Can we now have an "intelligent" criticism of FS2004.

[Guest wathomas777]

Don't blame the beta testers. They are not the problem. Neither is the beta test program.I was a real for pay tester for Microsoft's Close Combat 3. We got stacks and stacks of reports from beta test. One of the problems is that many times a beta tester only reports the symptom, but not the reproductions steps. Also, Many bugs reported by beta testers are duplicates so it takes a lot to plow through all the reports.Beta Testing is very good for checking out "real" systems though. Beta Testing is not to catch small bugs but HUGE GAPING bugs, bugs that cause crases to desktops or BSOD's. Because quite frankly, once the program is developed far enough for beta testing, there's really little that can be done to change content, because of all the dependencies.

[Guest wathomas777]

Whoa, this is not about my 600 Mhz system. I fully expect poor performance on the 600. I am buying a 2.0 Ghz (Athlon 2400) system at the end of the week. I thought that would be sufficient, but I am seeing 3 Ghz systems report problems.I'll make a deal, If my 2.0 Ghz machine with 700 Meg of Ram will run it reasonalbly well, I'll recant all I say. However, I am frightened that I have identical performance to a friend of mine who has a 1.6Mhz machine. This doesn't make any sense.

[Guest wathomas777]

To all:I think you misunderstand my position. First of all minimum requirements are 450Mhz as posted on my Tin. Secondly, I don't expect miracles. In fact, I am actually suprised that it runs on a 600Mhz machine as well as it did. If I was satisfied with open clear sky flying, I would not have a problem, and probably that's what I should stick to for now.What has me concerned is my friends computer should kick mine around town. It's not state of the art, but easily faster than mine, so given I get 5.0 to 6.0 FPS with medium cloud cover, 50% 3d Clouds in the building storms scenario, I expected him to get 10 to 12. And thus expect my 2 Ghz machine to get 15 to 18 FPS. I would be thrilled.But no. He also gets 5.0 to 6.0, and there are others who have 3.0 Ghz that are reporting single digits.This tells me it's not processor based but something else. And that is what frightens me.To be honest, I LOVED FS2002, and if my 2.0GHz machine can't run COF, then I will happily run FS2002 for two more years. It's not meant to be a slam, just an observation, and quite frankly no one can satisfactorily explain to me why some 800 and 600 Mhz machines are getting equal performance than machines 3 times their speed. That should disturb you. It disturbs me. It means that something is not right with the programming, not the hardware.

[Guest]

I agree that FS2004 definatley needs some fixing. Ive had it for a week and am about to go back to fs2k2. On the box they have the minimum system reqiured as a 450mhz, and a 1.8gb harddrive. lmao who are they kidding??? Im running it on a 2.2ghz,80gb hard drive sysytem with 512mb pc2700 and 64mb video card and havent seen anything past 14fps with the sliders and medium. Also im getting almost total lock ups when watching landings or takeoffs from the outside view. Please Mr Gates give us something worth the 59.00 that we spent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest]

Hi, wathomas.>It's not meant to be a slam, just an observation, and quite>frankly no one can satisfactorily explain to me why some 800>and 600 Mhz machines are getting equal performance than>machines 3 times their speed. That should disturb you. It>disturbs me. It means that something is not right with the>programming, not the hardware.Hmm... there are several factors here. First, what operating system are those using the lower end systems running? What sort of overhead is there? (i.e. background programs, antivirus, anti-spyware, etc.) How about network configurations? Even the type of RAM-- is it SDRAM? DDR? What speed is the RAM? What sort of cooling system does the machine have? How about frontside bus? Cache? What screen resolution is being used for FS? How many add-ons? Sure, there aren't many that run with FS2004 now, but... Another thing is how many browser windows are open? How many Windows Explorer windows? People don't realize the hit on performance caused by just the latter two. What shape is the hard drive in? Is it fragmented to hell and back? What speed is it? There are many more factors to consider, but I can't think of them all. I used to be a computer and printer technician a couple of years ago, and while I'm certainly no expert, it's easy for me to understand the problems faced by software developers when you consider just how much -they- have to consider when making a game. I do agree just by reading that there are systemwide fixes that need to be made with a patch, so we're on the same wavelength there. However, even those with the latest 3 Gig machines might benefit if they address some of the above issues. Hope this post is of some value.Jon

[Guest Outer Marker]

