Flight weather - from development team

[orchestra_nl 936]

Off course Microsoft will be re-using old code, where it is possible and makes sense. However, they will have to rewrite / rethink much of the engine if they want to make make money from the marketplace. People are only buying addons when the base product is running satisfactory. Some are saying that, because FSX runs well on current hardware, Microsoft doesn't need to address the performance issues that have plagued FSX. I think they will have to. FSX doesn't run well even on current hardware. It only does so as long as you have overclocked your PC and after a lot of tweaking. Even then, with a lot of addons it still has issues. Customers will buy the base product first and won't buy any addons when that doesn't run great.personally, if Microsoft makes the same mistakes with Flight as they did with FSX I can see myself losing interest in the flightsim genre. I just don't have the time and patience to continually have to tweak my PC to keep it running. With FSX I have spend more time tweaking and troubleshooting than I have on flying.

[jhefner 0]

Off course Microsoft will be re-using old code, where it is possible and makes sense. However, they will have to rewrite / rethink much of the engine if they want to make make money from the marketplace. People are only buying addons when the base product is running satisfactory. Some are saying that, because FSX runs well on current hardware, Microsoft doesn't need to address the performance issues that have plagued FSX. I think they will have to. FSX doesn't run well even on current hardware. It only does so as long as you have overclocked your PC and after a lot of tweaking. Even then, with a lot of addons it still has issues. Customers will buy the base product first and won't buy any addons when that doesn't run great.personally, if Microsoft makes the same mistakes with Flight as they did with FSX I can see myself losing interest in the flightsim genre. I just don't have the time and patience to continually have to tweak my PC to keep it running. With FSX I have spend more time tweaking and troubleshooting than I have on flying.

First of all, Microsoft has already stated in their press releases that Flight will run well on today's hardware. They are already ahead of you in that respect. As long as there has been a MSFS franchise, a new version of FS would be released just when it seemed that hardware had finally caught up with the software. And Jeff is spot on; the same has been true with Windows and Office since the very beginning. The usual grumbling about having to tweak a new version when they just got the old version optimized also goes back to early days of FS; if you are happy with your current version; hold off on buying Flight for now; ditto for Windows and Office. At some point the new features and offerings will intice you to upgrade. And of course; this is not going to be a total rewrite. Like Windows and Office, there are lots of pieces and parts that work just fine and will continue to remain in there. A perfect example of what Jeff is talking about is the Font applet that was in the Windows Control Panel; it continued to look like the Windows 3.0 version until it went away with Windows XP. Finally, in regards to whether this will be a new version of FS or "FSX SP3"; what you are really taking about is version control. And yes, I am certain there will be enough revisions and new features in Flight to renumber it as a new version; you don't have to totally rewrite something to give it a new version number. Some may say that MS is implying that Flight is a whole new simulator because they dropped the word "Simulator"; but I think they read way too much into that. The name change had more to do with marketing and approach than it did with code itself. Same thing as when Microsoft went from Windows x.x (Windows 1.0) to Windows yyyy (Windows 95), to version names ("Vista"), and now back to Windows x.x again (Windows 7). Same for Office; in all three cases; they start with Windows, Office, and now Flight. No big deal; the change in names did imply major changes to Windows and nearly every time they delivered. (Should Windows 7 have been Vista 1.1? It looks and basically works the same as Vista, but in fact the core code was drastically rewritten to deliver a smaller footprint and better speed. Sounds familiar....) -James

[bonchie 2,305]

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

FSX does not have true multi-core support. It has rigged up semi-support that doesn't really work.

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.

And in today's market true multi-core support has nothing to do with being "hardcore." Off the shelf HP's are quad core nowadays and people expect good performance. ROI will depend heavily on people actually being able to play the game at an acceptable framerate. FSX fooled everyone once. Microsoft isn't so stupid to go the same route again, especially after saying their priority is performance.

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

Casual as in wanting to use Flight as a game, play missions, etc. Computer gamers are a niche market period and most have good systems. Every graphically intensive computer game out today caters to new hardware for a reason and it's not because no one has it. Furthermore, you are contradicting yourself. If people with powerful systems aren't in mind, then you are basically saying Flight will be released in an unplayable state as FSX still won't run well on off the shelf systems to this day.

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.

So you believe they are lieing. Ok. I don't. Maybe I'm completely wrong but I think it's a much farther stretch and just plain unwarranted pessimism to think that in 2012 a game will be released without true multi-core and SLI support. Especially, by one of the leaders in software development in the entire world.

