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

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hello Hornit,I see you predict a patch in 3 months. I realize that's just a prediction. And I hope it comes true because I would sure like to see a Microsft patch this sim up to improve it by fixing bugs. It would show that MS actually cares about the program and the Flight Sim Community, and it's customers beyond just, "Ok, you bought our game and now we have your money. Thank You but don't expect us to lift a finger in the way of trying to fix bugs like other companies do." I realize they cared enough to make the game and they put a lot of hard work into it, it shows. And hopefully they'll make a lot of money off of it so they'll care to make the next version. I realize FS2004 is pretty darn new. But a lot of people have questioned whether we'll ever see a patch from MS for FS2004. Some have just plain said we'll never see one as it'll be left up to the FS community to fix up bugs. I realize that it is all just speculation. But still, it makes me wonder if we will see a Patch, Service Pack, or whatever you want to call it. To me it really is just a bunch of speculation until a patch is actually released, or, at the very least, an annoucement that one is being worked on and will be forthcoming.I don't think people expect a perfect piece of software, especially when it's a very complex one. But I do think a lot of people(myself included obviously) expect a company to care enough to put out a patch to fix some bugs somewhere down the line. Otherwise it just seems like it shows they don't care once they have your money.With all that said, I very well could have waited to buy the game until it had been out for some time and read reviews and forum posts before deciding to buy. I pre-order my copy though. Had I decided to wait I 'might' have very well been turned off by hearing about the numerous bugs and then waited to see if MS cared to patch it. It's not much but just my thoughts on the 'P' word.Regards,Jim RichardsOne Tin Soldier

[Guest Edam]

What JohnCi said...the slowdown approaching some airports is most annoying. Airports in England seem to be the worst. Try EGBB.

[robert young 2,897]

Hi Ernie,It is rarely that I disgree with you but I must on the SDK's. SDK's are essential for any developer yet none of them come anywhere near to explaining what are quite easily explained parameters, if only someone would take the trouble. MS relies for a large proportion of its sales on the symbiotic relationship it has with freeware and payware developers. Without this relationship the customer base for home simulators would be impoverished, and MS people know this full well. So for all concerned it IS essential to explain in intelligent language the crux of many parameters.But historically MS's SDK's have been like a difficult cryptic crossword. They give clues but never answer direct questions. Sometimes I wonder whether this is an elaborate game or mere lack of concise thought.Some of the descriptions of parameters are no more than convoluted explanations of their titles: (example: "Idle RPM efficiency" -typical explanation: "This sets the efficiency of Idle RPM"). Very helpful - not.I would rather MS issued no SDK at all than offering essentially expanded synonyms for the parameter titles.A classic case is the Effects SDK, not one of the params of which is explained to any manifestly understandable degree, yet the author of the MS effects, and textures, is a very talented man. But SDK authorship needs a dedicated person conversant with both the parameters' inner workings AND a flare for explaining things in a helpful way.Consequently, developers spend many many wasted hours deciphering through the hidden meanings and obscure syntax, largely to no great enlightenment. In the end you experiment and hope that you find the answers. If it is a game then it's one I find extremely tiring.Regards,Rob Young - RealAir Simulations

[Guest otter55]

you are not the only one that is able to run 2004 with no problems. people such as you and i are simply tired of responding to these "not ready for primetime" threads. yes, some folks are having problems. but many are not.nearing 50hrs with 2004, zero problems, zero glitches, smooth, no stutters since day one. most stuff turned to max. great clouds/great weather/etc.removed 2002 the first day. p4 3.061 gig ramti 4600xp homedon

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

John, I wish I had some insight to offer.. instead, all I can say is that FS9 runs better on my system than FS2004 and that includes flying into a detailed airport like LAX or ORD.. As less of the sky is being shown and the runways take priority, I find the fps going up rather than going down.. landing is pretty much at 25fps (locked) whereas the cloud cover can take me down to single digits as I fly into the clouds.. Taxiing around SFO is in the twenties, where FS2002 was in the teens..Strange, isn't it?

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Strange, isn't it?"Curious....What are your complete system specs? Also, what's your mesh & other settings at? -J

[Hornit 3]

Ahh well, I guess I will just give up on this issue :) Im glad it runs great for you. What we are trying to do in an adult and professional manner is see if there is some common thread or system level where the problems either dissapear or the user just inst able to run anywhere near something which could be considered usable/flyable. We all play this game for slightly different reasons. Personally I like flying versus using it as a screenshot generator. What I am seeing is that If you have a brand new system, IE fast bus speeds and an above average vid card, than things appear like they are ok. Im guessing thats all it is(kind of normal in this hobby). I would not put any of this into a "whining" category at all. My system is running this pretty darn well. That however does not appear to be the norm in here. I guess im just a helpful kind of guy at heart and like to know the reasons why. If there are some issues which might need to be addressed(and I think there are) there are other guys who just might be able to fix it or help point out some things that got missed in final coding. All these discussions will do nothing other than enlighten us all and lead to better and more ejoyable simming! Thats where I'm coming from. I'm not going to bring it up anymore, but will continue to participate If I feel it can help others.Hornit

[Hornit 3]

Otter, Just for grins what res do you like with that rig and are you using FSAA and any kind of options in Rivatuner? Thanks!Hornit

[B777ER 2,475]

A patch from MS for FS2004? I seriously doubt it. Flame all you want but IMO, MS's philosophy when it comes to their entertainment titles is stricly sell and forget.

