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Flight weather - from development team

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Jim has a point here. The 'Flight is just FSX SP3' comments are shortsighted and only intended to stir up the pot. Don't forget Jim has slightly better knowledge of software development than any of you making these narrow minded claims Talk%20to%20the%20Hand.gif
Jim in fact implied that pictures alone where not enough to make any claim; presumably even by him. If Jim said something more along the lines as you suggest it would have been a much more civil way to counter any speculation. Facts and logic are always a better argument than calling people names and it would actually contribute to the conversation rather than detract. I do not see speculating based on limited information as narrow minded. In the end it hurts no one to speculate on what Flight might be based on the available information. If you look at anything that people are passionate about, i.e. take any particular sport, people will read a great deal into any little data point. The phenomenon is not restricted to this particular forum either. Look at any forum regarding any particular piece of hardware or software under development and you will see the exact same thing. Being narrow minded means holding on to a particular belief no matter the facts presented. What is happening here in this forum does not fit that definition.

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Jim has a point here. The 'Flight is just FSX SP3' comments are shortsighted and only intended to stir up the pot. Don't forget Jim has slightly better knowledge of software development than any of you making these narrow minded claims Talk%20to%20the%20Hand.gif
I've been in software development over 20 years and its apparent (to me) that Flight is just an update to the base FSX code and not a rewrite. It looks like FSX, it exhibits the same "bugs" as FSX (eg autogen scale, blurries etc), it exhibits the same deficiencies as FSX (eg no cloud shadows). Also, it makes commercial sense (especially given the economic climate) for Microsoft to leverage the existing FSX code base and give it a 'lick of fresh paint' rather than design/develop a new sim from 'scratch'. Except for the 'market place'/Live integration there is virtually nothing new compared to FSX, so it is fair to consider Flight little more than a "FSX service pack". Maybe "Expansion Pack" is a better term for Flight, just like the FSX Acceleration expansion added a few new features to FSX and included SP2.

Matthew S

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I've been in software development over 20 years and its apparent (to me) that Flight is just an update to the base FSX code and not a rewrite. It looks like FSX, it exhibits the same "bugs" as FSX (eg autogen scale, blurries etc), it exhibits the same deficiencies as FSX (eg no cloud shadows). Also, it makes commercial sense (especially given the economic climate) for Microsoft to leverage the existing FSX code base and give it a 'lick of fresh paint' rather than design/develop a new sim from 'scratch'. Except for the 'market place'/Live integration there is virtually nothing new compared to FSX, so it is fair to consider Flight little more than a "FSX service pack". Maybe "Expansion Pack" is a better term for Flight, just like the FSX Acceleration expansion added a few new features to FSX and included SP2.
It has to be a re-write. How else would they fix the deep rooted problems with multi-core and GPU usuage that were always said to be at the core of FSX's engine? If it's something that could just be fixed they'd of done it in SP2 long ago.

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What we really could do with seeing, in order to determine what Flight is going to be, is some screenies of the GUI. We know it is at least the intention of MS to make it more accessible, presumably not only with features, but also by attending to the slightly austere and scary interface that FS has traditionally had, so I'd be interested in a preview of that, as it might point to what is coming for the more casual user. MS have done some experimenting on that front before, I'm sure we all remember the version of Combat Flight Simulator which had the 'comic book' interface, which was a bold thing to try. Although part of the difference could be in a 'Steam-like' sales model, the other big part will presumably be in what is there for those who don't sit there in a replica 737 cockpit wearing a shirt with Captain's epaulettes on it, i.e. what are they going to do with the Missions and Lessons features that would appeal to the more casually-inclined aeroplane enthusiast? Under the hood it may well be a souped-up FSX with better loading onto CPU cores and the GPU (we hope), and there's nothing wrong with that at all, since most people have spent the last six years complaining about the need for MS to do exactly that, but if they can make Flight appeal to a wider audience with more gamish elements without ruining its ability to suit the hard-core types, then that will do more for flight simming than cloud shadows will, as much as I should like to see those cloud shadows. Al


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It has to be a re-write. How else would they fix the deep rooted problems with multi-core and GPU usuage that were always said to be at the core of FSX's engine? If it's something that could just be fixed they'd of done it in SP2 long ago.
Who says they are fixing those problems? We still see "blurries" in the lastest batch of screenshots (image #7) on the Flight website. It beggars belief that this could be a rewrite and still exhibit the "blurries".

Matthew S

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What we really could do with seeing, in order to determine what Flight is going to be, is some screenies of the GUI. We know it is at least the intention of MS to make it more accessible, presumably not only with features, but also by attending to the slightly austere and scary interface that FS has traditionally had, so I'd be interested in a preview of that, as it might point to what is coming for the more casual user. MS have done some experimenting on that front before, I'm sure we all remember the version of Combat Flight Simulator which had the 'comic book' interface, which was a bold thing to try. Although part of the difference could be in a 'Steam-like' sales model, the other big part will presumably be in what is there for those who don't sit there in a replica 737 cockpit wearing a shirt with Captain's epaulettes on it, i.e. what are they going to do with the Missions and Lessons features that would appeal to the more casually-inclined aeroplane enthusiast? Under the hood it may well be a souped-up FSX with better loading onto CPU cores and the GPU (we hope), and there's nothing wrong with that at all, since most people have spent the last six years complaining about the need for MS to do exactly that, but if they can make Flight appeal to a wider audience with more gamish elements without ruining its ability to suit the hard-core types, then that will do more for flight simming than cloud shadows will, as much as I should like to see those cloud shadows. Al
+1,Don't be surprise if Flight is still using DX9 at release.....just saying.