For what it's worth, I thought everyone might be interested in my comments as a Microsoft-Certified Solutions Provider. I am purposely making this non-technical for the benefit (and enjoyment) of everyone.Timing is everything in the software industry. In a bizarre but not surprising twist of economic logic, it is often marketing campaigns that drive software development. We all remember the hype surrounding the next generation of Windows Operating Systems, and when Marketing (and the year 2000) set the deadline, what we got was Windows ME... just a patched Windows 98SE with a new GUI. It wasn't until the late release of Windows 2000 that we really got what Marketing promised.And so we have the year 2003... Century of Flight! What a Marketing campaign! Just think of all the new simmers lured into the hobby after visiting the Wright Brother's Monument in Kill Devil Hills, NC. Now for the second bit... a new Windows API - I am of course speaking of DirectX 9. When FS2002 was in development, the DirectX 8 API was mature. It was well documented and stable. At the time the FS2004 was being developed, DirectX 9 was still in development. Indeed, many of the graphics card manufacturers had just completed internal standardization for the new API. Remember how quickly the DirectX 9.0b update came out? The fact remains that DirectX 9 is not as mature as DirectX 8 was. Even if Microsoft got it 100% right, the graphics driver developers would also have to get it 100% right.In the end I think we will see a patch... one for DirectX 9 and one for the popular graphics card drivers. Here's the analogy - Suppose you have a stable concrete tower. It works well, but you need to add 2 more floors to it. You use a concrete mix called DirectX 9. The 2 floors are added, but Marketing says it wants the 2 floors open for the grand event tomorrow. The trouble is, the concrete hasn't set, and it not fully hardened yet. Does this mean you don't have a tower? Of course not... it's just not as "stable as it gets" to coin a phrase :-)End user experience patch: I vote Microsoft with DirectX 9.0cCompatibility patch: I vote graphics driver developersScenery patch/es: I vote the good people of the simming community.Hope I haven't bored you all!Cheers!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/28607.gif

[Guest JEH]

>In closing I dont buy Ford products anymore for that very>reason :-) :-)Of course you remember what FORD stands for dontcha?FIX OR REPAIR DAILY ;)

[Guest PaulL01]

>For what it's worth, I thought everyone might be interested>in my comments as a Microsoft-Certified Solutions Provider. I>am purposely making this non-technical for the benefit (and>enjoyment) of everyone.>>Timing is everything in the software industry. In a bizarre>but not surprising twist of economic logic, it is often>marketing campaigns that drive software development. We all>remember the hype surrounding the next generation of Windows>Operating Systems, and when Marketing (and the year 2000) set>the deadline, what we got was Windows ME... just a patched>Windows 98SE with a new GUI. It wasn't until the late release>of Windows 2000 that we really got what Marketing promised.>>And so we have the year 2003... Century of Flight! What a>Marketing campaign! Just think of all the new simmers lured>into the hobby after visiting the Wright Brother's Monument in>Kill Devil Hills, NC. Now for the second bit... a new Windows>API - I am of course speaking of DirectX 9. When FS2002 was in>development, the DirectX 8 API was mature. It was well>documented and stable. At the time the FS2004 was being>developed, DirectX 9 was still in development. Indeed, many of>the graphics card manufacturers had just completed internal>standardization for the new API. Remember how quickly the>DirectX 9.0b update came out? The fact remains that DirectX 9>is not as mature as DirectX 8 was. Even if Microsoft got it>100% right, the graphics driver developers would also have to>get it 100% right.>>In the end I think we will see a patch... one for DirectX 9>and one for the popular graphics card drivers. Here's the>analogy - Suppose you have a stable concrete tower. It works>well, but you need to add 2 more floors to it. You use a>concrete mix called DirectX 9. The 2 floors are added, but>Marketing says it wants the 2 floors open for the grand event>tomorrow. The trouble is, the concrete hasn't set, and it not>fully hardened yet. Does this mean you don't have a tower? Of>course not... it's just not as "stable as it gets" to coin a>phrase :-)>>End user experience patch: I vote Microsoft with DirectX 9.0c>Compatibility patch: I vote graphics driver developers>Scenery patch/es: I vote the good people of the simming>community.>>Hope I haven't bored you all!>>Cheers!>Mr. Marker,Nice rehash of windows and marketing etc..Not sure I catch you with DX9 since:1.FS2k2 still has flickering polys/Z-buffer problem with many AG objects and that program was developed with DX7.xx....1.b Fs2k4 has a major problem with drawing order along these lines; smoke and various effects VS clouds are not rendered in the correct order and we still have flashing polys of some AG objects. 2.FS2k4 was developed with DX8 code, though as I understand it there are some DX9 commands that have been enabled in some DX8 cards like the GF4TI series (newer-Occlusion culling, Multipass rendering etc.)3. Many new DX9 game demos do not seem to exhibit these types of problems DX9 card or no. (Will rock/Gun metal/eve etc)Will DX9.0c fix these issues? Considering that DX.up never fixed all the drawing order issues of FS2k2 it makes one skeptical, as it would seem that the fault lies with the FS graphics engine, but I don

[Guest Outer Marker]