[ErnieAlston 33]

>MS relies for a large proportion of its sales on the symbiotic >relationship it has with freeware and payware developers. >Without >this relationship the customer base for home simulators would be >impoverished, and MS people know this full well. So >for all >concerned it IS essential to explain in intelligent language the >crux of many parameters.Hi Rob,I understand what you are saying, and I agree the SDK is essential to developers. But MSFS primary customer is not the 3rd party developer. Its believed the majority of MSFS users do not add any 3rd party add-ons to the base package.As a 3rd party developer myself I too would like to see the SDK released first. But I also recognize where the customer base lies. 3rd party developers cannot get higher priority than the primary customer base.As far as having a better more detailed and userfull SDK, I agree with you.But as a developer who at times has had the 'chore' and 'drudgery' of writing SDK's then having to go over them with lawyers and Beta testers before release. I can't say I enjoyed the process. The last thing developers want to do is write more documentation.>A classic case is the Effects SDK, not one of the params of which >is explained to any manifestly understandable degree, yet the >author of the MS effects, and textures, is a very talented man. But >SDK authorship needs a dedicated person conversant with both >the >parameters' inner workings AND a flare for explaining things in a >helpful way.I agree with you but it would be very difficult if not impossible to find such a person. Developers for the most part are not great document writers. When you ask developers to write documentation (a task they loathe and despise to begin with) the results will likely not be very good.That's always going to be the downside of SDK's.Regards.Ernie.

[Guest otter55]

i run 1024x768 and run no fsaastill have a nice quality picturei use a microtech 19" lcd monitordon

[Guest PaulL01]

>i run 1024x768 and run no fsaa>>still have a nice quality pictureSorry But now you are confusing, "still have a nice quality picture" and "I run 1024x768 and run >no< fsaa" do not fit, quality picture or image has been decribed since the days of 3DFX as at least running some AA or at an ultra high res, that was a long time ago considering all the advances in hardware since then.Since you have no issues and since you purchased a TI4600 why do you not use AA? I think it is fair to say that these days running without AA is a last resort, those that can't would be the "not ready for prime time players" as you stated, those that will run AA (a majority) will likely run into the menu/AA problem right off even with older hardware like your GF4 or more so on new hardware like R9800/FX5900 etc. Next we could go into how the drawing order in the Z-buffer as it would seem is screwwed up, in certain situations some far away clouds get clipped as you move as if you have an invisable ray gun and are evaporating them, also some far clouds are drawn in front of near objects like smoke and light beams. There is no brand of video card that does not show this up (tested). It may not be huge, but I think you would agree it certainly spoils the fun so I think we can put that in the issue catagory.Glad you are enjoying FS9 but I hope you understand where all of this is comming from don, this is not a dig at you.

[Guest PaulL01]

>A patch from MS for FS2004? I seriously doubt it. Flame all>you want but IMO, MS's philosophy when it comes to their>entertainment titles is stricly sell and forget.That does not fit with the history of FS; FS5 was patched many times,In recent memory we have FS2k, not only was it patched twice but the uproar over things that were removed was so great that the patch "fixed" issues that were not related to a "bug" or bad programming, an example was the return of Shadows among others......"Since we now Finally have a sun in the sky now they remove shadows???"A patch is certainly not out of question if it is truly warranted, time will tell.

[Guest]

So, you should try FS2004 on a PIV-4.0 which should be out early next year.You're guilty here, comparing the behaveour of FS2002 on a machine that's over half a year newer than those at time of release to the behaveour of FS2004 on machines that are old at time of release of that product.Only reason for that I can think of is finding reasons to complain...On my lowly 2.4GHz machine FS2004 runs faster, more smoothly AND with better scenery and aircraft visuals than did FS2002.Quite a feat, seeing that FS2002 on my machine at the time I got that ran hardly at all. It was a P2-400, which ran FS2000 just fine but crawled with FS2002 unless I turned off a lot of options.I knew that would happen so I didn't complain.I expected to have to turn off a lot of things to get FS2004 to run well. In reality I don't have to turn off most things and am running it with everything to the same percentage of settings as FS2002 (meaning most sliders are maxed out) and still getting the same performance. Only killer on my machine are 3D clouds, but I had been expecting that as my videocard (while certainly not bad) is far from state of the art.90% or more of complaints are caused by either/and1) unrealistic expectations of what people should get2) messing around with things you don't understand (overclocking, beta drivers, etc) leaving the machine in an unstable state3) malice (wanting to harm Microsoft or the development team by getting people not to buy the product)4) ignorance (drawing incorrect exclusions based on available data, such as deciding something isn't working right simply because it's not working as you think it should when in fact it is right and you are wrong).

[Guest]

>A patch from MS for FS2004? I seriously doubt it. Flame all>you want but IMO, MS's philosophy when it comes to their>entertainment titles is stricly sell and forget.It's not. But Microsoft has (and quite rightly so) a strict policy to NOT patch things that aren't critical and there are NO critical problems with FS2004.If there were noone would be able to use it, when in fact there are only a few (professional???) complainers.