JimmyG, I disagree... And it has nothing really to do with software/hardware efficiency.It’s the art content that’ll use up the prescribed performance budget.And the fairly arbitrary range MS chooses to code the display sliders to.The frame rate is mostly dependent on the quantity and detail of the art.Basically the team keeps adding stuff until they max out the FPS's budgeted.It's not really intended to run with right slider on day one.It needs to have a shelf life of maybe four years...slider make it scalable.This is the Spinal Tap equivalent to a display slider.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOXsA8sp_EAlso, graphic over the years aren’t getting better because of win’s in efficient code.They’re getting better because of annual increases in processing power...allowing for more elaborate rendering.Each FS has always needed a better computer than the last.That's what I mean by, "Obviously Flight will be more PC intensive than FSX."DannyFSX RTM has FPS issues...but IMO FSX SP2 does not :)

FWIW: n4gix/Fr Bill makes the case that "MS Flight" will use the FS9 engine- with some upgrading. He presents a fairly compelling rationale in Posts 117 & 140 in the AVSIM thread- "New Microsoft Flight Simulator Announced".Fr Bill is about as close to an insider as you will get at this stage of "MS Flight" development. If he is right, that could make a huge variety of existing add/ons, instantly available for "Flight" when it releases.(The production of new addons for FSX has been painfully slow.)The combo of a new simulator using a proven engine with some new capability and with lots of addons available, might make it a best seller!(To say nothing of creating chaos in the addon industry if the FSX engine is to be abandoned. Which might also explain why the MS brass fired the ACES group in the first place!)Alex Reid

I would like it to be able to run on a wide range of computers, but I want it to still have it's highest settings as high as FSX graphics can go so processors that are 4 ghz or over can have good graphics for the processor money they spent. :) I can understand them re-programming the game engine so FS can run better at those settings...

FWIW: n4gix/Fr Bill makes the case that "MS Flight" will use the FS9 engine- with some upgrading. He presents a fairly compelling rationale in Posts 117 & 140 in the AVSIM thread- "New Microsoft Flight Simulator Announced".Fr Bill is about as close to an insider as you will get at this stage of "MS Flight" development. If he is right, that could make a huge variety of existing add/ons, instantly available for "Flight" when it releases.(The production of new addons for FSX has been painfully slow.)The combo of a new simulator using a proven engine with some new capability and with lots of addons available, might make it a best seller!(To say nothing of creating chaos in the addon industry if the FSX engine is to be abandoned. Which might also explain why the MS brass fired the ACES group in the first place!)Alex Reid

I have to wonder it that was a typo on Bill's part :) FS9?

One thing that doesn't sound good, for our chances of getting more of a sim vs a game is that according to the CNET article, they are already close to a first Alpha release. (Beta is not expected this year. This means that they are working with the existing code base, in which case performance may still be an issue. This though would pretty much guarantee the sim aspects would be maintained, since they probably would not be able to strip it out in such a short time frame, without breaking the whole code base. In programming, it's usually harder to take features out then to add new ones. Or they are building a much scaled down in scope new product, maybe like Flight Unlimited 2, which instead of modeling the whole world only covers a portion of it. I don't see how otherwise they could be anywhere close to producing a Alpha test version this early. If it is a new code base, they couldn't have been developing it that long, the public job postings were only a few months ago, unless they started development right after they closed down Aces. (Or maybe even before?)

If MS re-wrote the entire current FSX code into true multi-threads for MS Flight, saying they are already in Alpha, would that not solve many of the current problems simmers experience today?

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..

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.

I will take my lessons on FSX when considering Flight. I will definitely be waiting until there are a significant number of addon titles and when hardware is deemed acceptable by the early adopters. Release for October 2011 (in time for Christmas next year)...my guess.....and then another 18 months to 2 years for the addons and hardware. So that takes me out to the end of 2012 at the earliest and more likely end of 2013 before I need to even think about this sim.Mark.