Hi Paul,Naturally DirectX 9 is not to blame for ALL the FS2004 issues. Rather it is a contributor to the reason that there is such disparity in user expeience. Some users say they run FS2004 with no problem. Others say they have a multitude of problems. The sheer number of hardware configurations out there are not interacting with the new API in the same manner.I believe FS2004 installs DirectX 9 by default. Is there an option to prevent the install? If so, I would recommend staying with the older DirectX version... at least for the time being. I think you'll find compatibility issues greatly reduced.As for the scenery... I agree with you of course. I don't think ALL of it can be corrected by freeware/shareware authors. However, it's a good start.It's a bit hard to compare DirectX 9 demos with FS2004. The demos are native apps. FS2004 queries the OS with mixed-mode threads to maintain backward compatibility.You're on to something with the SDK... I think we might all have a lot to learn from them.Cheers!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/28616.gif

[Guest PaulL01]

>>You're on to something with the SDK... I think we might all>have a lot to learn from them.True, However I think the point is that right now we are not going to go anywhere until MSFS gives them to us and past experience has been very bad regarding the timeliness of this. :( So then what will it be MSFS? A patch? SDKs quick? or both?OK, Lets have both!I vote Both! :)

[Guest Ashleigh Davidson]

Will somebody please explain why it should be left to the scenery design community "fix" the problems with scenery ? That's a ridiculous stance with respect.Nobody mentions but yet asssumes all FS users are internet connected when this isnt the case, what about them ? Not too sure about the DX9 issue, must admit, I've had sound problems since installing over DX8 which was very stable. Dont know what it is with Microsoft lately, the latest service pack for Win2k has been a disaster for me and many others. AD

[Guest Leesw]

>Will somebody please explain why it should be left to the>scenery design community "fix" the problems with scenery ?>That's a ridiculous stance with respect.>ADThere are probably only a handful of people on the MS development team tasked to recreate the entire world's scenery. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of bridges in the world. It would take a team of researchers and designers with the size and resources of the CIA to even begin to reproduce all those bridges, let alone all the other scenery, and the game would cost $10,000. If users want the scenery in their regions to be accurately reproduced then users in every region are going to have to contribute to achieve that.

[boshar 6]

On the whole they came up with some sort of solution and with a bit of Fly Terrascene experience it is easy to see what they did.They decided not to hand place 99% of the bridges in the scenery. Instead they use the old (still getting older) ESRI shape data. Just look at http://arcweb.esri.com/arcweb_viewer/ and look up Seattle. Land use out of date highways, rivers, railways, powerlines its all there and because its old its cheap to use it has been in FS for years. Its in vector format so you just have to write some convertion routines to get a nice World scenery that is somewhat accurate.Now in FS2004 we see the effects of a few new codelines that determine that a road crosses a river. It does some guestimates and then places a bridge that might de suitable. Presto a lot of the world scenery has bridges where there was nothing before (most of them the wrong shape but hey at least they are there). However some Americans used to beautifull handplaced bridges are cheated by this cheap sollution.Not a programmer myself (however I am liasoning between a programming team and my company to get new or adjusted programs) but I'm guessing a three man programer team working 3 months to adjust the existing shape to MS scenery tool to add code to place the powerlines, do the bridge thing and the bumpmap road in mountain effect. (if you accept less quality it can be done much quicker this is Microsoft after all)In the same time another small team about the same size uses generic buildings, a few specially designed ones and a lot of photos to make the new G-maxed airports and eh presto scenery 2002 is relabeled scenery 2004. (Compare this developmenmt method with Terramodels for Fly to get an idea how easy it is when you have some good mapping photo's and a decent aerial shot of an airport. http://www.avsim.com/terramodels/manual.htm)I would be seriously dissapointed if the MS sceneryteam was less effective than a bunch of freeware coders that work with an aging simulator. (no offence meant fellow Fly dudes just making an harsh (for microsoft) comparrison here)

[Guest estevesm]

Hi rkI'm also joining you in the low-fps group... I have a P4 2.4, 512 MB, Gforce2 128MB, Windows XP and I get frame rates in sigle digits if I put clouds anything more than minimum (10-15 while away from clouds, 3-7 flying through them), having drawing distance on the lowest. All other settings seem to have little impact on performance.I'm eargerly waiting for any professional tweaker to publish a solution to this, as I think MS will not createa patch.RgdsMarcelo

[Guest crashing_pilot]

well,the fun for me is flying,and i think the more it is like a game,the more people will buy it,cos there are far more people looking to spend some fun time behind their computer then there are people looking to pretend they're a real pilot,complete with checklists,red lamps for night flying,sectional charts,instrument approach plates and the lot.to think that more people would buy it if it's more real(as in:gee....a flight management computer??....in my game???....hmmm...i'm going to play some Doom or something...don't have to use my brain for that!...frikkin ms guys... the nerve...i'm taking this "simulator" back to united,maybe their pilots know how to operate it! %$#@#$%$) is really arrogant....this game has to appeal to as much people as possible,so they put "as real as it gets" on the box,and hope people fall for that....they do,and are happy to find out it aint that real,so even they(i ;-) ) can fly it.i like it,i like it a lot,but fact remains this is a GAME.