I have 50 years of computer experience (Univac-I) and I would not make such any narrowly defined comments based on static screenshots. Ego enrichment is best achieved with a mirror not a peer review in a public forum. I am just happy that Microsoft has not killed the project.

I have 50 years of computer experience (Univac-I) and I would not make such any narrowly defined comments based on static screenshots. Ego enrichment is best achieved with a mirror not a peer review in a public forum. I am just happy that Microsoft has not killed the project.

Screenshots, videos, news updates.... The "evidence" suggests Flight is not a redesign/rewrite. What "evidence" do you have to the contrary? edit: Or I could say it this way, There is a distinct lack of evidence that suggests Flight is a redesign/rewrite.

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 Ok I can stop posting now... just kidding

lol congrats on 1,000! true some people wont make the move to flight and stay with fsx like what happened with fs9 and fsx if flight doesn't offer what they thought might have improved or worse most add-on company's wont like the live store option and stick with fsx.

Everyone will do Flight

I think we should take a look back at FS development especially from FS2000 till date. Some stuff is added while others are thrown out. FS2000 and FSX and every other version in between has the same structure. With that said FS2000 and FSX are not the same thing. If i should guess correctly FLIGHT will still elements of FS2000 etc and still not be the same as FSX. This shows that Microsoft Flight Simulation is an evolution and if we are all lucky to be alive, Someday MS might just build the ULTIMATE-SIM or die trying...

If we think about Microsoft's most successful and defining products, Windows and Office, we can see that neither of these two products have been fundamentally re-written from the ground up. A total re-write isn't necessary if the core of the product continues to deliver. Some of the guts of Office haven't changed a lick for over a decade. Also, if you are a C/C++ windows programmer, you'll find that the core programming API for Windows (Win32) hasn't changed much either. It is hard to decipher why some negative types are so consumed with dismissing Flight, but I am extremely grateful to see the dynasty continue in some fashion. I can see why many developers feel threatened by the Live marketplace thing, but I think it'll introduce a bit of sanity into the add-on market. As for improvements, I'm sure they'll be there aplenty. There are VERY VERY VERY few software products that model so much and so ambitiously as MSFS (or is it MSF?) does. We have the WHOLE WORLD modeled on top of all the other things we heap onto MSFS. I see VAST improvements in so many things in the screens and the prospect of losing MSFS was such a scare that I feel inclined to support MS Flight whole-heartedly as the prospect of Austin Meyer being the flag-bearer is somewhat unsettling to me (personally). However, back to the actually news item of interest here. The transitions in the weather/clouds might mean that low-viz weather should be much more possible now and that we'll actually return to a decade ago when an overcast layer was actually overcast in MSFS.

Completely agree with you Jeff. Al

Does anyone care that there is DOS code in Windows 7?

Does anyone care that there is DOS code in Windows 7?

It depends on where it is. I am all for backward compatibility, but not for outdated and unnecessary ways of doing things. In the case of W7 it is hard to measure what effect some old code has. In FSX, we have FPS, visual and simulation quality. There is code that can stay as it is in FSX, but a whole lot of it should be modernized in a big way. Perhaps Flight will start down this path and in a few years we'll have a modernized sim. Adding new features to code that is already like spaghetti, like they added the round Earth code to FS9 will eventually grind this sim to a halt or we'll just have to live with bugs and crashes. We already have this with FSX and it will only get worse, because MS cannot afford to fix every issue and still make a profit.

There is code that can stay as it is in FSX, but a whole lot of it should be modernized in a big way. Perhaps Flight will start down this path and in a few years we'll have a modernized sim. Adding new features to code that is already like spaghetti, like they added the round Earth code to FS9 will eventually grind this sim to a halt or we'll just have to live with bugs and crashes. We already have this with FSX and it will only get worse, because MS cannot afford to fix every issue and still make a profit.

Someone's in a real positive mood today.

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".

You honestly believe that in 2011/2012 they aren't going to have multi-core support? You can't possibly be that pessemistic.

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.

Top flight systems are still brought to their knees by FSX. There's noway Microsoft, a leader in software development, is going to release a game in 2012 that doesn't even support multi-core or make use of the GPU properly. As is repeated over and over, hardcore simmers aren't there target market. Casual gamers with SLI setups and quad cores are though and I can't imagine any scenerio where in 2012, where such things have been common for over half a decade, Microsoft is just going to say screw it and not support basic things like multi-core and SLI. No matter what it looks like on top, deep down a lot of the core code has to have been re-written and they've said as much in interivews.

Screenshots, videos, news updates.... The "evidence" suggests Flight is not a redesign/rewrite. What "evidence" do you have to the contrary? edit: Or I could say it this way, There is a distinct lack of evidence that suggests Flight is a redesign/rewrite.

Except them saying it is. Obviously, they are lieing.

Except them saying it is. Obviously, they are lieing.

You're looking a data - art - content.About all you can comment on are some new rendering features.Data and code are separate, right?

You honestly believe that in 2011/2012 they aren't going to have multi-core support? You can't possibly be that pessemistic.

FSX already has multi-core support. It's just not implemented very well (IMHO).

Top flight systems are still brought to their knees by FSX. There's noway Microsoft, a leader in software development, is going to release a game in 2012 that doesn't even support multi-core or make use of the GPU properly.

Microsoft's expectations with regard to ROI will be the determining factor as to what they release. Not what us 'hardcore' users want/expect, we are after all relatively few in number.

As is repeated over and over, hardcore simmers aren't there target market. Casual gamers with SLI setups and quad cores are though and I can't imagine any scenerio where in 2012, where such things have been common for over half a decade, Microsoft is just going to say screw it and not support basic things like multi-core and SLI.

I very much doubt many 'casual' gamers have SLI setups and thus these cant be the target market.

No matter what it looks like on top, deep down a lot of the core code has to have been re-written and they've said as much in interivews.Except them saying it is. Obviously, they are lieing.

Marketing is about being creative with the truth and pumping the product.... PR departments will say almost anything, what's actually delivered is a different story, and if the product falls short of promises they can always find some way to justify it.

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.

And this is why I called your previous comments shortsighted. What bugs me is the arrogance and the negativity that go along with them, at least that's how I read them, but I may missinterpret your intentions. It has been said numerous times before; you can not come to these conclusions based on a few short clips and some screens. The same goes for the opposite ofcourse. I believe Flight will be using a lot of older code, but it will probably still be a lot different under the hood compared to FSX. Therefore I think calling it FSX SP3 or 'expansion pack' is wrong, because to much will have been changed. However, like anyone else, I can not prove my point based upon the Flight material that has been published sofar.

I very much doubt many 'casual' gamers have SLI setups and thus these cant be the target market.

Just what I was thinking, multicore yes, SLI no. Casual gamers are just that, 'casual', they buy pre-built mass manufacture systems which are mostly single card setups.