With Microsoft Flight now on the radar screen I've been thinking about my investment in FSX.  Having recently made the switch from FS9 ro FSX exclusively I have already invested a kings ransom in re-purchasing many of the products that I already had in FS9 (thank G-d for companies like FS Dream Team that give you both products for the same price).  Now that Microsoft Flight has been announced I think that I am officially going to turn off the money faucet until I know more about Flight and the estimated release date.  I assume that I have about $1,000 US left to spend to bring FSX up to snuff with FS9 over the next year but I'm going to sit on that money until I know for sure that 1) Microsoft is actually going to release this thing 2) What compatibility or lack there of will be in the sim.  But who knows...Flight my well turn out like FSX and not kill off the previous sim or may be so resource intensive that it takes another 4 years to start using it like FSX.Of course, major purchases will not be put off: PMDG 737NG and LDS 757 as well as a REAL A320 will be 'for sure' purchases along with major city airports.  However, those little here and there purchases will be put on hold for now.  In stead of having a budget of about $1k, I am only looking about around $200 bucks unless something changes.

a couple of thoughts ...  I bet Flight is at least 1.5 yrs away.  We don't know any of the potential features of the title.  Folks have been playing FS9 for years after FSX was released.  From my standpoint, even if you spent the 1000$ to upgrade your FSX .. you could potentially use the sim for another say 3 years before being inclined to change to "flight".  That sounds like a fairly normal usage timing and you will have fully enjoyed FSX for those 3 yrs vs. waiting for a sim you likely will not upgrade to until years following its release.

a couple of thoughts ...  I bet Flight is at least 1.5 yrs away.  We don't know any of the potential features of the title.  Folks have been playing FS9 for years after FSX was released.  From my standpoint, even if you spent the 1000$ to upgrade your FSX .. you could potentially use the sim for another say 3 years before being inclined to change to "flight".  That sounds like a fairly normal usage timing and you will have fully enjoyed FSX for those 3 yrs vs. waiting for a sim you likely will not upgrade to until years following its release.

I agree. The thing is when Flight is released, you're going to be stuck with the 'default planes' for probably 6 months to a year (maybe more, maybe less) before the quality 3rd party planes come out like the PMDG stuff.And that's assuming we can even do 3rd party content for Flight at the PMDG level. Who the heck knows what we're going to get with Flight... May as well ask the Magic 8 Ball..So FSX is going to be around for a long time to come... my guess is it probably has 3 more good years left in assuming Flight is a suitable replacement.People said FS9 addons would die when FSX was released... well, surprise, surprise, FS9 addons still move to this day...

I have to wonder it that was a typo on Bill's part :) FS9?

No, it was not a typo Danny, it is simply the result of a logical thought experiment, using the "bread crumbs" that I've patiently gathered over the past few years and my own professional background.Given that FS9 was the last stable release, and that FSX is -for all practical purposes- FS9 + a lot of code layers added on top, it only makes sense to use that as the basis for the next platform. Even more so when one considers that most all of FSX's additions to the core were extensions diametrically opposed to MS Game Studio's end goals.So, strip the FSX accretions, and then snip out the remaining "legacy code" that hindered and/or blocked rewriting the core to take advantage of multi-core processors and efficient threading processes, and then they'd be left with a solid core engine on which to build anew... :( This also would allow them to take full advantage of the newest GPUs and DX11 APIs/tools.This appears to me to be the only practical way they could have possibly made such rapid progress with the new "MS Flight" title, and be so close to beginning alpha testing.NOTE BENE: For the record, I have no certain knowledge of anything. Every word I've written is largely the result of careful and logical analysis of the information I've gathered over the past few years, coupled with my own professional experiences. Like everyone else, I am subject to being wrong occasionally... :(

A poster above alluded to the fact that Fly Tampa, Aerosoft and FSDT are all under NDA with MS. Is there any factual evidence of this being the case?Edit: disregard, I just perused and saw that FT and FSDT are under NDA'S.

