Microsoft Only Gets a "C" from this Long Term User

[Guest JC2]

Sorry. I just don't buy it. This is a repeat of what we saw when FS2002 released. For a few days, people RAVED about how great it was. Then people started complaining. Same thing with CoF.When FS2002 released, I was flying on a pretty good machine running at 1.8GHz. I could run it with almost everything maxed out. With CoF, I have to turn things down a few notches to get good performance, but I can get performance equivalent to FS2002 when doing so.Sometime between now and FS2006, I will buy a new computer and will once again be cranking up FS to its highest settings. Today with my 1.8 machine, it just isn't possible.Is that Microsoft's fault? As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have the ability to crank some settings up when I upgrade my hardware. I wouldn't want to buy a new machine and not be able to take advantage of the additional performance.Jim

[Guest Milamber]

Hmmm....1.8 ghz in October 2001???? Something doesn't seem right to me :)

[Guest JC2]

In January of 2002 actually. I didn't buy FS2002 when it first hit the shelf. :)Jim

[Guest PhilipManwaring]

Regarding product returns, I spoke with the manager at my local EB Games about this a couple of days ago. He said that he'd sold through about 90% of his initial stock of 80+ units and at this point hadn't had any returned. By Comparison, CFS3 resulted in a substantial number of returns. Frankly I think this product is brilliant. It has some annoying issues, but overall it advances the hobby and makes it even more appealing to the layman. That's a good thing, IMO.

[Guest daveg4otu]

I've read all this thread ,and several others that are essentially the same,people blaming the software,the video card manufacturers,Microsoft ,etc. etc. etc.Anything but either themselves or their PC.It seems to me that the cause of the majority of peoples' problems is a lot closer to home.The PC itself- often overclocked in one way or another,often " living on the edge",sometimes older machines that just haven't the resources (and so on and so on............)OK - the new FS isn't without some flaws ,but then I've yet to see a simulator program that is.I think we may never see the 100% perfect piece of software.Trouble is,we all(I'm no exception) expect more out of each succeeding version.The software designers are trying to provide this "extra" at the same time as trying to guess a year or more ahead,what the average "state of the art" PC will be capable off.All I can say (and I've said it before elsewhere on here) is that it runs just fine on my PC(not OCed in any way,not cutting edge),It runs in WinME as well as XP(Dual boot here).It out performs FS2002 even when flying online.My system is Athlon 2000xp @ 133/133 .512MB DDRAM/K7S5A mboard with a Ti4200/128mb Graphics cardDave

[Guest tascaso]

It seems that when FS2002 was released a lot of issues came up and some along the lines we see in the forums. The reality is that we are the tip of the iceberg...we are the sickos that come here and post and tweak and are just hard core addicts to this insanity called FS.The rest of the folks that purchase the product load it up and if it works fine and if not the take it back or give it to someone they hate! I have friends that purchase tons of software without doing any research..."uhh I thought it looked cool"...and really the game is a piece of junk. They load it up take it for a spin and never touch it again...I know...I have worked on some of their computers and you should see all the junk on thier HD's.I want to thank the folks that post some legitimate gripes and problems with the COF. I have been able to tweak it with the help of the diehards in this forum to where I can fly VFR without to much of framerate hit with weather. My problem will come with the add-on heavy iron complex panel aircraft. I have the PMDG B737 and that puppy brings my rig to its knees.I have kept FS2002 on my harddrive and will be accessing it rather frequently. All aside COF has some great things in it and unfortunately a demand for more horsepower. I am no longer building rigs to fly MSFS products...not when all the other games can run very well on the rig I currently have. Sad but true.Here is the list of recommended games that perform very well in comparison to the demands of COF.Maddox Games; IL-2-Forgotten Battles (beautiful scenery and the water is spectacular)EA GAMES F1-Challenge 99-02EA GAMES F1-2002 with the GT MOD, and 360 Modena MOD and other many great mods that are out there.Medal of HonorUnreal Tournament IITony

[akriesman 0]

>If MS gives us a timely SDK for terrain, we could replace the>bridges as VTP2 lines... but for now it's impossible as the>code is different than the previous SDK. Our only recourse>would be to replace them as objects.Amen Dick. While I think that MS has released a fine product with COF, it amazes me that it takes so long for them to release the SDK's.IMHO, SDK's should be released before the actual product release. They should think about how many sales are being delayed because some folks don't have the 3rd party support in 2004 that they had in 2002.Unbelievable. There is just no logical reason for the SDK delays, other than the fact that they probably don't see 3rd party products as a real benefit to their Flight Sim sales. If this is true, so be it.One of the nice things about the Fly! series, was that their terrific SDK's were also released before or during the actual product release. They also gave developers a whole lot of advanced warning when there were significant changes made.Allen

