Hey guys just wondering what your opinion is on FS2004. Read some reviews, and most said it was really crappy or really good. I'm kinda confused. Right now i have fs2002 standard on a machine w/1.5ghz athlon and 512RAM and Geforce2. My birthday's coming up and I'm wondering if i should ask for it...

As you can read further down it's illegal here to say FS2004 is good on penalty of getting flamed but I'll say it anyway: it's an excellent product.Your CPU is a bit slow to take full advantage of it, so don't expect to be able to run it with full eyecandy, but that leaves something to look forward to when you get new hardware.

Yes, it REALLY is worth it although you do need to have a fairly powerful rig to experience FS2004 at it's best.However, I think there might be an upgrade in the pipeline named FS2004TV. The TV stands for "Tweaker's Version". It works something along the lines of random failures except that the product screws something up every now and again. This allows the tweakers to get to work. But, this new version is quite clever since as soon as it detects any changes to either the hardware of the sim itself then it "fixes" the random screw up. This enables the tweakers to say that FS2004, or rather FS2004TV, really does suck. Then the process starts all over again.If this ever hits the streets then it is going to be a real paradise for the tweakers. And at a possible $250 a copy it will mean that the price of addons will be well below the price of the sim which has got to please just about everyone.:-lol David

I think that with the graphic card epecially you have currently, it wont improve that much visually to upgrade. You'll get some nice classic planes and a little better AI/ATC handling though.So if you choose to get FS9, then probably you should be prepared in near future to also upgrade some of the hardware in ur pc :)

Go for it - it is worth it. I hardly use FS2002 now tho it is sill on the PC- don't think I've done 2 hours with FS2002 in the past 3 months - compares with (probably) hundreds on FS2004.Dave

I am one of the people who thinks that there are bugs that should be fixed or patched by microsoft. But still, I fly FS2004 exclusively. I have loads of fun flying it too. Definitely go for it.....you could always turn some of the settings down to suit your hardware configuration.....that's the reason why these settings are there in the first place.There are little work arounds and fixes for the most of the bugs. (Except the wind shift bug, which some here still refuse to recognize as a bug). Read the forums, especially the first couple of anchored threads which will help to make your experience more pleasant.Here's hoping that you don't get any CTDs.

FS2004 is worth it, if you have the computer to run it. With your computer specs, you might want to hold off until you get a hardware upgrade. You are going to find all these new features, then learn that you can't run them very well. That being said, I deleted fs2002 immediately after I got 2004. The new clouds and weather engine are excellent. Also, to me it just seems that planes fly better overall, especially GA planes. My specs:P4 3.0 ghz1 gig ramATI 9800 ProEven with this computer, I still have to keep the sliders at a reasonable level to keep fps over 20.

FS9 is worth the upgrade for the dynamic weather engine alone. If you like flying under realistic conditions, especially Real Weather, get it.TonyDigital-Flight

I agree that it is worth it. I run a 1.4Mhz AMD with 512MB ram and a Geoforce TI50064MB video card. It runs just fine for me, as long as I am being reasonable on the sliders. No major show-stopping bugs for me. I haven't flown FS2002 since FS2004 was released.Tony

