Raining on the Parade

[Rimshot 1,140]

Tell me, can you fit an a$$ like that on me??

LOL

[speedbird2001 0]

Tell me, can you fit an a$$ like that on me??

I guess you can have all the fun you want now Mark. More importantly with a clear conscience

[Guest jahman]

Say what? That makes no sense. The reason FSX is still considered a viable flight simulator 6-years later is because of the numerous add-ons available for it, and Microsoft is going to have a heck of a time convincing people to abandon it and adopt a new sim that will almost certainly be more limited and more expensive.

You misread my post: I didn't refer to "Flight", I said "I'm sure we would all have purchased FSXI and FSXII by now had MS made them available". Additionally, new versions of FS have always been backwards-compatible with the previous version.Cheers,- jahman.

[Ian McPhail 55]

And that's no horses's a.... I contemplate running both FSX and FLIGHT, each independenly.As to FLIGHT I suspect scenery will be cloud based, download manually or automatically what you need, and let's face it Apple apps style add-ons with devs selling through MS. I hope they can make flight dynamics more than the average game level, and if anyone from the Flight devs read these columns, I plead that you do.Look at the way FS2004 and even some predecessors are still being used, FS2004 still with a feisty bunch of defenders, therefore I would think after all we have been through getting the right hardware, it is hardly likely that FSX will die an early death. It would be marvellous however if the code could be released to let the NickNs and ******* of our hobby get it re-written particularly for multi-core, threading, and SLI. That won't happen of course, we hardcore (see photo above) simmers would never buy FLIGHT.

[Ops Normal 57]

And that's no horses's a.... I contemplate running both FSX and FLIGHT, each independenly.As to FLIGHT I suspect scenery will be cloud based, download manually or automatically what you need, and let's face it Apple apps style add-ons with devs selling through MS. I hope they can make flight dynamics more than the average game level, and if anyone from the Flight devs read these columns, I plead that you do.Look at the way FS2004 and even some predecessors are still being used, FS2004 still with a feisty bunch of defenders, therefore I would think after all we have been through getting the right hardware, it is hardly likely that FSX will die an early death. It would be marvellous however if the code could be released to let the NickNs and ******* of our hobby get it re-written particularly for multi-core, threading, and SLI. That won't happen of course, we hardcore (see photo above) simmers would never buy FLIGHT.

A valid point made. I am still on fs2004 primarily due to hardware constraints and just installed FsX on the same system. So IF FLIGHT is a total flop i still have FsX to explore.

[Guest]

I guess you can have all the fun you want now Mark. More importantly with a clear conscience

Well, I would have to take a deep deep breath first

[Mountain Man 142]

You misread my post: I didn't refer to "Flight", I said "I'm sure we would all have purchased FSXI and FSXII by now had MS made them available". Additionally, new versions of FS have always been backwards-compatible with the previous version.

Not always, and not always perfectly. When FSX was released, one of the big new features was a curved earth surface which had the side effect of making the majority of scenery add-ons incompatible, particularly airport sceneries where the runways were designed for a flat earth and which would either float above the ground or sink below it in FSX. This required that all pre-FSX sceneries be redone, and very few developers were kind enough to offer a free upgrade to their customers. A significant number of FS9 owner were reluctant to upgrade to FSX because of it. A common question was "Why should I get FSX when it looks worse and runs worse than what I already have?"

[Guest jahman]

Not always, and not always perfectly. When FSX was released, one of the big new features was a curved earth surface which had the side effect of making the majority of scenery add-ons incompatible, particularly airport sceneries where the runways were designed for a flat earth and which would either float above the ground or sink below it in FSX. This required that all pre-FSX sceneries be redone, and very few developers were kind enough to offer a free upgrade to their customers. A significant number of FS9 owner were reluctant to upgrade to FSX because of it. A common question was "Why should I get FSX when it looks worse and runs worse than what I already have?"

That is of course an excellent point, but it is also the oultier. Generally whenever possible MS has tried to provide backwards compatibility.My reasoning comes from a different direction: The more you spend on add-ons and hardware (PC and controllers), the more willing you become to purchase a newer version of FS that will give you better FPS and less OOMs for your existing investment in hardware and add-ons. Today a serious simmer at the medium level will easily have spent $2,000 for a PC and monitor, $500 for Yoke/Pedals/Throttle, $500 for an autopilot controller $500 on scenery and $300 on aircraft, for a total of $3,800 or $4K for a round number. That's on the order of 100x the cost of a new FS version. Who of us would not gladly pay MS $100 just for a 64-bit version of FSX to never have OOM's again? I know I would! And I would also gladly plunk-down another $100 just for MS to fix all the FSX bugs on that hypothetical 64-bit version of FSX.So you see as FS matures and our installations get larger, we will gladly buy the next version of FS-Whatever, provided it sports improved performance, improved useage of our existing hardwvare, "preserves the legacy" and is backwards compatible to a reasonable degree with the previous version (or IOW will not unnecessarily break compatibility.)Cheers,- jahman.

[Mountain Man 142]

I seem to recall that a number of FS9 aircraft were also incompatible with FSX.Then, of course, there were those who criticized MIcrosoft for not making a clean break with FSX and jettisoning all the nasty legacy bloat.

[maxter 0]

I'm really glad some of us know precisely what Flight is going to be like. Now I know what I have to look forward to Is it so hard for some, when discussing this upcoming release, to once in a while use the words 'I think' or 'I believe' or even 'I suspect' instead of posing their sometimes very shortsighted opinions as the truth? Geez, somebody might actually believe them!

+1

[ahuimanu 50]

Microsoft likely realized two things:

1. It needs to be a game: I'm sure their own success with XBox taught them this
2. DLC works: They will take a cut on the 3PD action because the DLC models works for so many other games.

Get your copy of the Microsoft Happy Fun Flying Game as soon as it's released! I hope I'm wrong.

I think you are right. I also think the classic free flight experience we are used to will remain. I look forward to buying add-ons through a Microsoft-approved storefront as it holds promise to cut down on/keep out the charlatans.