[MatthewS 761]

Maybe I'm completely wrong but I think it's a much farther stretch and just plain unwarranted pessimism to think that in 2012 a game will be released without true multi-core and SLI support. Especially, by one of the leaders in software development in the entire world.

IMHO yes I think you are mistaken. Microsoft is a public company, with shareholders, run by execs who are driven by profit motive. Flight is being developed to make a profit, not to showcase Microsoft's "expertise" at writing software. Ultimately Microsoft will make whatever comprises it has to in order to keep costs down and release Flight on time and maximize profit. It would be great if Flight was rewritten to have "true" multi-core and SLI support but will that development "investment" pay off in increased sales enough to cover costs? I doubt it because most gamers do not have SLI, so Microsoft would be wasting time and money adding "true" SLI support to satisfy those relatively "few" gamers with SLI machines. Sure we've heard a lot of PR talk about how great Flight will be. We only need to look at the screenshots and videos to see that as far as the "graphics engine" is concerned virtually nothing has changed from FSX. What I see are "tweaks" to the FSX graphics engine (eg the new blended cloud edges). I'm not seeing evidence of a completely new graphics engine which I think most people would expect if Microsoft was indeed rewriting Flight from the ground up, which you seem to think it is doing in order to add "true" multi-core support and SLI support. edit: Also, IIRC flight sim was always a "pet" product of Bill Gates who was its "sponser". When he was around flight sim really was used to "showcase" Microsoft's expertise at software design. Things started going downhill for the flightsim/trainsim franchise as soon as he left. Trainsim being the first casualty. I think nowadays flight sim is regarded as just another product to "milk" rather than being a showcase. Times have changed. This guy runs the show now :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

[Chock 17,769]

I think you can take many developer's claims that their product will 'run well on today's hardware' with a pinch of salt in many cases, since they're hardly going to announce it runs like a tree sloth on mogadon, are they? Frankly, some of the minimum specifications info panels on software boxes could qualify for the Pulitzer prize for best work of fiction, and anyone who has bought software over a few years knows that. It's true that MS got caught out by the switch to multi cores with FSX, so I daresay they are working on that aspect more than anything else, and frankly, I'd be happy if that was all they were working on so long as they pulled it off, they can leave all the rest up to the decent third party developers if the basic program runs well and is easy to code stuff for, but they need to make sure that it is not up on the ragged edge on default, because those third party devs need some elbow room as well as a decent SDK. Al

[dmaher 0]

Also, IIRC flight sim was always a "pet" product of Bill Gates who was its "sponser".

That's just a myth. I've tried to find any evidence of this and came up completely empty handed ;)I couldn't find any indication he's ever thought twice about flying for leisure.It's just something we say now and then to explain away inconstancies.I stand to be corrected if someone can point to the source.All you need to know is in the first part of your post…FS is a commercial enterprise.But that should be no revelation to anyone...all games operate this way - thankfully.

[Chock 17,769]

Supposedly Bill Gates got into it after reading Antoine de Saint-Exupery's, The Night Flight (probably the translation of it actually), although I don't know a source which will prove that is true, however, that's the way the story goes. We do know he is interested in aeroplanes at least in the broad sense, as he is on record with this quote: 'The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together.' Al

[Glynn 405]

Supposedly Bill Gates got into it after reading Antoine de Saint-Exupery's, The Night Flight (probably the translation of it actually), although I don't know a source which will prove that is true, however, that's the way the story goes. We do know he is interested in aeroplanes at least in the broad sense, as he is on record with this quote: 'The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together.' Al

HelloIf anyone at microsoft from those early days had an interest in aviation it would be Paul Allen not Bill Gates.Anyone with a collection of aircraft like this would have been the driver behind MS flight simulator.http://www.paulallen...px?contentId=24http://www.flyingheritage.com/TemplateHome.aspx?contentId=1

[dmaher 0]

Paul Allen yes! for sure I see that ;)If we said Paul Allen was the force that favored FS I'd buy that.Let's change it - for the record - to Paul Allen :) I think anyone interested in innovation and business will refer to the Wright Bros and Henry Ford on occasion.It doesn't say too much to me. Gates has never learned to fly...from what I found.Again if there's some evidence to the contrary I'll reconsider :)Good executives make every team feel special and favored.

Bruce Artwick developed the Flight Simulator program beginning in 1977 and his company, subLOGIC sold it for various personal computers. In 1982 Artwick's company licensed to Microsoft a version of Flight Simulator for the IBM PC, which was marketed as Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.00. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates was fascinated with Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry's "The Night Flight", which told in great detail of the sensations of flying a small aircraft