November Flight update in live!

[Gibbage 198]

FIRST! HA!*EDIT* Someone hit Submit before me! *EDIT*Anyways, the Nov update is live. Guess what? MORE HAWAII!!!http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/Enjoy this months tropical paradise.The news was also updated about performance. They put up the expected minimum req's for PC hardware."We’ve found the game runs well on low graphics settings with hardware meeting the following specifications:"

• CPU: Dual Core 2.0 GHz
• GPU: 256 MB card capable of shader 3.0 (DX 9.0c compliant)
• HD: 10 GB Hard Drive space
• OS: WinXP SP3
• RAM: 2.0GB

It was also one of our goals to ensure that the game can run well with high settings on hardware that is attainable today. Based on our testing of core scenarios, the game runs smoothly on high graphics settings with the following hardware specifications:

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i7 960 @ 3.20GHz, AMD® Phenom™ II X6 1100T 3.3 GHz or better
• GPU: ATI Radeon™ HD 5870, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 or better
• HD: 10 GB Hard Drive space
• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• RAM: 6GB

Who interesting notes. First, VERY low hardware req's. Should save some ppl money on upgrades! 2nd, 10gb hard drive space minimum. If its true that its JUST Hawaii, isent that a LOT for just a few small islands? If it was just Hawaii, they could do full photo-real for 10gb! Then again, I think FSX default is bigger then 10GB, but it has a lot of detail area's.Let the speculation begin! And I expect comparison photo's by EOD!

[cmpbellsjc 1,641]

FIRST! HA!*EDIT* Someone hit Submit before me! *EDIT*

LOL, I was wondering why you posted the same thing after I did. Hate when that happens. I wish we could delete our own posts and also change the title of them.

[Jacoba 35]

IIRC FSX needed 15 GB of HD space...

[Fsau 0]

Just saw the update today. One of the best news updates to date, it comes across with pretty definite information, min specs and even comparison shots between low and high settings. The screenshots are stunning! Looks beautiful. I did notice at first glance though there was no rain effect on the wind shield :( Let the speculation begin indeed FSXMinimum System Requirements

• Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7
• Processor: 1.0 Ghz
• RAM: Windows XP SP2 - 256MB, Windows Vista – 512MB
• Hard Drive: 14GB
• Video Card: 32MB DirectX 9 compatible
• Other: DX9 hardware compatibility and audio board with speakers and/or headphones
• Online/Multiplayer Requirements: 56.6 kbps or better for online play

I wonder what they did to reduce it by 4GB???Looking forward to "an exciting announcement"...

[Gibbage 198]

One thing I do know, is I love how the Maule cockpit looks! I doubt if it was an "arcade" game and not a sim, they would bother animating things like the HSI and all the raido's.

[dm123 19]

Very nice. With all the XP10 news I had forgotten how much promise Flight holds as well.

[Ops Normal 43]

Just saw the update today. One of the best news updates to date, it comes across with pretty definite information, min specs and even comparison shots between low and high settings. The screenshots are stunning! Looks beautiful. I did notice at first glance though there was no rain effect on the wind shield :( Let the speculation begin indeed FSXMinimum System Requirements

• Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7
• Processor: 1.0 Ghz
• RAM: Windows XP SP2 - 256MB, Windows Vista – 512MB
• Hard Drive: 14GB
• Video Card: 32MB DirectX 9 compatible
• Other: DX9 hardware compatibility and audio board with speakers and/or headphones
• Online/Multiplayer Requirements: 56.6 kbps or better for online play

I wonder what they did to reduce it by 4GB???

*speculate* maybe a way was found to reduce the size of textures. I came accros a site that "claimed" it converted a lot of textures in the textures folder of fsx to another format with smaller size and got an additional 20+ fps. With little or no reduction in quality.

[Fsau 0]

*speculate* maybe a way was found to reduce the size of textures. I came accros a site that "claimed" it converted a lot of textures in the textures folder of fsx to another format with smaller size and got an additional 20+ fps. With little or no reduction in quality.

Yes, I actually did this DXT conversion (I think this is what you are talking about) on my FSX textures on a previous install. It did nothing noticeable for my frame rates, and depending on the information present didn't reduce the size of the files by much but this is certainly a possibility. The problem is smaller files contain less info and therefore look comparably worse. I tried DXT1 and did notice a difference, DXT3 is the way to go if you ever give it a go yourself, the performance gains are very minimal in my experience, the FSX devs tested all these formats and came to the same conclusion. Back on topic they may have reduced the number of textures used or done away with the raw bitmaps, I'm sure there are plenty of areas where FSX is a little unnecessarily heavy.Edit: so many mistypes.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 167]

I think I saw rain but no raindrops.

[simmerhead 884]

What doesn't seem to have been solved in Flight is the blurry ground textures - Let's hope they are working on it.The ground in FSX might look OK from 5000 feet, but once you get close, it becomes blurry - even with the best scenery from ORBX, ES, Aerosoft and FranceVFR. Outerra is an example of the opposite:

[kand 125]

wonder what the exciting announcement for December will be? plus DX9?? surely not Please continue sharing your feedback with us and check back in December for an exciting announcement.Thank you, The Microsoft Flight Development Team

[GHD 18]

XP and DX9

[Gibbage 198]

XP and DX9

Its already there in the minimum specs!

[SamYeager 204]

wonder what the exciting announcement for December will be? plus DX9?? surely notThe Microsoft Flight Development Team

I suspect it will either be the start of the beta or when the beta will start - hopefully the former.

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

Still screen-shots excellent!!What we need now is video footage ,some movement .A