What they said ^

 

Plus, AFAIK there is a ton of FS code written in pure x86 assembler, so first you have find someone or several guys who still know how to “code and decode”  it and port it to x64 or to C++.

(Don’t count me in, last lime I attempted to code assembler (circa 1988) I turned my 80286 PC into a toaster.)

This. It is really hard to believe that there is assembly in FSX that is still a quite recent software. You would think that it is coded fully with C++ and possibly some older stuff with C, but no. There is Assembly in it, which is straight from the computer jurassic period! Assembly is completely fine nowadays for one thing: using it as a one part to teach first year bachelor students how processor or microcontroller works.

 

I don't know what they've used there that is assembler stuff, but it has to be old, at least from deep 90's.

Well the intellectual proporty of the source code is still worth a lot of money, so they are not going to let it just like that.

BINGO! That says something that the flight simming community holds a lot of value in it and is still very useful. Clearly MS doesn't care about that so while hold in to it. Especially if they are looking to fill up the void from surface RT screw ups. Sell it. Make use of it. Its not like its going to go up in value.

Without the source code, FSX is a "black box". Nothing anyone can do to change how it works internally.

 

The limitation of 32-bit will become more severe in the coming years  Every add-on developer wants to stand out and use the highest resolution textures, the most detailed 3D models etc. An addon may fit in the 32-bit VAS on its own, but they will have to co-exist with other add-ons on the users' system. Eventually, we will have exhausted the sims ability to evolve through add-ons. At this point everyone will have to make a decision - "freeze FSX in time" and let their hobby stagnate, or move on to a 64-bit sim.

 

LM will inevitably release a 64-bit version of P3D at some point. The whole world is moving to 64-bit. It will be easier once the sim re-write and DX11-updates are done. The DX11-update may in itself provide some temporary relief by moving more work to the GPU, reducing the load on both the CPU and by extension, VAS usage.

BINGO! That says something that the flight simming community holds a lot of value in it and is still very useful. Clearly MS doesn't care about that so while hold in to it. Especially if they are looking to fill up the void from surface RT screw ups. Sell it. Make use of it. Its not like its going to go up in value.

For the right price I'm sure MS would sell the source code. One just needs to come up with the price, and then the money to actually pay it. Pretty sure that price will be far more than $100 from every user on this site though.

64bit conversion is usually easy and I don't think it took Adobe much time at all.-

Only compare Flightgear 32 to 64bit sources...

 

Porting to 64 bits can be either easy or very difficult, depending how the software was written. I've already pointed out all the possible issues in porting, and these were JUST the C/C++ potential pitfalls, assuming the whole program is written in C/C++ and the whole source code is available.

 

In the FSX case, just add the added complexity of the presence of ASM code, and the fact there's no source code available for any of the 3rd parties.

 

And yes, Adobe DID spend years porting Photoshop to 64 bit.

 

In case of the Mac version, it took MANY years, the supposedly "easy" port to 64 bit was made more difficult because of the framework used (Cocoa vs Carbon in this case), that's demonstrates how wrong is just to estimate how easy/difficult a 64 bit porting is, without knowing ALL the aspects that make up a complex software product such as FSX, which is probably several hundreds of thousands lines of code.

 

I'd say, of all possible 64 bit ports out there, FSX is one of the most complex ones.

For the right price I'm sure MS would sell the source code. One just needs to come up with the price, and then the money to actually pay it. Pretty sure that price will be far more than $100 from every user on this site though.

This. Of course they would sell it to one who bids enough, unless there are some restrictions from LM/ESP licensing scheme. But they don't have to do it cheaply. At the same time they don't have to do it, because they don't need the peanuts they could pull from it: MS has no reason to sell away its assets. And they are a company so they there is no reason to do some charity for the sake of few sim enthusiasts.

 

World is full of similar kind of software which have no more support or developement, even far more less users than FSX, is older and even the developer has went belly up, but the code is still under copyright and is propretiary code that someone has rights. Source is closed even if the economical benefits for keeping it that way are meaningless. FSX is no exception, it is like 99% of the propretiary legacy software is.

 

In 2009, Lockheed Martin announced that they had negotiated with Microsoft to purchase the intellectual property (including source code) for the Microsoft ESP product. Microsoft ESP is the commercial-use version of "Flight Simulator X SP2".

 

It was sold to LM.

 

But LM is a very small team and 64bit isn't a priority for them.  The "open" community of global developers is considerably larger that LM's team ... remove the copy protection code and release the source to the community for an affordable price.

