Well, finally I have FS9 - after a couple of years of intensive use FS2002.I have only flown a couple of flights and had a brief look at a few of the default aircraft.My first impressions are quite mixed. Certainly I am going to have to turn some of my settings down to achieve framerates that I enjoy in FS2002 with my AMD XP2400 machine - although I noticed quite a difference in performance between flying the pattern at the default airport Seattle-Tacoma and at my hometown of Brisbane Australia.The scenery visuals seem to have a "cartoon" quality about them -- the blue skies of a weather setting of fine and clear are just too blue - ridiculously so.. Water colours are just plain wrong. The default Cessnas seem to be very "skittish" with a feel quite a lot different to the now modified ones that I have in FS2002.So I would have to say that my first impressions are negative --at least from the points of view of scenery visuals and flight characteristics. I have yet to try out the ATC, have not delved into the weather nor played around with the new GPS. Time will tell - I can always continue with FS2002.Barry

Hello,I totally agree with you.I have never seen such a shoddy sim, and it hasn't even advanced that much from it's predecessor.It cost me

Oh yes-- one more "first impression " that I failed to mention.The sounds of the default Cessnas are terrible compared to FS2002.Barry

I believe they are the same sounds as FS2002. Atleast they sound the same to me. FS9 (like any game out there) is all a matter of opinion. You are more than entitled to call it rubbish. Since you gave us your opinion, I would like to give mine. Personally, I find this seem to be very graphic intense and if you don't have a system that will run it at almost full, then you are only cheating yourself. The colors are more intense, the scenery is more intense and you have to step up to appreciate all of it. That is what I did. Before I bought FS9 I upgraded my entire machine and I am gald I did. Frame rates are good, the scenery looks terrific and with a few tweaks here and there, it runs great. There is no conspiracy by Microsoft (although we may sometimes think so), just a great flight sim that takes advantage of the newest and best hardware avaiable.Anyway, thats it....

>>I have never seen such a shoddy sim .... FS2004 / FS9 seems like a rushed piece of junk<

Hang in there Barry, it took me two months to really get FS9 the way I want it, and now FS2002 looks really drab in comparison.Like you, I didn't like the FS9 water, so I turned the reflections off, which gives better colouring. But now, I've got Bill Lyon's replacement waves and reflections (the latest ones). What a difference! I'm also using a replacement tree set, add on mesh, land class etc. That combined with some of the incredible freeware available, such as Oleksiy Frolov's Dash-8 and Real Air's Cessna 172, along with the latest drivers from ATI, a few tweaks, and I am one happy camper. I've got great frame rates, great visuals and great aircraft.

They are indeed identical, file for file - only exception are the door sounds and prop feather sounds.Any more impressions...?

As of now Im still using FS2002 and I can not wait until I switch to FS2004! Looking at screenshots of FS2004 the sky is more real looking, the colors of the sky, the clouds and the weather system is much better in FS2004.FS2002 is so drab compared to FS2004.

Hi Barry,I'm afraid your post has no credibility when you say the new default Cessna sounds are worse than the old ones in FS2002. I believe I am the third person to tell you they are exactly the same as the ones packaged with FS2002.

I got it the first day it was out having deleted 2002 the night before.I have not had reason to look back, love it. Of course I liked CFS3 also, go figure.Steve A

I for one find that I'm achieving much better performance with FS9 on the same system. The sim is absolutely smoother than FS2002 with scenery that is equally, if not more, dense. I can fill airports like cyyz and cyul with PAI AI aircraft and it's truly smooth. I could NOT do that with FS2002. The weather also IMHO is vastly superior to that of FS2002.Adam

I like it much better, yes there are some issues with this sim but there many issues with FS2002, but no question I can run this sim way better, almost double performance with higher quality, I really do like it and I am glad I switched, I am starting to get really tired of people whining about, I don't like this and I don't like that, shut up, we got a new sim, it's better, no it's not perfect, but what game is?

I kinda figured your impression would be negative when I saw this, but hey, that's your opinion. I enjoy the brightness of the new colors and even though I only have a few high end freeware and most GA payware installed, I like the defaults. I am finding it to perform much, much better than FS2002 EVER did. I have it on 2 machines and FS2002 is gone, bye bye!Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpgCalVirAir International VAwww.calvirair.comCougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviationwww.cgrmtnhelos.com

>The scenery visuals seem to have a "cartoon" quality about>them -- the blue skies of a weather setting of fine and clear>are just too blue - ridiculously so.. Barry, it's odd that you chose the sky colours for criticism, as this is one of FS2004's strengths. First, there are a range of different sky colours depending on the time of day e.g. dusk, early morning, noon etc. There are ten different sets of sky colours which are chosen depending on the date. If you don't like the colours, try different dates and you may find something you like. It's very easy to create your own sky colours, all you need is a paint program. Some of the dawn and dusk colours can be spectacular and quite beautiful. Also, in FS2002 the colour is the same horizontally, so as you pan across the sunset the whole screen changes, which is unnatural. The sky lighting surrounding a sunset is far, far more realistic in FS2004. As I said, it's odd that you chose this particular aspect. Like many other things, sky colours in FS2004 are light years ahead of FS2002. Microsoft did a beautiful job on this and they deserve credit. Give it a chance and you may come to like it a lot! Best regards, Chris

"Oh yes-- one more "first impression " that I failed to mention.The sounds of the default Cessnas are terrible compared to FS2002.""They are indeed identical, file for file - only exception are the door sounds and prop feather sounds."LMAO, thats the funniest thing I have read all morning :).Anyway, FS2004 is leaps and bounds ahead of FS2002, for me the key points are the clickable vc's, the new ATC, the weather etc etc.I just think its great, the only little niggles I had was with my old system it was a little slower than FS2002, but thats no problem anymore, and that in its standard form you cant get zero visibilty, but that is solved by using Activesky, yes I know its payware, but it works for me.Dan.