As a flight simmer since 1981 I see nothing unusual in this thread or the hype/ speculation over the next version-flight....If anyone wants to prove that history repeats itself I suggest flight simulation is the quickest proof :)I beta tested the ms series from fs 2000 (and propilot in the 90's along with Fly) but nothing really has changed since 1981..other than an amazing progress for simmers which happens with each version of each simSome stay with their sim of choice and some move on- but the fact is it is amazing what we now have-and most likely amazing what the future holds since the past has proven that.As far as "tweaks" -I personally believe them to be snake oil- but if it works for you go for it- as does the loyalty to any sim that turns you on.

Amazing to see the progress made in all those years have some found memories of FS2000 lol and performance...

Well, I still have fond memories of FS 4 (wasn't that the one where you could build you own plane? I made some weird, and unflyable, designs back then!) And no, I am not older than Geof. Loved them all, and even a certain number of non-MS flight sims. Best regards.Luis

I fly the Aeroworx King Air 200 which never got upgraded for FSX, so FS2004 still lives on my machine...

Well, I still have fond memories of FS 4 (wasn't that the one where you could build you own plane? I made some weird, and unflyable, designs back then!) And no, I am not older than Geof. Loved them all, and even a certain number of non-MS flight sims. Best regards.Luis

Well I remember FS4 which was my first flightsim title but blocked the building from my memory lol

FSX is so cool, and so close to the real deal, that I cannot ever imagine going back. Am I missing something here?

I know what you mean, but then I never invested a lot in FS9. If people have a lot of add-ons for that then I can see why they would not switch, also I seem to remember that the frame rates you would get were an awful lot higher than I have seen in FSX. For me though, I find the "world" looks an lot more realistic in FSX which is the main reason I switched over, rather different to the "world" in the first "flight sim" I had - F4 Phantom on the Acorn Electron (running on a whole 16kb RAM). With what I have now in FSX though I very much doubt I will rush to switch to "Flight" if/when it turns up !! G

I know what you mean, but then I never invested a lot in FS9. If people have a lot of add-ons for that then I can see why they would not switch, also I seem to remember that the frame rates you would get were an awful lot higher than I have seen in FSX. For me though, I find the "world" looks an lot more realistic in FSX which is the main reason I switched over, rather different to the "world" in the first "flight sim" I had - F4 Phantom on the Acorn Electron (running on a whole 16kb RAM). With what I have now in FSX though I very much doubt I will rush to switch to "Flight" if/when it turns up !! G

----------------------------------------------------------- With the cost 'as peanuts' for hard drive real estate today...why not leave a both well developed (third party integrated) FS9 and FSX? Again with personal opinion in mind, I think there is nothing better for FL flights in commercial aircraft, then FS9. The color pallets are much more real-world. At altitude, in the FL's that is. Now...if VFR...you can simply find nothing better than ORBX-loaded FSX. Only most recently have I finally put the FSX CTD curse to rest with a new sound driver for my Creative sound card product. I am enjoying long cross-country ORBX flights in all the regions I have purchased. That being said though...I have comfortably found, that I click on FS9 for the Heavy Iron, and FSX for the low and slow. Again...unless there is a data storage issue...why in the world delete the FS9 product and its entire data base? It has its immense capabilities to this day, and always will! You only have to allow each platform the (user) respect of its production era...and then, merely enjoy each. My four cents.... Mitch

Again with personal opinion in mind, I think there is nothing better for FL flights in commercial aircraft, then FS9. The color pallets are much more real-world. At altitude, in the FL's that is.

Thankfully with the advent of Shade and/or the use of Enb and a custom made Enb palette, you can get FSX to look anyway color wise that you want. Heck, you dont even need to use Shade, just tune the color saturation and gamma in the Enb.ini or use an Enb palette and you can get whatever you want colorwise in FSX. Not hard to do, just no one does it I guess since they complain about the FSX color palette when it can easily be changed to suite your taste.

