I'd be careful declaring for P3D2 just now. It's early days yet, and so far the P3D road has been a bumpy one. Still too many caveats and uncertainties ahead.

 

Time will tell.

 

Wasn't this the same case with FSX back in 2006? The road is still bumpy with FSX at least P3D runs far better than FSX did when it was released years ago and the support is night and day different than what we got with Aces/Microsoft. It's only people's biased to change and loyalty to FSX that's a factor now with P3D. It's already a better platform than FSX in every way. I'll never understand not supporting something the developers are working so hard to get right, expecting perfection upon first release... Resistant to change is one thing but this is crazy. I could see if the sim didn't run and and support sucked as was the case with FSX but now people are doing the best that they can and it's still not enough for some. Crazy world we live in on this and many other fronts...

It's only people's biased to change and loyalty to FSX that's a factor now with P3D. It's already a better platform than FSX in every way. I'll never understand not supporting something the developers are working so hard to get right, expecting perfection upon first release... Resistant to change is one thing but this is crazy. I could see if the sim didn't run and and support sucked as was the case with FSX but now people are doing the best that they can and it's still not enough for some. Crazy world we live in on this and many other fronts.

 

I was giving an honest opinion, and apparently you have taken umbrage with that.

 

Fair enough, let's dance...

 

 

As somebody pointed out above, the equine scatalogical output regarding EULAs hasn't run its course yet. Lots of people haven't joined the dots when it comes to FSX addon developers who also make professional training products. Have fun paying for your PMDG stuff all over again.

 

How's the new flight modelling in P3D2? Sorry I forgot it's exactly the same flight modelling as FSX with absolutely no improvement. Still the same poor turboprop modelling, still the same simplifed helicopter flight models, still the same simple ground handling. How's the new weather engine? ATC? AI? Nope... all the same as FSX.

 

But wait! P3D2 has DX11! You can have some slightly better clouds, fog and water! That must make all the development time worth it! Just don't push the tree autogen slider above "normal" or you'll get an OOM  :unsure:  Funnily enough the most impressive thing for me about P3D2 when it was released in November was I could fly the default F-22 at treetop height and Mach 1 for over seventy miles and not get any blurries at all. Lots of people reporting the blurries are back with a vengeance in 2.1 and from Rob Ainscough's report on his testing of 2.2 I'm not going to be surprised if they are still there.

 

How's your addon compatibility in P3D2? You must be having lots of fun flying some of the best aircraft currently available like the PMDG 777X, Flight One King Air B200 or VRS Super Hornet. Oh no sorry you aren't because they won't work in P3D2. How about all those lovely Orbx regions and airports? Nope, plenty of them still not compatible either. How does your photoscenery look in P3D2? Blurry because the LOD radius has a hard limit of 6.5.

 

Right now I can fire up FSX which runs flawlessly on my system and is 100% compatible with every addon I have right now. I can fly it all day with no OOM, I can even push the autogen to very dense with no problems at all. I can load up a flight with any of my large photoscenery collection and it looks great because I can set the LOD radius to 9.5. Can't do any of that with P3D2 right now.

 

As for support.... yeah it's good as long as LM are prepared to look the other way when you consider hardly anybody here is using it under the terms of the license that was sold to them. Development? Well P3D2 was clearly released before it was ready, as evidenced by the plethora of bugs it had. It is indeed great that LM put a patch out so quickly to address them, but in the process they introduced another major bug. Let's wait and see how the 2.2 pudding tastes.

 

And of course there's the elephant in the room that is 64bit. Good luck when that arrives as you're all going to be back at square one and your wallet is likely to take a hit as well.

 

Bottom line: It's 2014. It's now FIVE years since LM took over ESP from MS. It's almost EIGHT years since FSX was released. P3D still doesn't make full use of contemporary hardware - it's still a CPU bound 32bit application.

 

Perhaps the most ironically amusing thing for me at least is your extremely vocal rejection of FSX over the years and now total commitment to P3D2 when it reality it's just FSX with some DX11 lipstick slapped on. Surely you must realise that without FSX there would be no P3D2 and all of the addons that you will have installed in your P3D2 are actually FSX addons? Surely the irony of the shoe being on the other foot is not lost on you - an FS9 Luddite - when you are behaving in exactly the same manner you have riled against all these years when people suggested FS9 was obsolete and the community should move on to FSX.

 

So I absolutely stand by my original comment. Whilst I applaud LM for making P3D available for us and continuing its development, I still am far from convinced it's the "future" of home use desktop flight sims. As I said, time will tell.

 

I would never attack or criticise somebody for enjoying any flight sim. What I will vehemently stand against is people telling me what sim they think I should be using and questioning my motives just because I haven't been drinking the Kool-Aid.

I am happy with Prepar3D 2.x being a great platform for our existing add-ons, so I don't mind if they don't reinvent the wheel. For that I'm looking into aeroflyFS and Outerra (and this is what I would want Flight Simulator 11 to do if it were to be made).

Fair enough, let's dance...

O.K. let's break this down, I'll go point by point here:

 

 

Rebuying Add-ons - What version of FS can you recall where we didn't have to rebuy add-ons to get them to work in a newer version of Flight Simulator? I'll leave it at that because along with new hardware this is how it's always been done which is why some are resistant to change unless every little whimsikle feature is added and even then they'll find something to justify the new effort is crap. You can't compare the FS9/FSX debate because upon release FS9 ran and FSX was a slideshow upon release no matter what hardware of the day you threw at it. If a new version is a decent upgrade building on features of the previous version (FS2k2 to FS2k4 for example) most don't mind either rebuying or paying an upgrade price to use the add-on in the new sim.  Heck that was when most of us did our annual PC upgrade.

