I really hope they fix the damned realweather, which has at least couple silly little typos, which results as low visibility.One is the weirdness with euro metars: realweather does not understand what 9999 means.It expects to find "10KM" instead(!!), like "10SM" in american style metars.I fixed this easily by changing the letters it triggers from... how easy!Otherwise it will throw in low visibility in certain cloud conditions (generally with low ceiling. clouds at 2000-3000ft or less).But then theres another serious problem during winter.When the drag coefficiency is listed for runways and there some value is missing and instead shows one or more "//" (aka unavailable), it reduces visibility to somewhere 3.2km or so, regardless of the actual visibility.However if the drag values are complete in the METAR, then theres no problem.This one I can't fix :(These two bugs very often makes the weather foggy.You'll be actually lucky if there isn't any problem with the visibility....when flying in europe that is.No problem in US.

I applaud Microsoft for this. On the other hand I really can't understand what all the excitement is about. To me these fixes seem like fundemental omissions. Better Stability?? Half way into this version's life cycle, it's now more stable? Bridges?? Is this a car simulator?? I would rather MS plough resourses into getting the next version spot-on than us griping about similar issues at the next release date and announcing subsequent patchworks halfway into the next life cycle.Eric

So many questions.Did nobody take any notes during the presentation?:D :D Victor

This is great news, but I would say mainly from the point of view that it is an affirmation that MS is planning on at least one more release of FS. If they were bailing on future releases of MS they would not be releasing this patch. I hope it does in fact improve performance noticably. This would be the main value in this patch, near as I can tell.Noel

On the other hand, (sound of sinister laughter) one could get the impression that the FS series might end and they are patching this version to end on a high note? Now I don't think that, but the thought did cross my mind. . .

> Whats the big bonus about>getting right bridges and plugging memory leaks??>>Would you rather have wrong bridges and leaking memory?

Oooh!! Cynical!!I don't think we have to fear about there being no more Flight Sim.... There's too big-a-team involved, with too many qualified people involved for Microsoft to just kill-off one of their most popular and profitable software titles (have you ever noticed that FS is one of the few titles that NEVER gets discounted?? At least until it's maybe 5 years old!!!).....Especially when there's so many other companies that depend upon Flight Sim, and work closely with Microsoft in production of FS. Even though flight sims in general are still considered as a 'niche' and small part of the overall software market, I'd be willing to bet that the Microsoft FS is up there in sales along with many of the big-hitting titles...maybe not on a par with the blasted Sims (!!!!), but I bet it's got a bigger following and user base than many sports titles and possibly even many of the well known first-person shooters....I'm frequently amazed to see how FS2002 and FS9, and many of the commercial CD add-ons sell-out so fast from my local Game store..and this is in a small town in East Anglia (they don't just order one copy either...!!).Nope, I reckon if Microsoft werer to drop anything, it'd have to be their imaging stuff....the digital photo software that they produce may be 'nice', but it doesn't come close to similarly priced products such as PaintShop Pro, etc.I think FS will be with us for some time to come yet, and we'll be having these same arguments when I'm so old and addled, and confused that I won't care about, or be able to differentiate between, IFR's, VFR's, ILS's, VOR's, NDB's, FMC's, MCDU's, EIFIS's, ABC's, XYZ's, anymore ;)

>Bridges?? Is this a car simulator??Bridges are not only for cars, they make excellent VFR landmarks. You must not forgot that not everyone flies at 35,000 feet.

It's because KJFK was a new high-detail airport in FS2004 and several of the aerial photo tiles were missing autogen objects completely. The patch fixes this. I think the presenters were playing up what's actually included.

I believe the folks at the conference said the fixes were meant to address many of the CTD issues people have reported.

Excellent news for those of us using high definition mesh like UK VFR Mesh. Can't wait to see the improvement!!Roll on the release date...AdamJAR PPL/IR (A)8nm E EGLL

Where are you from in East Anglia?Robb

thanks!

Do you guys think we will have to reinstall before patching? May be alot of work for some. Great news regardless.

>Do you guys think we will have to reinstall before patching? No.