"I guess it is good news, but, I still won't be purchasing FS2006."I said the same thing some months ago. I figured that after having done some of the required nuetering of FS9 I would wait until after the next version was out a few months to see how it all worked. But now I'll be buying FS2006 the day it hits the shelves... the fact that Microsoft and the sim team is showing good support makes it easy to pay them my money and know they'll be listening when the community speaks. Now I indeed feel like one of their "partners"..Greg

Greg,I have the utmost repect for you as a person, and as a member of this community. You have more than earned that much from me.I also completely respect your opinion, and as such I respectfully disagree.Will we have to wait for the Pete Dowson's next year as well ? I can't comfortably support that.For the record, I've not participated in any of the MS bashing threads with even a single post to date, and I hope my posts in this thread are not percieved as such. I am not boycotting FS. I just feel that the only power I have to change things in this situation, is the power I wield with my wallet. Hit a home run in 2006, or at least a triple with some sort of support, and they'll regain my respect.Do it again in 2008, and they'll regain my business.

"For the record, I've not participated in any of the MS bashing threads with even a single post to date, and I hope my posts in this thread are not percieved as such. I am not boycotting FS."I hope so, too, Brian. I certainly don't see your posts here as "bashing".I respect your decision to pass on the next release. Afterall, it's your money, and that must be respected above all else.For me though, I'll be buying. I don't really care what the devs are planning on giving us in their upcoming patch (though like any serious simmer I have my own hopes), I'm most impressed that they have listened and acted on our behalfs. For that they've earned my purchase.Cheers,Greg

Thanks Microsoft :-) I'll look forward to seeing barns and churches without the fps tanking! And I still think the new aircraft in FS9 rate right up there with the best.Todd

Microsoft, a huge THANKS from the flight sim community!Please add to the patch list:(1) Please add corrections to ATC sequencing / separation to the list! I have to turn off AI not to get go arounds at the busier airports, or have other A/C pass me on final. (2)Please OPTIMIZE clouds /rain, etc. The hit on FPS seems pretty random. Sometimes in haze / fog it bogs, on thunderstorm conditions, it has a huge impact! Sometimes under slightly different conditions, FPS is fine. Lots to look at here..Thanks MICROSOFT! Again FS 2004 is the best! And thanks to AVSIM you are #1!Barry

Hi JimmiG.It has been a long time since you first posted about the memory bug concerning autogen. You should rightfully feel some vindication for your efforts. Many kudos to you! Hopefully, the new fix works.Concerning the Seasonal CTD... The timing of the patch will hopefully take place before the fall-winter change of seasons this year, or unsuspecting simmers will again fall prey to that bug ( hopefully, one last time ).I was hoping they would give us the terrain-redesign ability to return a small area to the mesh-state... as of now, we can only adequately undo flattening LWMs by reworking the whole default BGL ( which is of a huge LOD5 size ). Areafills don't work properly in FS9 redesign at all ( unless, again, we replace the default LWM BGLs ). There is a bug related to the presence of a twin "texture" folder used with landclass and VTP BGLs that also needs patching!I was much less excited about mesh LOD detail improvements. Planes move so fast that LOD10 makes little sense... unless you're into screenshots. And increased levels of detail consume framerates. Perhaps they are allowing LOD9 and LOD10 to extend the "ring" further to the horizon.As far as the SDKs, just today I found the VTPChildPoint structure ( called VTPWidePointOffset in the terrain SDK ) demands a minumum of 4 points... no mention of this in the SDK. In fact, no mention of the start and end "hooks" needed at all. Those were found, explored and solved right here at AVSIM, through teamwork by fellow designers, as are most scenery design solutions.I discovered how to eliminate object shadows in Gmax-MakeMDL-XML objects only a few weeks ago. http://www.scenerydesign.org/forum/showthread.php?t=270I'm sure the folks that design aircraft and gauges have similar stories.My point is: it would be nice if the future SDKs were inclusive enough to allow us to develop design tools and methods without going through 1-2 years of guessing games. An early release of a partial or cryptic SDK set is of little use.I'm of the camp that never expected a patch. Like allcott, I do admit to some suspicion that this means FS10 is going to be later than we expected... otherwise, why patch it at all?I hope the patches are done well, and address some real problems that simmers and designers have been experiencing. I am very encouraged that the design team is willing to continue work on these problems. Bravo!A quick edit:The bridge updates are nonsense. If the water and road terrain is grossly misshapen and misplaced, why bother to bridge it at all? When the terrain is finally improved by a 3rd party, the designer must now remove an additional 160 misplaced bridges!Dick

"My point is: it would be nice if the future SDKs were inclusive enough to allow us to develop design tools and methods without going through 1-2 years of guessing games."See ridge_runner's post in this thread: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...esg_id=38&page=Greg

Late? Did they announce a release date and I missed it?

<>Well, as many people said right before FS2004 came out, great! That's one less person ahead of me in line!!