No, it was not a typo Danny, it is simply the result of a logical thought experiment, using the "bread crumbs" that I've patiently gathered over the past few years and my own professional background.Given that FS9 was the last stable release, and that FSX is -for all practical purposes- FS9 + a lot of code layers added on top, it only makes sense to use that as the basis for the next platform. Even more so when one considers that most all of FSX's additions to the core were extensions diametrically opposed to MS Game Studio's end goals.So, strip the FSX accretions, and then snip out the remaining "legacy code" that hindered and/or blocked rewriting the core to take advantage of multi-core processors and efficient threading processes, and then they'd be left with a solid core engine on which to build anew... :( This also would allow them to take full advantage of the newest GPUs and DX11 APIs/tools.This appears to me to be the only practical way they could have possibly made such rapid progress with the new "MS Flight" title, and be so close to beginning alpha testing.NOTE BENE: For the record, I have no certain knowledge of anything. Every word I've written is largely the result of careful and logical analysis of the information I've gathered over the past few years, coupled with my own professional experiences. Like everyone else, I am subject to being wrong occasionally... :(

I don't think they will go back that far for a code base. For example I don't think they'll go back to 4m graphics, rough transitions of distant scenery, hard horizons, or single core processing. If they use an earlier code base it will be FSX, because they are not going to reinvent the wheel to do this. Especially if they are as close to an Alpha test release as the CNET article suggests. I also disagree that FS2004 was the "last" stable release. FSX is very much stable and is much more capable than FS9 is. That is why the likes of PMDG, LDS has dropped development for FS9, so they can exploit those advantages. Does FS9 perform better, yes, but that's not by design, it has a lot less dense scenery, at lower resolutions then FSX.Lower FSX scenery to that level, and they perform similarly! One of the main things that turned people off as far as perfomance goes was having active jetways by default. So right away when users fired it up they were greeted with a slide show as all the jet ways within 120 mile radius, activated. If they waited about 3 minutes, the frames would have stabilized. You know what they say though, first impressions are lasting impressions, so it got the reputation of a dog. Add to that Aces decision to put the built in future hardware detail options within the GUI, meant people inevitably compared performance based on all sliders to the right. The same thing happened with FS2004 and all the previous FS versions. They should have set the GUI to match current released hardware capabilities, and allowed activation of the advanced detailed options via the config file. Actually to a point they did, but instead of setting them low by default and allowing higher detail they were set high and allowed you to go set lower detail. If these things were not done in FSX, it would not have gotten such a bad performance reputation. With current hardware FSX runs just fine.

No, it was not a typo Danny, it is simply the result of a logical thought experiment, using the "bread crumbs" that I've patiently gathered over the past few years and my own professional background.Given that FS9 was the last stable release, and that FSX is -for all practical purposes- FS9 + a lot of code layers added on top, it only makes sense to use that as the basis for the next platform. Even more so when one considers that most all of FSX's additions to the core were extensions diametrically opposed to MS Game Studio's end goals.So, strip the FSX accretions, and then snip out the remaining "legacy code" that hindered and/or blocked rewriting the core to take advantage of multi-core processors and efficient threading processes, and then they'd be left with a solid core engine on which to build anew... :( This also would allow them to take full advantage of the newest GPUs and DX11 APIs/tools.This appears to me to be the only practical way they could have possibly made such rapid progress with the new "MS Flight" title, and be so close to beginning alpha testing.NOTE BENE: For the record, I have no certain knowledge of anything. Every word I've written is largely the result of careful and logical analysis of the information I've gathered over the past few years, coupled with my own professional experiences. Like everyone else, I am subject to being wrong occasionally... :(

Bill I agree hands down with your assessment here. You've been on many of the beta's especially FSX's and you've had an inside track for years with the Aces developers (personal friendships for the most part). You of all people know what your talking about... It's amazing now that people are somewhat able to run FSX they want to deny facts even from developer (they wouldn't accept facts of ex-Aces employees came in here and told them). Your assessment is what I've been thinking as well and is why I've written I believe FS11 will be a great version. The developers have to go back to pre-FSX and fix all that went wrong, clean up the code, and bring it up to speed with current hardware. FSX's code is very rough an not remotely optimized. It's like what Pilots of the Vietnam era said about the F4 Phantom, "With enough thrust even a rock could fly". That's the same analogy concerning FSX. Since that programs release hardware has moved forward to a point FSX has to choice but to run and even today tweaking is needed, you can't just run it out the box with the two SP's. FSX should have ran well years ago (at least six months after it hit the market with hardware of the time). Not to harp on this too much, I just feel you've hit the nail on the head here. All we need be concerned with at this point is how much of a 'LIVE'/'GAME' element are they putting into FS11? Outside of that I'm predicting a winner...