J van E.....Your right..... I just had to vent a little on the lack of the word "Simulator"...... :( Bob

I'll of course defer to your certain knowledge Tim, and will admit to having overstated the case (at least with regards to FSX), but......I'm still seeing a lot of exceptions in the actual rendering sequence... :( I'm fairly certain that we can both agree that it can be better streamlined, modernized and optimized......which in all likelihood already has been.

There is a very informative article on Terrain Modelling here which explains Microsof't's previous thinking.http://www.microsoft...balTerrain.aspx

LOL In other words (translating the movie idea back to FS) you are going to wait until you can get your addons for free...? :( And/or you never buy software until it's two years old? :( (Obvioulsy the example only applies to someone who actually wants to go to the movies, unlike you. In your case pick something you like to do and which costs money and then apply the same point I was trying to make to it.)

Jeroen- I have certainly enjoyed Flight Sim. But I never buy software until it is available on CD/DVD. By then, most of the bugs will have been wrung out. And if it doesn't make it to CD, I can only assume it is in the category of not particularly worthwhile. As the saying goes- "In a world where 90% of everything is crud, patience sure helps identify the 10%".Cheers Alex Reid

Jeroen- I have certainly enjoyed Flight Sim. But I never buy software until it is available on CD/DVD. By then, most of the bugs will have been wrung out. And if it doesn't make it to CD, I can only assume it is in the category of not particularly worthwhile. As the saying goes- "In a world where 90% of everything is crud, patience sure helps identify the 10%".Cheers Alex Reid

Well, I certainly can't argue with that...!!! If I had the patience to do what you did, I certainly would have saved quite a few bucks...! :(

"Powered by Games for Windows – LIVE "Is this really necessary?!?!

J van E.....Your right..... I just had to vent a little on the lack of the word "Simulator"...... :( Bob

Two things right there that have me concerned. WINDOWS LIVE, what now we have to login just to fire up the program? Plus the dropping of the word "Simulator" from the title. Well I'll be watching to see how this all turns out. I'll be holding on to my FSX like many of us. I just barely now on my recent PC build in May have something that can run FSX pretty darn well. I don't want to say I was happy with the news that MSFS was going away but I was relieved at the time in some small way that now many of us would have a chance to catch up with our hardware over time to get the most out of FSX. I always hated how a new flight sim would come out, and you needed a PC from two years in the future to really get the best out of it.

One thing to keep in mind is that MSF is only one of the sims in the works. MSF may turn out to not be the enthusiasts choice it doesn't offer backwards compatibility at some level or a really fantastic platform for add on development. It is very possible that X-Plane 10 or the Aerosoft sim could end up being our new preferred platform. I think Aerosoft understands out needs and the X-Plane night shots that are circulating are stunning. MS has the history behind them but that will only go so far.Honestly, I have no idea where this is going to go over the next few years. This may be a real shake up in the community or it may help solidify the community. It is exciting. It would be a little scary but we have FSX to keep us going regardless of what happens. I am going to continue to buy add ons as if FSX was the last sim to ever be created.

I'll of course defer to your certain knowledge Tim, and will admit to having overstated the case (at least with regards to FSX), but......I'm still seeing a lot of exceptions in the actual rendering sequence... :( I'm fairly certain that we can both agree that it can be better streamlined, modernized and optimized......which in all likelihood already has been.

Yes well I'm sure given this is a Windows 7 / Vista SP2 compile, kicking out the DX9 bound users would be an awfully easy trick, and open up avenues other than GDI as a staple. I agree 2D texture rendering on CPU can never be a good idea and I don't think it's a requirement with DX11.

One thing to keep in mind is that MSF is only one of the sims in the works. MSF may turn out to not be the enthusiasts choice it doesn't offer backwards compatibility at some level or a really fantastic platform for add on development. It is very possible that X-Plane 10 or the Aerosoft sim could end up being our new preferred platform. I think Aerosoft understands out needs and the X-Plane night shots that are circulating are stunning. MS has the history behind them but that will only go so far.Honestly, I have no idea where this is going to go over the next few years. This may be a real shake up in the community or it may help solidify the community. It is exciting. It would be a little scary but we have FSX to keep us going regardless of what happens. I am going to continue to buy add ons as if FSX was the last sim to ever be created.

Has anyone bothered to remember something that Phil Taylor said in his "Taximony" thread way back when?"It's entirely possible that FSX/SP2/DX10 content would be forward compat for Vnext..."As I recall, he made that public statement prior to his departure from MS and of course MS is not bound to Taylors statements but it does serve as "food for thought".

If Flight is in Alpha test already, it makes me wonder whether MS is going to implement the new good stuf like multithreading, DX11, SLI and tessellation at all..

It was alluded to in the PMDG forums (a group that often is in "the know") that the Beta of MS Flight is at least a year away. It doesn't mean they don't have an alpha build yet, but it does imply they are very early in the game.

It was alluded to in the PMDG forums (a group that often is in "the know") that the Beta of MS Flight is at least a year away. It doesn't mean they don't have an alpha build yet, but it does imply they are very early in the game.

As far as I know, the Alpha build really needs to be 'feature complete'.During Alpha low to high priority bugs are identified, and fixed. It’s the time when real polish happens...and little problems actually get fixed.It’s reasonable to guess the alpha date marks roughly the last ¼ of the scheduled.But there is a definite trend towards longer alphas IMO.By contrast, Beta is the final push to RTM…aka Gold Mater Candidate.During Beta only critical bugs are fixed. And polish is considered over.BTW, the reason minor bugs aren’t addressed in Beta is because all work risks introducing even more new bugs.You fix one thing and break another two or three. It’s pretty common.So it’s really important to stand down after Beta. In general the ideal schedule for all games ends with GMC in September – to be certain shelves are stocked by Thanksgiving.My theory is games launched at other times of the year are all pretty much the result of extensions :)In an interview MS suggested Alpha wouldn’t happen before Christmas.It leaves a pretty big window for interpretation...IMO barring the unforeseen it should be under trees next year :)

I'll have to think over and over about this. If the new sim engine complicates freeware add-on installations and is for Vista/7 only, I'll stick with FSX for the years to come, at least for the next 3-5 years..just like how my other fellow countrymen decided to stick with FS9 when FSX came to life. I won't even have enough voltage to power such heavy computers just to run Microsoft Flight. Dave.

Guys, we have nothing in regards to Flight right now. No feature list, not really even a true mission statement of what it's intended to do. I understand being cautious about investing too much in FSX, but let's not jump too far ahead of ourselves right now. Flight could be anywhere from an arcade game to a full featured downright beautiful simulator (...FlyTampa, Aerosoft, and FSDT are reportedly all under NDA-for whatever that means).

I agree....keep on with FSX for now. I'm counting on Aerosoft to develop a realistic sim, I think this MS thing will be an arcade game!

The Microsoft announcement reads Microsoft Game Studios also announced the internal development of “Microsoft Flight,” (My emphasis)Surely all that means is that development has started. There's no committment to completing it and there never will be. I suggest we should continue as usual until there is a committment.

Good point!

Everyone is guessing so I might as well add my guess too. Like the old saying, "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.", my guess is that it will be "The thrill of flying without the agony of learning."I think "Flight" means just that and little more. You take basic flying, add the whole world and an online tileproxy server, maybe DX11 and 3-D support, maybe basic take off and landing, and you have a product that will appeal to a whole lot of people.This is going to dissappoint almost everyone on this forum, but MS is after the bucks, and the masses just want to fly with a mouse and a couple of keyboard commands. They don't care about sids, stars, ILS approaches, technically correct communications, and all that like. Just give them the candy with no thought needed, and you have a winner for the masses. See the whole world in detail without any pain at all ! And with almost everything stripped out, it will fly as smooth as silk on even any Walmart machine hooked up to a broadband connection.That's my guess.Bob (Las Cruces, NM.)

AGREED!!

AGREED!!

It doesn't matter if it's going to be an arcade game, and I personally don't expect that anyway. My guess is that Flight will be a lot like FSX, but with more options to make things "less scary" for potential customers who find even the default aircraft intimidating.Remember that to the uninitiated, even the default 172 looks like something that would require two weeks' worth of manual reading. And that can scare customers away.In the end, though, all that matters is that Flight will be open to 3rd party devs who can turn it into a real simulation.So long as Flight is "open" that way with a well-documented SDK, I don't think anyone needs to lose any sleep.