<>Why are you so worried? From reading your post it looks like you'd just as soon not bother with it anyway?

I usually dont get involved in postings like this but 2 posters have just DRAINED the positive vibes coming from this news... Fine .. you found the CTD and autogen bugs... 1 Year ago ...Therefore.. ????There were two workarounds on those issues...if I had those issues(Which I didnt) I would not have hesitated in applying the workarounds in the meantime..and been happy with itIf no fix was forthcoming your options woudld be either to do the workarounds, Park the product or return it.So finally one year later MS is fixing it .. instead of being happy your upset ??? Gimme a break...We all know that MS doesnt usually do immediate fixes for their products unless its security related. The flightsim community members have been able to support themselves in the meantime until the patch announcement.. would you rather them NOT to have patched it ???And as for the person who plans to Skip 2006 ... Ive been flying and posess every FS version since 4.0 .. and since you have no faith in the community to fix issues as they arrive and are so dependent on MS to fix whatever minor bugs/issues fs may have as you find em ... then i guess you should have stopped at fs2000 and not have wasted your money by getting 2K/2k2 and 2k4... because as you can see from MS's track record ... theres hardly a case where MS gave a RAPID patch.. As for FS10 I look forward to breaking traffic laws (as i did for fs9) to secure my copy :).Thank heavens for the people in our community who take the initiative to fix the MINOR bugs we have .. but the fact that MS doesnt fix them or fixes them on a slower timetable is not cause for bashing MS ... If the product works as advertised fine .. if it doesnt and your not satisfied .. take it back to the store no need to whine about it..My 2 Jamaican

Well, you are of course entitled to your opinion.Let's be clear on a few things:I made it clear I wasn't bashing MS, but, if that's what you see, have at it. I posted to express my opinion; I never asked anyone to agree, nor did I, or would I, deride anyone who happened to disagree. I couldn't care less what "vibes" you get from my posts, and I most certainly didn't ask for your commentary. Why do you feel the need to come at me ? What does my disatisfaction have to do in any way with you ? I am not happy with the situation, and as a paying customer of the product, I have every right to say so, whether you agree with me or not. -I don't know where you get the impression that I have such little faith in our community, quite the opposite, sir. I'm just of the opinion that our time could be better spent doing other things, rather than doing the clean up on an unpolished product.-People were attacked for saying that FS needed a patch in the first place, many of the remarks made were very similar to yours. The irony is thick.... I really don't get it, I guess. So many nowadays seem to be willing to just accept whatever they get, and anyone that dissents against popular opinion is immediately labled a "whiner", even when the things they are "whining" about would typically make the situatuion better for everyone.-If you are happy, great, I'm happy for you. I am not, and I stated so here, without attacking you, Microsoft, or anyone else.Threads in the past that have dealt with this, for some mysterious reason, "sensitive" subject, usually go down in flames, and I absolutely refuse to go down that road. I believe I've respected everyone here, and I will demand that same respect in return. If we cannot carry on this discussion in that light, then I guess I'll have to withdraw from this thread.Pardon me, AVSIM, for respectfully speaking my mind.

Geez. I cringe at what you'd post if MS didn't release this patch. Order of grumpy pills for table 8!Gary

>Also nice to see support for 19 mesh (the max of FS2004 is>currently only 38m). This will allow sceneries like VFR>Terrain and Switzerland Pro to finally display in full detail>in FS2004.It's worth mentioning that the terrain resolution also affects vector features such as coastlines. VFR Terrain benefits doubly from this announcement as it includes a complete high resolution replacement vector coastline and lake shorelines as well as the terrain mesh (all from 5m resolution source).I hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but it is an important aspect of terrain resolution that is usually completely overlooked. In terms of the complete visual package, when used with a quality photographic scenery, it allows a far better match in areas which previously were problematic, coastlines being the obvious example:Now that the disparity between the maximum photo scenery resolution and terrain resolution is down to ~4.8m vs ~19m, there's far less of a mismatch between the photo scenery textures and the underlying terrain, resulting in fewer and far smaller visual anomalies such as triangles of water climbing cliffs.Needless to say, the combined effect can be stunning. I think this is great news for FS2004.JohnVisual Flighthttp://www.visualflight.nethttp://www.visualflight.net/images/VisualF...tScotflight.png

My vote of thanks as well!IMO, FS2004 is a masterpiece anyway and fixing flaws in a mid-life upgrade is really an added bonus. I particularly like the fact that the autogen framerate bug is going to be fixed!As for the detractors in this thread, even if this patch is a bit late, just a few hours ago there wasn't going to be any at all, as far as we knew...It's rather sad to see such reactions after this announcement.FS10...actually I really wouldn't mind if they did stretch the release cycle to 3 years instead of 2. As add-ons are getting more sophisticated every day, they also take longer to develop and a longer cycle would give third party developers more time to market their products before having to start worrying again about the impact of a new generation of FS on what's already out there.But, whatever happens, I guess I will be at the front of the queue again when the new version comes out.Best,Martijn