Some thoughts on Flight...

[RYR738 9]

MS are quite right in looking for money from 3PD's now. Afterall it is their simulator platform.MS have not gotten greedy but have gotten sense !Fred.

[lazyPandora 0]

An interesting note about Prepr3dFolks interested in Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d will be happy to find out that since the release of V1.3 the prices have reduced significantly. There is also an academic license available. Here's the summary:Professional Retail License - $199Developer License - $9.95 - $119.40 (Depending on the no of months you prepay)Academic License - $49You can chekc it out for yourself herehttp://www.prepar3d....repar3d-client/http://www.prepar3d....par3d-academic/http://www.prepar3d....oduct-overview/Hmm.. I don't know about you but $49 for students and $199 for everybody else is now in the range of way more simmers much better than the $499. I think Lockheed Martin is about to get a lot more friends.Reation to MS Flight or was this always in the works? Either way the NGX flies just fine here so maybe PMDG will drop one or two products in there (thinking 777 & 747-8i). Too bad for MS wanting to headlock 3PD, if it wasn't for 3PD FSX & FS9 would not be the great products they are now.EDIT: the EULA still states that P3D is not for 'Personal/Consumer Entertainment'

[Fabo 213]

Oh and btw, should anybody have bought the 499 dollar version, I hear they are offering price match to 199 retroactively.Regarding your last point, my best bet is, without P3D, FSX and FS9 would be exactly the same they are now.Frank: IIRC PMDG did not even start with add-on development on the MSFS platform but on either Fly! or Flight Unlimited.

[XPX64man 130]

Oh and btw, should anybody have bought the 499 dollar version, I hear they are offering price match to 199 retroactively.Regarding your last point, my best bet is, without P3D, FSX and FS9 would be exactly the same they are now.Frank: IIRC PMDG did not even start with add-on development on the MSFS platform but on either Fly! or Flight Unlimited.

I'm just wondering, what is the benefit of P3D? Is it that much better than FSX? Does it take advantage of multicore environment?

Except for Microsoft, you would have never seen PMDG quality stuff etc.People do have short memories and do make really stupid statements.Fred.

You have a right to your opinion. It's certainly not mine. In my opinion, they just became greedy.There were other flight simulators out when Microsoft came out with theirs. In fact I still have the CD for one of them in my case. Microsoft became the most popular, but if it hadn't, one of the others would have been expanded and we would have been using it today.

[OMGBBQ32 12]

Well FLIGHT has a new DLC to be released tomorrow.http://forum.avsim.net/topic/367667-new-ac-available/

[Sekstifire 10]

... They want a cut of that money, and they don't want a small cut....

Well, to be fair, they charged the same percentage that the other online reselling stores charge.

[XPX64man 130]

Well, to be fair, they charged the same percentage that the other online reselling stores charge.

They have taken Flight in a whole different direction from FSX, after dropping further development with FSX because they figured that the big money wasn't in the nitch market of serious flight simulation enthusiast. They made an arcade game out of Flight, then they see PMDG and other developers sticking with FSX and still doing well with it, so they feel they need to find a way to get their sticky fingers in that pot as well by giving the impression that Flight is actually an updated FSX.I'm not running down Microsoft. They do a lot of good things and I'm happy with my Windows 7. But, in my opinion, the direction that they are going with Flight is just a bad decision based on their desire to make quick money and control the profits of outside independent developers.Do they have a right to do that? .....probably. Do I think it is smart to ignore the needs of serious flight sim enthusiasts who have built their hobbies and invested their money on the experience of realism in flight simulation? I would have to give that a big NO.

[OMGBBQ32 12]

No offense, but it seems like you guys aren't really giving a chance. Maybe you should take a break, stick with FSX, X Plane, whatever for a while, and come back in a year. See how FLIGHT is doing in one year. If it has made little to no progress in anything but DLC, you can leave and stick with FSX and maybe move on to X Plane.

[lazyPandora 0]

Fabo, on 27 March 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:Oh and btw, should anybody have bought the 499 dollar version, I hear they are offering price match to 199 retroactively.Regarding your last point, my best bet is, without P3D, FSX and FS9 would be exactly the same they are now.Frank: IIRC PMDG did not even start with add-on development on the MSFS platform but on either Fly! or Flight Unlimited.I'm just wondering, what is the benefit of P3D? Is it that much better than FSX? Does it take advantage of multicore environment?

Prepar3d is based on the FSX engine and is pretty much FSX on a few steroids. It has a lean towards flight training but works well for a 'serious simmer'. It does support a multicore environment and you can pretty much import all your payware & freeware addons from FSX (With a few tweaks in some cases). Only thing is the end user license agreement does not support 'Consumer/personal entertainement' like FSX but Lockheed Martin doesn't exactly put checks to find out whether your a flight trainer/developer. If you've got the cash you can get it. That said FSX is still more than ok but if your looking for something that is constantly updated then Prepa3d might be good for you but then again you have to keep in mind that the EULA doesn't allow fow usage of Prepar3d as an 'Entertainement' platform but only training/academic/developer. Your call.Matt

[XPX64man 130]

the EULA doesn't allow fow usage of Prepar3d as an 'Entertainement' platform but only training/academic/developer. Your call.

Thank you Matt. I've been wondering about it. The NGX works good in it then? What kind of tweaking?So as long as I feel that I am training and using it for educational purposes, which I do anyway, Lockheed is good with it. It don't have to be having "formal training"?

[lazyPandora 0]

Thank you Matt. I've been wondering about it. The NGX works good in it then? What kind of tweaking?So as long as I feel that I am training and using it for educational purposes, which I do anyway, Lockheed is good with it. It don't have to be having "formal training"?

The NGX works pretty well in there. In terms of tweaks for add ons it depends on the installer of the add-ons. If the installer allows for a change of install folder you can just change it to the Prepar3d folder. In other cases where the installer strictly looks for an FSX/FS9 folder you will need to use TweakFS so that the installer gets 'fooled' into thinking the folder where you installed Prepar3d is the FSX/FS9 folder. Lockheed has a guide here http://www.prepar3d.com/products/add-ons/ . As for most freeware it's mostly a copy paste affair. Also remember to get the FSUIPC version that works with P3D from Pete Dowson's site (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html) so you wont get any add on issues. If you feel you fit the EULA and you do decide to try it I recommend you install it on a machine that never had FSX/FS9 installed on it before (But dont dump your FSX install in case some addons fail to work or dont work properly with P3D). Regarding your interpretation of the EULA i think you have to strickly fall into the categories of Formal Training, Academic (Undergrad & below) or Software Developer (Thats my interpreation anyway). Thats why PMDG can't develop birds for it because P3D is not marketed for the 'Consumer'. That howeve hasnt stopped folks like Aerosoft, i see they have some birds and scenery specific for P3D. But like I said earlier, Lockheed Martin doesn't make any checks for any of this when you pay so it remains your call.

[pride545 30]

Except for Microsoft, you would have never seen PMDG quality stuff etc.People do have short memories and do make really stupid statements.Fred.

Some people make stupid statements about other peoples' stupid statements!!!

[XPX64man 130]

The NGX works pretty well in there. In terms of tweaks for add ons it depends on the installer of the add-ons. If the installer allows for a change of install folder you can just change it to the Prepar3d folder. In other cases where the installer strictly looks for an FSX/FS9 folder you will need to use TweakFS so that the installer gets 'fooled' into thinking the folder where you installed Prepar3d is the FSX/FS9 folder. Lockheed has a guide here http://www.prepar3d....oducts/add-ons/ . As for most freeware it's mostly a copy paste affair. Also remember to get the FSUIPC version that works with P3D from Pete Dowson's site (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html) so you wont get any add on issues. If you feel you fit the EULA and you do decide to try it I recommend you install it on a machine that never had FSX/FS9 installed on it before (But dont dump your FSX install in case some addons fail to work or dont work properly with P3D). Regarding your interpretation of the EULA i think you have to strickly fall into the categories of Formal Training, Academic (Undergrad & below) or Software Developer (Thats my interpreation anyway). Thats why PMDG can't develop birds for it because P3D is not marketed for the 'Consumer'. That howeve hasnt stopped folks like Aerosoft, i see they have some birds and scenery specific for P3D. But like I said earlier, Lockheed Martin doesn't make any checks for any of this when you pay so it remains your call.

Thank you Matt. That's a lot of help. I wonder if I could just install P3D on a different harddrive from FSX, but on the same machine? I don't know about buying a new computer for it and I do have FSX running pretty stable and smooth now (that's taken years), so I don't want to trash it.I wonder if Microsoft is still capable of pulling the carpet out from under Lockheed if they think its making too much money for them?

Some people make stupid statements about other peoples' stupid statements!!!

:(

[lazyPandora 0]

Thank you Matt. That's a lot of help. I wonder if I could just install P3D on a different harddrive from FSX, but on the same machine? I don't know about buying a new computer for it and I do have FSX running pretty stable and smooth now (that's taken years), so I don't want to trash it.I wonder if Microsoft is still capable of pulling the carpet out from under Lockheed if they think its making too much money for them?

Not a prob good luck with your experiment. And by the way a new PC for P3d is overkill, just install it on a separate partition with a different windows installation on the same machine :( . Doubt MS can just kill the agreement they have with Lockheed, LM is doing nothing wrong here but the $300 price reduction is really curious :( .

[krylite 0]

I think whoever it was they put in charge of Flight had the wrong business sense about the product and didn't understand the market segment of the simmers who buy FSX and also the 3rd party addons. It's about freedom and expanding FSX and what they are doing with Flight is forcing restrictions and unwanted personal detail gathering with the Microsoft Live! account and trying to pressure 3rd party addon developers to be "committed" to their overly restrictive DLC scheme. Like the old Microsoft that bought all the competition (Dbase, Lotus etc.) and how they killed Netscape. ( I still refuse to update Silverlight on win 7 or sign their agreement in order to use Movie Maker on win 7). If they were really committed to flight simulation they should have made Flight a separate Xbox project and had kept Aces for a real FSXI. Hopefully, eventually someone higher up will boot whoever was in charge of this fiasco and there will be a real FSXI in the works in the future.