, I will never fly them, and once the novelty is past, most people won't also.Microsoft refused to patch the bugs in FS2002 because they knew they would just patch it, throw in a few things and sell it as new 2 years later. Think about it, all the things in the sim not counting the whether were basically bugs that needed corrected in FS2002.Ok next point. One thing that bugs me to no end with people say "With all sliders max I get 15-17 FPS on the ground at Meigs". WAKE UP! Who could ever give a crap on what FPS you are getting on the ground!? FLY around and then say what your performance is with the sliders at max.In my opinion, what Microsoft needs to do is scrap the majority of the code and do a complete rewrite. If you truely want progress and something new and amazing, MS will have to rewrite the code and not worry about backwards compatibility. Brand new everything, and not let the older formats keep holding you back.Now FS2004 runs nice on my system, I keep the frame lock set at 25 and I find it very smooth without stuttering. I myself don't have problems with the clouds, no FPS hit for me for some reason.So basically in the end, what you get for your $50+ for FS2004 is FS2002 with Service Pack 1 and a new weather system.MCPS....My system is:AMD 2100+MSI K7N2 Delta-L MB (Nforce2)Gforce 4 TI 4600512 meg of PC2700 ramTurtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card

I think among other things besides the weather you left out the ability to request any instrument approach worldwide-that would be a big one. (HUGE one).(Also the new gps, increased improved autogen that creates cities and variety of land objects depending on location, improved flight lessons, instructor module that gives a professional flight training vehicle, subtle water and sky effects, better flight models, clickable virtual cockpits, many more "photo real" airports, smarter ai traffic/labelling,taxiway signs,improved flight planner,ability to download weather every 15 minutes and premade weather scenerios, Kneeboard that records atc (and many more that I can't think of off the top of my head ).Also-do turn off the fps counter-just like fs2002 the flight becomes smoother when one stops watching it.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg