FS2004 - Wait before you buy...LOTS of problems!

[Guest Toni Rauch]

EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks for the help Guys. I finally got the sim to load (and run!!!).Turned out that the problem was with DirectX. Although there was nothing 'apparently' wrong with the version I had, I downloaded/set up again the latest DirectX from Microsoft and the program suddenly came to life.Go figure!Toni.

[Guest aca_dia]

Have about 12-15 test hours on my machine and I have yet to have any substantial problems. Its taken a little tweaking to get everything to work smoothly on my old machine, but 2004 runs quite well on it. Not a single crash or unexplainable event so far. I am very happy that I upgraded to 2004.Solid 25FPS (15-20 on the gound) with 50% scenery sliders, 100% Aircraft Sliders, & 1024x768x32 and all lighting and AA on. 3D clouds off.PIII 800 (Yup a sub 1 gig machine)512mbGeForce 4 Ti4400 128mbWindows XP Home

[LAdamson 240]

>Right on Paul!>>If everyone is willing to accept "a few bugs", well, we are>hosed. I mentioned in another post about the need to run the>sim in a different res in full screen mode than the desktop>default in order to get the menus to display properly. If>that ain't a program bug, I don't know what is.>Strange----- I run in 1600*1200 for both desktop & sim. Menus run fine and load faster than Fs2002. Clouds don't spin around either, and look great.Let's don't lump "everyone" into the pot......... next time!L.Adamson

[Guest otter55]

30+ troublefree hrs w/2004zero problems installingall my add-ons work (i dont have many)clouds are beautifull as advertised, maybe more soruns at least as smooth as 2002 on the same systemshave run ti4600 troublefreehave tried gf 5200, ran troublefree(drivers came w/card)have tried gf 5600 , ran troublefree(drivers came w/card)have not tried any ati cardsto microsoft: you have just released the finest, most troublefree flight sim i have ever had the pleasure to purchase and use.don

[Guest Ashleigh Davidson]

"also if ur running with anything under 1ghz or geforce 2 you dont really have a rigt to complain about it running bad.. U cant expect new games to run on ancient hardware."What a load of crap, look at the minimum specs for COF. Who's kidding who ?Ash

[Guest artl]

I wish I could say the same.Electronics Boutique was kind enough to trade my 4 blue coasters in for another set, but the results are the same.I've also been through:-several new video drivers for the ASUS V8420 (TI4200) 128 mb, currently settled on 43.45 which seems relatively stable for the other stuff on this machine.-update from simplisoft for the cd-rom, as per one of Microsofts "analysis" -reload of directx 9 and 9b-tried load from two different CD drives Sony DDU1621 (DVD) and HP 8200 series (writer), neither of which have given me trouble before.-removal of virus, firewall and startup softwareetc., etc., etc.and the fact remains that they are still 4 blue coasters.Install continues to die after 100% files copied and the "scenery decompression" is in progress. Either freezes or BSOD.... sometimes with a file corruption that requires chkdsk.I am getting sick of seeing "installed FS2004 today... " in these forums x( I can understand a problem with RUNNING it... what with possible complex video issues, but INSTALL???? There should be no such problems with install. Other programs, including FS2002, continue to run well.:-mad :-mad :-mad :-mad System:AMD XP2200+1gb memory50 gb free hard disk +or- (2x WD 120gb in RAID 1 mirror)ASUS A7V333 mobo, on-board soundASUS V8420 (TI4200, 128 mb) videoXP pro, updated Art.

[Guest rmce]

I know its daft. However, I have in teh past just did a file search for all *.tmp files and deleted them. I have also used Tweak UI to disable nearly all but eesential start up files. Twaek is better sometime than windows system stuff.XP in particular is great at hiding stuff in the background! I then restart whatever I want with Tweak UI or equivilant.Scan and Defrag comes next, as massive sectors can be reported as empty with zillions of space taken up!I am sure that you know all this stuff already.Have you tried a Start Run command instead of autobooting?I am just a tad concerned about your hard disk space. You will know that some installations kinda mirror with a temp file, as Fs2004 I think does with the scenery being unpacked.Its one of these classic computer thingies that drive us mad. The old...Getting It...getting it.....Got it....WHAT?Once you really have it is safe for ever!RonMacGlasgow

[Guest rmce]

Ignore Hard Drive statement. I misread your config.RonMacGlasgow

[Guest MattNW]

I have a system that's very close to yours and I've had few problems at all. Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.5 GHz Math Support: On Chip BIOS: Award Software 04/29/02 Bus Type: PCI,ISA,USB,AGP Ports: 1 Parallel, 3 Serial Memory: 511 MB (47% Utilized) Floppy Disks: 1.44 MB Hard Disks: 7.87 GB Multimedia: Sound, Joystick, CD-ROM Video: 800x600 in 32-Bit Color, NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 Ver. 4.0 (64MB)It seems that FS 2004 is a mystery. Those with the high end systems are having a lot of trouble while those of us who worried and schemed and counted our money for possible system upgrades or new systems are lucking out on this sim.The only problem I've had was some slow frame rates at first. I tweaked my video card (Same as yours) a little and I'm getting very good performance now with everything set on high. Here's my video settings if you want to try them out.Direct 3D Mipmap level: Blend Enable Fog Emulation Use up to 63 MB of system memory for PCI mode3D Antialiasing 2xOpen GL Settings enable buffer region extension allow dual planes extension to local video memory use fast linear-mipmap-linear filtering Default color depth for textures: Desktop Buffer flipping mode: Auto Vertical sync: On by default Anisotropic filtering: Enabled Use up to 20 mb of system memory for textures in PCI modeMy graphic quality is excellent with these settings and I have all the sliders set to Max with very little difference when in heavily detailed areas compared to the boonies.

[Guest MattNW]

>Mine is even slower.... P3 800MHz, geforce3 pure 64MB, 384MB>ram, Windows XP.>>The *only* problem I've had is when the real-world weather>popped up the dialup connect dialog minimizing the sim at a>time when I'm unable to or don't want to connect to the>internet--if I click cancel, I can't restore the sim and need>to ctrl-alt-delete to kill it. However, if I leave the dialog>alone, I can restore the sim and fly normally....>>Otherwise, I'm getting much better performance in most cases>than I ever expected on this low-end PC. It sounds like you have your sim set to Real World Weather when you aren't connected to the internet. It tries to update every 15 minutes and if you aren't connected to the internet then it will throw up a connection dialog box. You should connect to the internet BEFORE starting the sim if you want to use real weather otherwise choose a weather scheme or set your own weather.

[Guest metaleye]

Sir:Can you, please, tell me WAIT FOR WHAT. Maybe for FS2006. Do you thing Micro Soft will post any patches for FS2004.Thank you.

[Guest Nathan Palmer]

I, as a fellow simmer, do feel sorry for anyone having issues with hardware problems. I dont think I would be at all happy if I went to install CoF and couldnt get it running or found that I need drivers that are made yet. To those people I understand your unhappiness. I am upgrading my video card for this sim where in the past I would upgrade my whole system. I feel one of the big things that we are seeing is that unlike last version inbetween making and releasing this version there is a new Direct X version with the release of new cards made for this new Direct X version and those that are not. Add into the fact that MS made this new sim with the new Direct X version compatiable. That is my take on this and hopefully these things will be fixed soon by the pparties than can fix what they can. As far as buggy sim goes well that is a different issue with me. Yes I would like the visuals to look real and the small things with clouds having outlines or whatever are far better than the flat boring billboard clouds of 2002. If there is a building in the middle of a runway or taxiway then just consider that runway under construction for the next two years. If ATC vectors you away from your waypoint once in a blue moon then just consider that the ATC is having a bad day. I kind of like when flights have character and challenge me than always being perfect. Its taken a week of fooling around to find my happy place with the sliders and I am very happy with what i was able to get for a mid range computer. All in all the sim gets two thumbs up. Someone stated if you bought a car and the radio only work...would you have it fixed or just live with it. Well its a) not a car and :( would be more like buying a part of a car and having it not work right once installed in your car. Then you would have these choices a) get a new car :( talk to others and try and find a fix or hope the companies can help you get it fix or c) just realize at that point and time what you want can't work right in your car and take it off/out and wait to see if in the future there becomes parts to make it work. People should feel good about being able to vent their unhappiness but at the same time not get so mad about the fact others have nothing to be unhappy about. If I say that I love the sim dont go into a rant that Im being blind or a suck up to MS with knowning others have issues. Its software and on the cutting edge trying to push it but also allowing use for across the board. I have no doubt that MS could take there first sim in todays time and give simmers a 100+ fps with no glitches even on the most basic computers. There are some great visual improvements with alot of little small ones in this version compared to the last but this time you could keep both sims on your computer and not feel like your taking a step back so much if you choose to do a flight on 2002 instead of CoF. Unlike prior versions where you felt like your giving up a lot to go back to the prior sim. My personal take on this sim is that MS did a great job with what they choose to add, improve or re-do as a list of things and used a lot of user input. I feel they made this sim to run smooth with more ways to tweak it with sliders or config settings than seen before allowing for more across the board users. Having compatiablity problems are one of the negatives but one for a select few and has nothing to do with the sim. Not being perfect or just what a person might of thought it would be is just like every sim prior. NP

[Guest Air1]

Right on the mark man, well said and to the point.Steve:-wave

[Maxis 1,864]

Well i posted in Dillio's negative post the same thing. If it bothers you that much ... Go back to fs2k2 OR Take it Back. Just because youre not having fun with it doesnt mean that the product is defective. After all the sim is not mission critical code or commercial ATP simulators. ALL software has bugs and even the most obvious bugs will pass beta testing sometimes. I myself is still baffled about the fact that they didnt catch the addon 2d panel issue with the Geforce FX and the fact that i had to find a beta to get it to work. HOWEVER, in my humble opinion i dont think that its a reason to rant. If it wont install on your system and you have tried 2 different set of disks .. would you still blame the software or your own hardware? If you cant get the clouds to work to your liking you can always fix it.If the water looks wrong you can fix that too, If IFR doesnt work properly use the garmin to get back on track. If you didnt get a departure clearance reset the flight (After all.. you just started) MS cannot custom make the program to everybody's whims and fancy. Flying this series since version 4. i guess puts me in a different perspective. I can live with the hiccups because compared to where this sim all started MS did a darned good job.Bottom line ... you take the Bad with the good or take your cash and go home. After all .. YOU are the consumer

[Guest daveg4otu]

Having read all the preceding posts I would like to comment.Firstly- I think that given the vast numbers of copies of FS2004 that have been sold in the first few days ,the number of people with problems is comparatively small.Just as in FS2k2 and all the preceding versions ,it's always going to be a trade off between what your system can cope with and what you want the software to achieve.Just pushing all the parameters up and expecting everything to work is overoptimistic.Better to change one thing at a time -see how it goes- then push up a little more.IMHO most problems are probably down to either the user expecting too much from their system,or the system itself having problems the the software makes apparent.Here ,I've had 2004 for only three days,but the only problem I've had was a freeze when ,just to see,I pushed the target frame rate right up,in addition to increasing virtually everything else.Default settings + some run sweetly.My system is by no means the latest thing --- AMD Athlon 2000XP (@133/133)ECS K7S5A Mobo 3.1 :04/29/02 Rev BiosSiS 735 Chipset Rev 12 x 256mb DDR RAMGeforce4 Ti-4200-8x 128mb DDR AGPAGP 1.16 WHQL . 4403 Detonator XP Drivers2 x Maxtor 40GB HDD (7200rpm)LG 8x4x32 BurnerLG 52xDirect X 9.0 final Windows ME/ Windows XP dual bootBIOS Settings- DRAM Timing Ultra. CAS Latency 3T,RAS ACtive 6T,RAS Precharge 3TL1 Cache Enabled.L2 Cache Enabled.Sys BIOS Cache Disabled.DRAM Drive Slew Rating - Fast FS 2002 and 2004 are running on WinME.2002 also on XP - haven't yet tried 2004 on XP yet.A couple of other comments- I was disappointed to find that once again we were going to have to use a CD(#4) to run the sim- however I successfully created an image of the CD in a virtual drive with no problems at all and it runs fine off that- thus preserving CD4.Several posts back someone mentioned running 2004 on line (Vatsim) - HOW?- the latest Squawkbox doesn't work with 2004 -it's not supposed to, and I spent several hours trying to persuade it to- unsuccessfully. Please let us all into the secret.Last thing - several have griped about the cloud quality- I think the skies are much better than 2002 ,and no doubt they will be more improved by the time 2006 appears.It's one step at a time.I'm not so sure I like the water effects but ,almost certainly ,someone cleverer than me will very quickly make an addon to change all that.:-ukliam