I'd dearly love to buy this thing, having bought the previous products, but I'm not sure a $4,000 new Alienware is in the budget.

You can build a way better machine for way less... That's what I think anyway...

You can build a way better machine for way less... That's what I think anyway...

Absolutely! I am working on opening my website that builds custom computers for people, and one of my big marketing drives is that people think that they have to pay 4k for a good computer, and they don't! I am still working hard to get it opened, but if you want to check it out, you can go to Custom Worx.Hopefully the mods won't mind me posting this, but after all, you can't buy anything right now anyway. I am working on finishing up the graphics and stuff, so please don't judge an unfinished website. - (Kinda like the NGX huh?)I am trying to open by feb 18, but I can't make any promises.

I am trying to open by feb 18, but I can't make any promises.

Then it's my birthday!!!! I'll become 18 :D Poor you live in US otherwise I was your first client.

Hi CAptain,That first image: The PMDG 737-800 over Renton, WA, - I'm just curious about the ORBX scenery. Is that scenery on full max or did you adjust your settings some? Just wondering if you reduced the scenery slider a bit because it looks really blurry.. Also wondered if you can tell us what kind of frames you are getting with ORBX and the 737NGX? ThanksTroy

If I recall, it was stated earlier in this thread that the initial screenshots were taken with ORBX scenery at a low quality setting. That would be corrected in later screenshots. Having the scenery myself, I can attest that it is a LOT nicer than that on high quality.Since the product isn't final, I'm sure any estimates of framerates won't be fully accurate, and of course, it's all very hardware dependent. But they did say the framerates were looking good compared to other products in their line.

Hi CAptain,That first image: The PMDG 737-800 over Renton, WA, - I'm just curious about the ORBX scenery. Is that scenery on full max or did you adjust your settings some? Just wondering if you reduced the scenery slider a bit because it looks really blurry.. Also wondered if you can tell us what kind of frames you are getting with ORBX and the 737NGX? ThanksTroy

Troy,Look at the screens here - this is more representative of what the scenery actually looks like - Robert's shots don't look right because of the high zoom level and because he had lowered settings. My screens show it exactly how I run it and were taken with EZ Dok at 1.0x zoom.http://forum.avsim.n...38#entry1920238

As much as these images are gorgeous, and the level of detail (both inside and out) for this aircraft is immensely exciting, it does cause me a fair amount of worry in one area: performance.I remember a post from PMDG awhile back, while showing the images of the HUD, that they were extremely excited about the performance, which they anticipated as being better than MD-11 and JS-41. The individual writing had noted that all of the factors that would drag down performance had been added already, and it was looking great, with reasonable performance on mid-range systems. Now, I'm no programmer, and am speaking only from experience and not training, but all the detail coming forth honestly looks like anything short of a i7 Six-Core clocking some pretty impressive gigahertz is going to produce a slideshow.Obviously, systems all vary, as do systems settings, so it's impossible to give a simple answer, but can anyone address the issue of frame rates, performance, recommended specs, etc.? Or perhaps someone has, and I've simply missed it? I'd dearly love to buy this thing, having bought the previous products, but I'm not sure a $4,000 new Alienware is in the budget.Joseph Legander

Joseph,None of us on the development team have hex-core CPUs. Trust me, a huge amount of work has gone into making sure that this performs well AND looks good. There's techniques being used here that are entirely new and allow us to do this kind of detail. We wouldn't release a product no one can run. We won't have the final performance numbers until it's finished, but you are not going to need a $4000 computer to run it - it runs extremely well on my current machine (which is over a year old aside from the video card) and I spent maybe $1300 on it.

Greetings,When we're talking about framerates it's important to remember that they have talked about some really bleeding edge back-end programming presumably has been a major contributor to both the level of detail they can put in as well as the performance of that detail. Another thing to note is that i'm doubting these extremely detailed systems are eating up performance as much as we all think they are. Furthermore i'd imagine that the rarer details of some of these systems aren't always "in the sim" so to speak. In any case these same types of details have been in all of their previous products and we have their performance numbers as reassurance that the new detail can only help us. Finally i'd just like it to be noted that if performance hits by these systems were massive then i'm willing to bet that PMDG would simply remove these features. (99% of the user-base never notices them anyway)-Matt Barton

Thanks so much for your kind and speedy reply. Wonderful service. I've loved your products in the past, and I look forward to trying this new one when it's available!Joe Legander

Troy,Look at the screens here - this is more representative of what the scenery actually looks like - Robert's shots don't look right because of the high zoom level and because he had lowered settings. My screens show it exactly how I run it and were taken with EZ Dok at 1.0x zoom.http://forum.avsim.n...38#entry1920238Joseph,None of us on the development team have hex-core CPUs. Trust me, a huge amount of work has gone into making sure that this performs well AND looks good. There's techniques being used here that are entirely new and allow us to do this kind of detail. We wouldn't release a product no one can run. We won't have the final performance numbers until it's finished, but you are not going to need a $4000 computer to run it - it runs extremely well on my current machine (which is over a year old aside from the video card) and I spent maybe $1300 on it.

Hi CAptain,That first image: The PMDG 737-800 over Renton, WA, - I'm just curious about the ORBX scenery. Is that scenery on full max or did you adjust your settings some? Just wondering if you reduced the scenery slider a bit because it looks really blurry.. Also wondered if you can tell us what kind of frames you are getting with ORBX and the 737NGX? ThanksTroy

Stupid question, and this has bugged me all winter, but why does the ORBX scenery show snow on the ground in Seattle?

Hi CAptain,That first image: The PMDG 737-800 over Renton, WA, - I'm just curious about the ORBX scenery. Is that scenery on full max or did you adjust your settings some? Just wondering if you reduced the scenery slider a bit because it looks really blurry.. Also wondered if you can tell us what kind of frames you are getting with ORBX and the 737NGX? ThanksTroy

Stupid question, and this has bugged me all winter, but why does the ORBX scenery show snow on the ground in Seattle?

Stupid question, and this has bugged me all winter, but why does the ORBX scenery show snow on the ground in Seattle?

Probably the same reason FS shows snow in Las Vegas and Pheonix, AZ sceneries. FS doesn't discriminate some textures between climate and location.

Yeah, the seasons and which textures get applied where are hardcoded in FSX unfortunately.

Stupid question, and this has bugged me all winter, but why does the ORBX scenery show snow on the ground in Seattle?

Because it was snowing? Is this a trick question? :(

Stupid question, and this has bugged me all winter, but why does the ORBX scenery show snow on the ground in Seattle?

That white stuff isnt snow....it's sugar for all of the double lattes.

While I wouldn't say FSX's strong point is weather, I will definitely point out that when I lived in Phoenix, there was snow on the mountains north of the city at one point. It was only right near the top, and it was the dead of winter, but it did happen. I remember scratching my head from the DVT ramp that morning.

While I wouldn't say FSX's strong point is weather, I will definitely point out that when I lived in Phoenix, there was snow on the mountains north of the city at one point. It was only right near the top, and it was the dead of winter, but it did happen. I remember scratching my head from the DVT ramp that morning.

Very rarely do we actually get snow on the ground in Phoenix proper - it can happen in the northern fringes of the city up near Deer Valley like you said or Cave Creek, Anthem etc - but down in the main part of the city, the elevation is just too low (1100 feet or so at KPHX). I've seen snow fall and stick in Tucson many times though (which is at 2600 feet) - happened on Super Bowl Sunday after the game like 5 years ago when I still lived down there.