Well, I can speak only for myself. I need great short/medum haul airliners --> I have Maddog MD-82, iFly 737NG and AirSImmer A320I need decent long haul airliners --> I have Level-D 767-300ER, PMDG 747-400 and PMDG MD-11I need to learn thoroughly how to fly them --> I have the manualsI need realistic active crew members --> I have FS2Crew (the iFly one is so cool!)I need great modules interaction --> I have FSUIPCI need great viewing options --> I have ActiveCamera and FSRecorderI need realistic ground features --> I have Ultimate Terrain (GePro too, sure)I need great mesh --> I have FSGenesis and many freeware regional meshesI need airport services --> I have AESI need a professional load/performance tool --> I have TOPCATI need navigation/flightplanning --> I have FSNav and vrouteI need current navdata --> I have NavigraphI need extra good ATC --> I have RC4I need ultimate ATC experience --> I have VATSIMI need great atmosphere and RW weather --> I have REX and ActiveSkyI need realistic aircraft movement and busy aerodromes --> I have WOAI and tones of custom made AI traffic - set at 100%I need great airports --> I have sooo many of them, e.g. from FlyTampa, FSDT, Aerosoft, UK2000, Sim-Wings, lots of great freeware stuff too (e.g. in Russia)I need wise experienced fellow FS9ers to get some advice or discuss somehing --> I have great fora like AVSIM and some great folks here I have a stable sim (good for my limited free time) with everything tweaked to maximum with years of experience and experiments to reach the best.I also have some great hardware controllers to make my cokpit experience deeper and more realistic (joy, yoke, pedals, throttles, AP, radios, etc).And I have my beloved family and my trekking boots when I want to experience more. I am so satisfied to be enjoying all the above. What I personally don't need is FSX. So I fly with FS9. Mostly in Europe, ocassionally cruising to Asia. As happy as one can be.Is there ANY reason for me to throw all that out, empty out my bank account and start everyting again?Especialy when I... feel no need for that?Nope.

Well, I can speak only for myself. I need great short/medum haul airliners --> I have Maddog MD-82, iFly 737NG and AirSImmer A320I need decent long haul airliners --> I have Level-D 767-300ER, PMDG 747-400 and PMDG MD-11I need to learn thoroughly how to fly them --> I have the manualsI need realistic active crew members --> I have FS2Crew (the iFly one is so cool!)I need great modules interaction --> I have FSUIPCI need great viewing options --> I have ActiveCamera and FSRecorderI need realistic ground features --> I have Ultimate Terrain (GePro too, sure)I need great mesh --> I have FSGenesis and many freeware regional meshesI need airport services --> I have AESI need a professional load/performance tool --> I have TOPCATI need navigation/flightplanning --> I have FSNav and vrouteI need current navdata --> I have NavigraphI need extra good ATC --> I have RC4I need ultimate ATC experience --> I have VATSIMI need great atmosphere and RW weather --> I have REX and ActiveSkyI need realistic aircraft movement and busy aerodromes --> I have WOAI and tones of custom made AI traffic - set at 100%I need great airports --> I have sooo many of them, e.g. from FlyTampa, FSDT, Aerosoft, UK2000, Sim-Wings, lots of great freeware stuff too (e.g. in Russia)I need wise experienced fellow FS9ers to get some advice or discuss somehing --> I have great fora like AVSIM and some great folks here I have a stable sim (good for my limited free time) with everything tweaked to maximum with years of experience and experiments to reach the best.I also have some great hardware controllers to make my cokpit experience deeper and more realistic (joy, yoke, pedals, throttles, AP, radios, etc).And I have my beloved family and my trekking boots when I want to experience more. I am so satisfied to be enjoying all the above. What I personally don't need is FSX. So I fly with FS9. Mostly in Europe, ocassionally cruising to Asia. As happy as one can be.Is there ANY reason for me to throw all that out, empty out my bank account and start everyting again?Especialy when I... feel no need for that?Nope.

That is fair enough Rafal, I am the same with FSX, have too much invested now. So when MS Flight is released (should be if ) I will thinking the same.

What I personally don't need is FSX. So I fly with FS9. Mostly in Europe, ocassionally cruising to Asia. As happy as one can be.Is there ANY reason for me to throw all that out, empty out my bank account and start everyting again?Especialy when I... feel no need for that?Nope.

I am glad to see this remains a successful thread. No need to close it yet. As far as throwing out and starting over and spending more money is concerned. I have pretty much avoided that by saving install files and registration data for emergencies at the least. I can't think of any instance when I would have to pay for anything all over again unless I exhausted available downloads from the vendor website or something. It's like an episode of "Hoarders- Buried Alive" when it comes to the chaos of all of my backup CDs and hard drives. While FS9 is not installed on any of my actively used hard drives, I do have archives of aircraft folders with installs as recent as 2011 and a good portion of my Addon Scenery folder from FS9 is still readily available and contains some of my favorite sceneries that work okay in FSX. I have never been short on drive space, I guess I uninstalled the FS9 to move forward.