[Guest wathomas777]

Look one of the problems here is that all the testing here is subjective:There is no one "benchmark" that people can use to evaluate their systems performance.Case in point:I have an Athlon 2400+ with 640meg of Ram and an MX420 card.I WAS running 1024*768 w/ 32 bit color. 3D clouds at 100% and draw distance at 40 miles. Scenery was very Dense and Auto gen was dense (one and two ticks to the left respectively)I can continue to bore you with details, but suffice it to say that I was running what I felt my "sweet spot" was. Slider locked to 18 and getting nearly that in all but the worst weather themes.So I decide to load one of the premade flights. I decide to take a flight to Mount McKinley in the Bush Pilot "adventure", and I call up the flight with my computer and I'm popping 5fps on the RUNWAY!!! What's up with that? Merril is not a detailed airport. There was not a huge amount of AI traffic in the air, and the sky looked 3/8. When I got in the air, it was worse. What's going on????Then I looked The weather slider was set to custom weather, and upon looking at the settings, microsoft had put no fewer than four seperate weather layers on. It was killing my system. When I went back to the "fair weather" theme, things went back to normal goodness.The point in all this, is that the weather and 3d clouds can kill even the fastest system out there. Microsoft seems to have put some of their historical flights with some pretty complex systems installed. So when we judge the sim, a lot has to do with what is being done with it. Because of dynamic weather, gone are the days that we could simply set the slider and forget it. With dynamic weather, you may be getting good weather at one end and end up with complex weather at the other end.So, now we need to take that into account. I am actually looking at moving down to 800x600 so that I can take into affect the absolute worse case scenario (as far as complex weather is concerned). That way, as I fly, I won't be jolted out of reality because of an advancing weather front. OR you can go back to FS2002 and STATIC weather and not have to worry about performance taking a huge hit because of that sudden thunderstorm that appeared over KORD during your approach, which brings your system to it's knees during final....

[Cloud9 0]

Sounds about right to me. I built my ABIT P4 system with a 2Ghz CPU in November 2001. I still have that system - for Linux :-)Cloud9

[Cloud9 0]

Tony,Do you actually have these games on your rig? I've never heard of Unreal Tournament II, but there is UT2003 and Unreal II.Cloud9