I'm running it on a lower rig than yours, and I enjoy it quite a bit--especially for flight away from the major cities, which visually offers the richest experience Microsoft has provided in any sim... However, due to FS2004's use of newer DirectX features, your card will be unable to display water reflections. If you've been attracted to FS2004 because of those beautiful reflections, you may think about an upgrade. I found a cheap 4200/TI, and I couldn't be more pleased.For me, FS2004's greatest strength is a much nicer, more realistic visual environment in flight, especially in terms of clouds. You also have a good six months worth of research and workarounds over various issues, so you can run FS2004 fairly cleanly without much worry of instability. I have made quite a few compromises to get FS2004 to run on my rig, but I don't sacrifice much... My biggest compromise is I run in 800x600x32...but I one positive tradeoff with that mode is the ability to read the menus better. AI is easily doable on my machine thanks to a project I completed about two months ago. I substituted all the default aircraft with aircraft designed for AI. I fly add-ons 100 pct of the time, so the default aircraft weren't doing too much for me anyway.... There is also a great cloud set by Chris which really improves overall performance with weather.I still have FS2002 for certain types of flights, but my use of it is less today--maybe about ten percent of my simming time. IF you learn what each slider does and you match visuals vs. whether the slider is positioned left or right, fps performance is comparable to FS2002. What follows is a summary of my performance and system specs...~Without AI/AutogenMajor Airports (LAX, SFO) - 16 to 18 fpsAll other airports - 20 to 30 fps In the air, at cruise - 25 to 40 fps~Without AI/ With Autogen (100%, XML Tweak Applied)Major Airports (LAX, SFO) - 14 to 16 fpsAll other airports - 18 to 25 fps In the air, at cruise - 25 to 35 fps~With AI (ProjectAI substituted for MS default aircraft) /Without AutogenMajor Airports (LAX, SFO) - 12 to 14 fpsAll other airports - 16 to 20 fps In the air, at cruise - 20 to 30 fps~With AI and Autogen (same settings/tweaks as above)Major Airports (LAX, SFO) - 10 to 12 fpsAll other airports - 15 to 18 fps In the air, at cruise - 18 to 28 fpsWith Chris's clouds, one deck of light cumulus, thirty miles draw distance, maybe costs 1 or 2 fps... A minor loss in performance, but a major increase in realism...

Well since no one mentioned it, I will. With all the pretty 3d clouds and gushing comments about the weather, know this; there is no more undercast. Whereas in FS2002 you could not see through the opaque undercast cloud layer, in FS9 the undercast is transparent. Definitely a huge faux pas for anyone who relishes flying IMC. There has been an attempt to fix this by replacing the cirrus overcast textures, which works fine, but if the "overcast" layer is stratus and or cumulus (usually the case with real world weather) you will not get true undercast like you did in FS2002. It also uses more computing power than FS2002 so even with low graphics settings you will probably see a drop in performance on your machine.On the plus side the ATC is a little better in that you can request altitude changes enroute as well as request an IFR flight plan (or change one) while enroute. I don't have the power to run all the eye candy but those who do say that it is prettier than FS2002. The GPS is much better as is the map.Mike

Ok thanks guys i'll ask for it. I'll gripe a while about how crappy the computer handles the graphics and then i'll get off my lazy #### and get a decent card. Then I'll be happy. Problem solved, thanks for all your help dudes...

I know it probably wasn't mentioned because it isn't happening with all users. I have had plenty of real weather IMC flights to where I could not see a thing out of the cockpit, maybe different with the heavy iron compared to GA flying, dunno. On my design PC only the weather part uses more power than FS2002, everything else runs much better than FS2002 ever did.I agree, that if you don't have the power to really see all there is to see, it won't be a big change from FS2002, but when you do, it is something else. I am still amazed when I do a "real flight" as opposed to just testing out a design or new addon. I go from basics on my I gig design pc to full bore on my gaming rig and it is spectacular!Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/PBTMCa.jpgCalVirAir International VACougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviation[link:www.cgrmthelos.com]Cougar Mountain Helicopters

FS2004 is a huge improvement over FS2002, particularly if you want good scenery and realistic skies. Autogen scenery is vastly improved apart from a small - ahem - problem. Before upgrading I ran FS2004 on an 800 Mhz P3, 256 Mb Ram and an ancient GeForce 1. It ran very well indeed with suitable settings and it was still far superior to FS2002. It ran very smoothly and with acceptable frame rates. Overall, Microsoft did a super job with this version, although, as with every flight simulator in the known universe, there are some problems that need to be fixed. Go for it. You (probably!) won't be disappointed. Best regards, Chris

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