a. with todays faster videocards, the graphics on a pc could look better than what could be offered on a console.

Take a look at some of the current titles for the console and then tell us that

The meager 512MB RAM that is present in both the 360 and the PS3 isn't nearly enough to run MSFS. /end discussion

lolMy PS3 and Wii are hooked up to my main TV downstairs. I don't connect them to my gaming monitor which is only 19in. And we have a couch in front of the TV to enjoy movies. I'd have to set up a table or desk in front of the couch and that wouldnt make much sense. I realize lots have their huge TV's as monitors but not me.I've just always enjoyed my computer setup, and tinkering with it, I don't feel flight simming needs to go to consoles. Plus, I'd never buy it if it went xbox only. And I could see MS doing that since xbox is "their" console. It's great that you are a console fan, and I realize a lot of games are going that way (and probably the industry). But I'll stick with PC's as long as I can.

The meager 512MB RAM that is present in both the 360 and the PS3 isn't nearly enough to run MSFS. /end discussion

Yeah right, the

It's great that you are a console fan, and I realize a lot of games are going that way (and probably the industry).

I'm not a

Your assertion that "512MB shouldn't be enough for half the console titles out there right now" is a red herring. Not one of those games comes close to having 100+ mi view distances with heavy geometry and high resolution textures that MSFS has. You can't fit the entire data set into RAM, therefore it is not feasible.

Not one of those games comes close to having 100+ mi view distances with heavy geometry and high resolution textures that MSFS has.

So there are no combat flight games for the XBOX360 or PS3 that come close to 100+mi view distances?Again why are we referencing the current XBOX360 or PS3 anyway for a game/sim that is long way from release, if at all?

The only one that comes close is HAWX, and the texture LOD is reduced *tremendously* to accommodate the draw distance at altitude. The effective draw distance for textures is only a few miles, terrain objects such as distant mountains can be in the 10's of miles, but again with little to no texture detail.I don't think MSFS simmers would like to fly in an environment such as this. Besides, even if you could fit all the textures, geometry, aircraft, sound, and general game code into 512MB RAM, where would you store the numerous GBs of terrain data?

As for a next-gen console's ability to run a GA sim with the same scale and detail of FSX (or even close), we'd have to know the specifications of the console itself before addressing that matter.

Here is my reason to stick to PC:Besides the hardware limitations -->Add-ons, 3rd party to your party, you can add on as well as build yourself, custom tailor FS on the PC like there is no tomorrow.On the other hand, backward compatibility to all those 3rd party add-ons from yesteryears FS is what held FS back on every release.But if It could be done as good as GT5 on PS3 I would be in.Paul

The only one that comes close is HAWX, and the texture LOD is reduced *tremendously* to accommodate the draw distance at altitude. The effective draw distance for textures is only a few miles, terrain objects such as distant mountains can be in the 10's of miles, but again with little to no texture detail.

I haven't seen

GA includes commercial flights as well, obviously when you're IFR at FL300 or above you're going to see farther than you will at VFR altitudes. You can't fit 1GB of information into 512MB of space, you have to page for that, and that means you need to access a slower form of storage. In the 360's case this means the DVD drive with access times around 100ms. At least with the PS3 you can use the HD but that still has access times around 10ms. That's several orders of magnitude slower than RAM, in either case.

GA includes commercial flights as well, obviously when you're IFR at FL300 or above you're going to see farther than you will at VFR altitudes.

Like I said

Here is my reason to stick to PC:Besides the hardware limitations -->Add-ons, 3rd party to your party, you can add on as well as build yourself, custom tailor FS on the PC like there is no tomorrow.On the other hand, backward compatibility to all those 3rd party add-ons from yesteryears FS is what held FS back on every release.But if It could be done as good as GT5 on PS3 I would be in.Paul

I heard somewhere that if MS goes to the XBox, it will resolve many problems as everyone will have the same system (the XBox), the same hardware, and the same graphics. With PC's, everyone has a different config and it's more difficult to program with various setups.Best regards,Jim

I heard somewhere that if MS goes to the XBox, it will resolve many problems as everyone will have the same system (the XBox), the same hardware, and the same graphics. With PC's, everyone has a different config and it's more difficult to program with various setups.Best regards,Jim

That's the very reason why most console games do perform better then their PC counterparts. Most of them are optimized to run at a consistent 60fps to match the refresh rate on a HDTV. It's amazing what a game developer can do as far as performance is concerned when given one specific hardware spec to develop/optimize for. That's not to say that we couldn't have a PC based flight sim would be optimized for specific hardware. With more and more gamers abandoning the PC maybe the way to go with small audience sims/games like flight sim is for the developer to set a specific hardware spec and leave it at that period.