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

I wonder how many "average users" expect this complex simulator to run just great on their machine with all the features turned up??When it installs, the sim chooses display settings that give it a chance to run OK.. me thinks it is precisely the "hard core" users on this forum that move all the sliders to the right, and then complain when it brings their system to its knees..I was just re-reading Bruce Artwicks 1987 foreword to the FS companion book "Runway USA" and I quote:"Flight Simulator Phase 1 is now complete.. it is now time to implement a whole new set of ideas.. multiple 3-d views from inside and outside the plane, multi-machine/multi-player modes, smooth zoom, and digitized sound.. high performance hardware will make this possible."In this spirit, we should all be happy that the MS team is continuing to push the envelope of what can be done.. and as so many times before, new hardware will make this possible.. even with Real Weather enabled..I, for one, am totally happy with this release and FS2002 is being removed a soon as all my add-ons have been patched!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Bert,This is not directed at you, so please don't read it that way. You've been around the forums a long time and you always offer good insights. But in fairness to this thread, some issues have nothing to do with the slider adjustments. There are legit problems with FS2004. And some issues surface regardless of slider settings. Why does performance seem to fall around airports, regardless of cpu or settings? Some have said their performance is fine, but they lock the sim down to 15 or 20 fps, then spew something out about the eye being unable to see better.... Blah!!!!The only way to really test this is to run with a fps lock above the 15 or 20 that most people have convinced themselves is acceptable. By leaving AI and Autogen off, 25 was my norm in FS2002, given clear skies and sliders adjusted to match FS2002's detail. That last sentence is important. I am not trying to make the scenery in FS2004 "better"--just equal to what I see in FS2002. One example is scenery density--"normal" in FS2004 is approx. equal to "slider right" in FS2002. Same holds true for Autogen, which I rarely use anyway given my cpu speed. When I bump up the fps lock to 25 in FS2004 with the same features off, I find FS2004 can deliver it...until I approach an airport. A positive is FS2004 can deliver the 25fps even with a layer or two of 3-d clounds, even set a 100pct 3-d. Yet even with sliders left including clouds, airports choke performance, and 2-d panels seem to as well. I don't get pauses, but fps drops enough to annoy the heck out of me. It used to be flying into SLC, MCO or Cincy was a great way for a lower end system like mine to enjoy the sim's features. I'd coach people to fly to the 20,000+ airports that weren't as detailed as LAX, so they could maxmize performance in the sim.This holds true in FS2002, anyway. FS2004--forget it. I cruised over heavy mesh to SLC from MFR, getting 25 fps the whole way. The minute I came "in range" and SLC appeared on the horizon, fps started to bounce between 16-18. Scenery density left or right, it doesn't matter. Almost similar to the KPBI bug in FS2002, where users see 4fps when scenery density is maxed.I do find if I hide the panel, fps jumps by 3-4 frames.... What the heck is that? 2-d panels didn't degrade FS2002's performance... I know part of the answer--Microsoft changed the way panels are handled in FS2004.So it's unfair to say that the problems people see are based on sliders alone. There's more to the mix. My hunch is Microsoft changed code to manage the texture impact the clouds would have on the sim. In the process, something else lost priority--likely building and aircraft display. And I thank my lucky stars that users with power systems have seen the same thing--else I'd think my system was doomed. I am all for progress, but we should at least get what we had. Otherwise, it's impossible to replace one sim with another, and you end up with a collection of sims to fit the flight. FS2002 was an obvious replacement for FS2000, 'coz setting for setting, FS2002 delivered better performance. That's only somewhat true in FS2004. Away from airports, FS2004 does seem to offer improved performance. Around them, performance is worse.-John

[Hornit 3]

Bert, I respectfully disagree with you on your thoughts about the "hard core" If anything its exactly us "hard core" who understand that you CAN"T have all your sliders maxed etc etc. If anything its us who are going to be a whole lot more realsitic than your everyday user who just doesn't know the difference between MOHAA or Unreals graphics engine and how a flight sim is just a different animal altogether. I would rethink your opinion on that one. My experience is its pretty much exactly the opposite from what your saying."When it installs, the sim chooses display settings that give it a chance to run OK.. me thinks it is precisely the "hard core" users on this forum that move all the sliders to the right, and then complain when it brings their system to its knees.." Just for the record I decreased most if not ALL my sliders after this thing automatically set it up for me. While its true we all gnash our teeth every time a new sim hits the shelves,(some of this is just more of that I guess) it seems each new generation is buggier and buggier. Its just a trend in the industry. I predict a patch for this sim within 3 months and it will involve the menu issues with AA on and maybe some optimization of the AFD and BGL usage. If not I would be surprised. I mean come on! Poor performance on final appraoch to Allentwon, PA? HEll the best part of all this simming stuff is taking off and landing....where do we do that/ Airports of course!! :)

[Guest]

Hi I second Allen's thoughts on proper .SDK's of all people in the world the Microsoft should know the value of FULLY documenting the software they produce. Think about it if they took the same attiudeback in the "olden days" of DOS and the early days of windows it would not be a Microsoft world today. I like Allen think that FS9 is a very good product with great potential it's just hard to fully understand why it's so hard to pry a few tools out of 'em in a timely manner. Dan (BTW it's nice to see you around Allen)

[ErnieAlston 33]

>IMHO, SDK's should be released before the actual product release. >They should think about how many sales are being delayed because >some folks don't have the 3rd party support in 2004 that they had >in 2002.>>Unbelievable. There is just no logical reason for the SDK delays, >other than the fact that they probably don't see 3rd party products >as a real benefit to their Flight Sim sales. If this is true, so be >it.The reason is quite simple. Programmers 'hate' to write documentation. The SDK is a lot more technical than the user guide. Compare the format quaility of the SDK to the User Guides. The SDK is clearly less polished documentation put together by the development team.The truth is an SDK is not required. It is a 'courtesy' made from the primary developer to aid and assist the add-on developers for the overall enhancement and longevity of the product.As as result the SDK clearly should be no greater than a secondary concern by MS. And it should be worked on until 'after' all development has been completed. So if MS decides to release a patch for CoF, then the patch should be worked on first before the SDK.Regards.Ernie.