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It has to be a re-write. How else would they fix the deep rooted problems with multi-core and GPU usuage that were always said to be at the core of FSX's engine? If it's something that could just be fixed they'd of done it in SP2 long ago.
Sadly, this no longer has to be fixed completely to have acceptable performance, as hardware has been improving over the last five years since FSX was released. As such, it probably will not be fixed completely. On the subject of rewrites, my view is that unless you start fresh with a new concept and keep only very low-level utilities from your old project, the new project is not a rewrite. If Flight were a complete rewrite of even a single sub-system, I would be surprised. It is possible that the UI will look different and there will be new features, but the old code will be under the hood. Unfortunately, this code is very old in the tooth and has remnants from the time of the dinosaurs (computer wise). If you poke around in some of the DLLs, you will find that constants that should have the same values (Earth's radii) are different in some DLLs. You will further see that data is massaged in a myriad of ways - converted from int to float, to double to 48-bit int and back to double again in many places. I suspect that all these conversions are full of bugs, which lead to visual and hidden anomalies, such as the meandering VC camera in planes where the eyepoint is far from the plane origin. A true rewrite would get rid of all these problems and be a lean and mean up-to-date piece of code, taking advantage of the latest technologies available through the CPUs or the GPUs in a system. You will find that as FSX was not a rewrite of FS9, Flight will not be a rewrite in any major way of FSX.

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Bla, bla, bla, bla.............. I think that rock is calling your name again. Wonder if Tom will pay me for arguing with children. Bye all!
What's his problem? Kind regards,

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I wonder why someone who is trying to help sell a product is being publicly critical of people who are the company's core target market and calling them names. I'm a big fan of HiFi products and think you guys have great customer service but you are cetainly generating negative goodwill for the company with some of your recent comments on the Fligh forum.
Agreed, it's corporate suicide.

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Bla, bla, bla, bla.............. I think that rock is calling your name again. Wonder if Tom will pay me for arguing with children. Bye all!
He should pay you for having to answer Mathew!!
I wonder why someone who is trying to help sell a product is being publicly critical of people who are the company's core target market and calling them names. I'm a big fan of HiFi products and think you guys have great customer service but you are cetainly generating negative goodwill for the company with some of your recent comments on the Fligh forum.
because you don't know Mathew...go back and read his threads

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He should pay you for having to answer Mathew!!because you don't know Mathew...go back and read his threads
Yes please go and read my posts... Until I see evidence to the contrary I will still maintain that Flight is not a redesign/rewrite but is instead more a "service pack" update of the existing code with a few new features. Expansion Pack is probably a better term.

Matthew S

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Sadly, this no longer has to be fixed completely to have acceptable performance, as hardware has been improving over the last five years since FSX was released. As such, it probably will not be fixed completely.
Very good point about the massive performance improvements in today's hardware (especially SandyBridge) compared to 5 years ago. Microsoft realize they don't have to rewrite the code because the bulk of their target market are the casual gamers who are flight sim "newbies" and will see this "cool plane game" on Live and who couldn't care less about the issues we 'hardcore' users care about . IMO Microsoft is spending most of its development efforts integrating Live support so it can participate in the Live market and flog DLC (aircraft/scenery).

Matthew S

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Yes please go and read my posts... Until I see evidence to the contrary I will still maintain that Flight is not a redesign/rewrite but is instead more a "service pack" update of the existing code with a few new features. Expansion Pack is probably a better term.
while I believe that flight is not a total redesign but based on the code base from fs8/fs9 with added features and things like the shader system being rewritten etc etc I don't think of it as a simple expansion or a patch exactly but just a wild guess, will be very interesting when flight gets finally released but I have seen allot of negative comments here I'm excited to see other flight simulator even if there not calling it that anymore.

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while I believe that flight is not a total redesign but based on the code base from fs8/fs9 with added features and things like the shader system being rewritten etc etc I don't think of it as a simple expansion or a patch exactly but just a wild guess, will be very interesting when flight gets finally released but I have seen allot of negative comments here I'm excited to see other flight simulator even if there not calling it that anymore.
Unless Flight offers a compelling reason to upgrade from FSX (eg superior performance) I think a lot of users who are heavily invested in FSX addons will stay with FSX for quite a while, especially as today's hardware (eg Sandybridge) seems to be providing acceptable performance. Not to mention the (presumable) lack of add-ons upon release being a deterrent also. edit: Yay! 1,000 posts Party.gif Ok I can stop posting now... just kidding Just%20Kidding.gif

Matthew S

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