Well, I still have fond memories of FS 4 (wasn't that the one where you could build you own plane? I made some weird, and unflyable, designs back then!) And no, I am not older than Geof. Loved them all, and even a certain number of non-MS flight sims. Best regards.Luis

Speaking of weird, old and fond memories. My first Flight Sim was Airbus A320 by Thalion released in 1991. It was a lot of fun to figure out the Auto-ILS system back then. And looking back the graphics were like a comic book compared to the colors and rendering we have now. And soon after A320 I picked up FS5.1 which had a version for Mac. I pumped over 400 logged hours on that one even before my Cessna 172 real world flying. If I remember correctly, you could re-paint the planes. There was probably 8 primary colors to chose from. You could change the wing-span, weight, thrust, and amount of fuel and that was it. In order to simulate commercial flight you would have to max the wings and weight, but the fuselage would always have the same shape and dimensions. Then for me it was FS98, 2000, 2004 and FSX

Well one thing you are missing without FS9 is the best Russky payware add-on aircraft there is - the Supronov Design Yak-40. Can't get that for FSX, and that's a shame because it is every bit as good as anything PMDG have ever made. Al

I agree. Additionally I don't think the PT TU-154M can be used on FSX. I have no bad feeling towards FSX and if I can ever afford a new comp I'll install it - but I'll still run FS9 for those two aircraft.

Hi.. I loved FS9. I really thought it was fantastic. When it came out I was overjoyed, and it started me once again on programming scenery.My local airfield, EGOW RAF Woodvale, was unfortunately just two intersecting runways. I had to do something about that. The Autogenwas excellent, but bore no resemblance to the RW. However I soon lost all my enthusiasm for FS9 for two reasons. Woodvale is a working airfield, and is used by the Liverpool and Manchester University squadron Grobs, and the Vigilant motorised glider.I often sit in my garden under the approach to R03 and watch the aircraft overhead. Then I run in, startup up FS9 and....Yuk. My frame rates plummet. I'll explain. The airfield sits between a large Pinewood forest and a very busy four lane bypass. Creating that forest using XML, or using Jon Masterson'sinvaluable Airport Design Editor, became a real pain when checking the resulting frame rates. The main forest between the beach and theairfield has approximately some 800 pine trees, with a further 200 trees around the boundaries of the area. These trees dragged the FS9 FR down tosomething like 6-8 on my Core-2-Duo 2.66 GHz. That makes FS9 almost unflyable. The same files gave me about 25 in FSX ! I found FSXvery tolerant when plotting vegetation. FSX was also a lot smoother with low frame rates also, a lot kinder than FS9. I have flown with a PPL friend of mine in a Warrior several times from Woodvale, and my favourite approach was over the busy bypass to R27.That moving traffic cinched it for me - I just couldn't get the same effect with FS9. Programming moving traffic in FS9 was a real headache.The FS9 object libraries weren't really very comprehensive either. (Although the UKVFR addons and objects eventually made up for FS9'slack of objects). I was really disappointed. I really wanted FS9 to work with Woodvale, but it wasn't to be.Once I got into FSX, except for having to move everything around to accommodate the 'Round World' coordinates, I realised that FSX was the onlyway if I wanted to have 'my' EGOW. ..and now, of course, I have the NGX...Even on my 2.66 Ghz duo It is absolutely brilliant. I still have FS9 on my system though. I love throwing the F16 around RioDeJaneiroV9.0, (I've been there) and I do love those editable side cockpit viewspossible with FS9. So I keep both, and use them ! Bill

Thanks for all the intelligent opinions, and I appreciate the discussion. I fly mostly VFR in props and IFR in business jets. A few times a month, I may take up some big iron and fly from one state to another, and I really don't see any difference in frames to any significant degree. I'm an eye candy freak, and excellent scenery makes up most of the "as real as it gets" feeling for me. Give me a Quest Kodiak, PNW scenery, REX, and Active Sky Evolution and I'm in Heaven! Stan

I have FS '98, FS 2000, FS2002, FS 2004, and FSX.FS 2004 and FSX presently resides on my hard drive, but I exclusively use FS 2004 for all my flights for many reasons,Mainly for my FS Navigator, (no longer available for FSX), which I have used on all my Flights Sims since FS Nav was first released. Without it I doubt that I would still be using the MS Flight Sims for the past 13+ years!It is invaluable, especially for on-line Multiplayer flights.Also my copies of LAGO FSSE and LAGO FSE scenery enhancers, (no longer available for FSX), for populating all my FS 2004 scenery..With my reasonable hardware, I can run FS2004 "smoothly", and looking fantastic, with everything maxed. (I cant do that with FSX!).I have VOZ 1.8, GE Pro, REX, etc, all for FS 2004, to produce my amazing scenery, together with numerous free-ware add-ons!.Comparing both my FS 2004 and FSX together, I must admit that I have much more "fun" and enjoyment with my copy of FS 2004...and it uses FS Navigator!So, for the foreseeable future, its my trusty copy of FS 2004 all the way!Paul....G-BPLF...Flying every day since 1995!Obviously, as a collector of MS Flight Sims, I will purchase, and try Flight, when it is finally released!Win 7. Pentium 4 Dual Core 2.8 GHz. nVidia Ge-Force 9500 GT 1 GB. 2.5 GB RAM.