 

But this just IS NOT going to happen ... LM would start lining up their legal department if it did happen.  I haven't seen the contract that LM negotiated with Microsoft, but I'm certain there was probably some "exclusive" clause in it (almost certain that is the case).  But lets not dig up the LM EULA can-o-worms again, those debates are endless.

 

In the meantime we just have to hope LM deliver and continue to deliver -- V2.0 DX11 sometime this year is the current belief.

In the FSX case, just add the added complexity of the presence of ASM code, and the fact there's no source code available for any of the 3rd parties.

Umberto, I had a nice chat with Adam Zofran a few months ago while at the AVSIM Fancon. During said chat he mentioned that all of the assembly code was removed from FSX and replaced by C++. So, that bit of the legacy code is not at issue any longer.

 

However, as you've clearly stated and demonstrated, converting to 64bit would be a real challenge, even for the actual folks who're familiar with FSX and it's (il)logic...

 

...for anyone not so familiar, it would most likely be a nightmare!

 

 

LM will inevitably release a 64-bit version of P3D at some point.

Profits. Muhammad, John the Baptist. JimmiG.

Making FSX 64bit won't help so much except for allowing a huge memory address, really it is loads of other stuff in FSX that needs upgrading to go with it. :rolleyes:

I open a challenge and financial reward for any Software Engineer that is also a FSX flight enthusiast...

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

If you can come up with a software emulator hack, that would in essence, trick W7 64 bit, to 'see' FSX as a 64 bit program and RUN IT AS SUCH, with full stability, I will pay your company and/or website, $100.00 for this issue. No butts, and/or ifs.

 

$100.00 from myself, and anybody else that might add a '+1' to this thread.

 

You could invest time and resources for this endeavor, and reap many thousands of dollars. I don't imagine that there would not be one FSX present and future user that would not willingly part with $100.00 to finally be free of any and all VAS issues from then, on out!

 

If there is even a theoretical possibility, I  would jump at a chance to purchase a software 'pre-run FSX' solution. 

 

That's the challenge, and that's the financial reward I am willing to pay for it!

 

-----------------------------------------

 

SesquashToo (Mitch) 

 

How about $100  for a software emulator hack to run FSX on my Iphone.

 

Offer closes tomorrow by 12pm ---   but that should be enough time I guess ?

I think it´s not that easy as like process it again in a 64bit compiler... take for example XPlane 64 released some time ago. It was a nightmare for the developers to port all their 3part software to 64bit. Even before 3part software problems, Laminar Reasearch itself had to debug a lot of things that broke in the process. Until now, many things don´t work properly. And they have the source code.

I'm assuming FSX has Assembler code (or Assembly Language).

 

Reverse engineering is illegal in this case.  But it would be futile to do so anyway, it simply would take too long to understand even with many highly qualified engineers that know Assembly language for x86 instruction set.

 

But the basic process is:

 

1.  Write code in C++ (or your language of choice including Assembly for the macho programmers)

2.  Compile the code to Assembly (don't need this step if you are already writing in Assembly)

3.  Compile Assembly to object code

4.  Link object code into binary executable

 

(there are exceptions for embedded systems)

 

When you run FSX, the OS loads executable into memory, preps other resources needed - usually defined by the binary executable (i.e. DirectX DLLs, etc.) and the OS converts relative addresses to physical locations (aka VAS).

 

You can use any language you like C++/VB/Pascal/Cobol etc. etc. -- it's just syntax, the compiler does the real work and some compilers do it better than others for any given language syntax.  That's why I think it's really funny when I see C/C++ (junior developers in most cases) try to claim their language of choice is the better than anything else when the reality it's all in the compiler not the language.  It is funny, you'll see programmers debate endlessly about how much better C/C++ is ... it's as if they don't really understand how a computer works.

 

Rob

Umberto, I had a nice chat with Adam Zofran a few months ago while at the AVSIM Fancon. During said chat he mentioned that all of the assembly code was removed from FSX and replaced by C++. So, that bit of the legacy code is not at issue any longer.

 

However, as you've clearly stated and demonstrated, converting to 64bit would be a real challenge, even for the actual folks who're familiar with FSX and it's (il)logic...

 

...for anyone not so familiar, it would most likely be a nightmare!

 

Bill

 

That is good to hear  -- my deepest technical respect to the guys at LM, going through, and trying to make sense  of all those years of  MS FS "spaghetti sauce" code.

 

It difficult enough trying to make sense something you wrote yourself a few years ago, let alone another programmer's work.

Assembly, despite being highly esoteric at this point, does still have one very big advantage - raw speed. There's a bunch of people like John Carmack at iD or the guys at Crytek who are 3D graphics engine masters that still use Assembly in the core of their renderers to get every last bit of speed they can out of it.