 

Flight Modeling - First off bugs and code is the first order of business to bring the sim into 2014 and beyond. Yes it's taken awhile to get ESP to P3D v2 but that goes to show how bad FSX was, gathering many of the Aces team from MS after they were let go, and jelling the team together to tackle the many issues with ESP (not to mention any political craziness going on with the powers that be at LM which is always the case as big corporations). None of us knows the details to criticize or defend but taking on a project of this size is nothing to sneez at... P3D v2 is not a rebuild of Flight Simulator and you know it, at least not yet. The goal of this incarnation of P3D is to be a stable training platform that can be used in real world Aviation. FSX is incapable to doing this because it's so unreliable. For example you could get it up and working well in Atlanta on Delta's Level-D simulator but Air France in Frankfort has all kinds of problems because tweaks work different for different equipment. Lockheed Martin would look stupid trying to use FSX in the condition it and ESP is/was in. One shoe needs to fit all and that's the goal right now where you can install it without issue and get on with the business of flying. Everything else will come later as we are seeing with the commitment of the LM team.

 

DX11 - FSX was nothing more than a visual improvement over FS9 when it was released and to many then it was 'worth it'. We all asked for more meat in the sim to be developed and instead framerate hogging graphics is what we got (I was one of the one's who agreed to having a usage scan of my system by Aces to show and justify how we used the sim in this community). To take issue with this concerning P3D is either a case where you weren't around when FSX was released or your trying to find fault where there isn't any. To have much of the display process off loaded to the video card is a good thing, to display new visual features not yet seen in Flight Simulator is not bad either, and to take advantage of today's hardware is a plus we all want. Again how can you criticize this and for whatever fault put P3D in a static development state which is so far from the truth. OOM issues have already been addressed with 2.2 so even in your current assessment of issues you are already dated in describing what people will experience with P3D. Speaking of Blurries download 2.2 and see if you still have the problems you mentioned. P3D is evolving and getting better so whatever visual grips you have today rest assured they'll be corrected if valid tomorrow. FSX is the platform that's static with no hope of improvement.

 

Addon Compatibility - Again we all know the game. If this was a 64bit evolution it would be much worse and you'd (or others) would really complain. One thing you've forgotten about is how so many complained over the years their current add-ons don't work with newer versions of FS. We heard this with FS98 to FS2000, FS2000 - FS2k2, FS2k4 - FSX. P3D v2 is the most backward compatible sim we've yet seen in the 20+ year history of Flight Simulator. Why, is because it's a massive code/bug fix versus a totally new rebuild. I've already explained why but just the same there is still problems because P3D v2 offers improvements over FSX under the hood. All developers have stated they are going to make their add-ons P3D compatible with the exception of Flight1. Since to many of you PMDG is the 'Holy Grail' of add-on development even they are getting into the P3D arena. There a reason for this which to many of us is obvious. Now my question to you is when you have official statements of support by 90% of the commercial add-on community how can you raise an issue here? Something to think about is how many times has George Lucas resold Star Wars for home use. First it was the VHS, then DVD, then Blue Ray. I could see DVD's but forget getting the Blue Ray copy yet people have bought three because the viewable experience was slightly better.

 

Ability to run FSX flawlessly - How many years did it take for this to happen with FSX, 6-7 years... I could run P3D on day one without issue at the rate FS9 is running on my box. It's only gotten better since. I saw early on that hack installing FSX add-ons was not the way to go so until add-ons came out specific for P3D I stuck with default aircraft/scenery (and the sim looked amazing). Concerning add-ons in FSX, FS9 add-ons cause issues in FSX which is why we know now it's best to get 100% compatible FSX add-ons. What's the point here your trying to make? I'll make a point in saying tweaking is a thing of the past. We don't need whole websites dedicated to tweaking P3D like we have with FSX (Word Not Allowed comes to mind). All the techi know how is no longer needed for pilots and Level-D trainers trying to simulate flight. Your ability to run FSX 'flawlessly' is off the backs of countless other simmers over the last 7 years beating their brains out on something the developers should have gotten right the first time or at least worked on like LM is doing today. I'm glade LM is doing the tweaking for a change so I can install and run P3D 'flawlessly' at some point with anything I throw at it. If I have any problems I report it and it's fixed with the next update.

 

Support and Unfinished Release of P3D - First off why not use the community who could put 'large enough wings on a pig' and make it fly (FSX). It's smart to use the group of people who can make P3D shine first then aggressively market it to the more serious real world aviation solutions out there. You can't begin to make a point about unfinished product when your sitting there upholding FSX that took this community years to make it somewhat reasonable to enjoy. Load up default FSX Gold or any version you wish and see how you make out default without any tweaks. Now go do the same with P3D v2.2 and see what you get. We are all but four months after release on version 2.2 with a runable sim. That's a whole lot better than year five or six which was the case with FSX before is slowly started to shine.

 

P3D is FSX - Actually let me correct you, all of it is FS2000 with updated code over the years. FSX is nothing more than FS9 with better visuals. The point is does the sim run. The irony is how can you mess up FS2k2 and FS9 code to get FSX. The irony is FSX add-ons run much better in P3D than they did in FSX when made fully compatible with the new sim. The irony is standing up and saying for years don't drink the coolaide, FSX is not the best we can get with the kind of visuals it had and to be proven right with offerings like X-Plane, Outerra, MS Flight, and P3D v2. To say for years the customer shouldn't have to tweak and/or the community spend years hacking to get the sim to work right for most, the developers should do the QA on the code. If you don't feel comfortable in going back to FS2000 I'll say the FS2k2 code never looked or ran as good as what we have today with P3D v2.2.

 

 

Last but not least - No one is telling anyone what sim they should use. Until P3D get's half the add-ons officially supported by their prospective developers I'd tell anyone to keep their copy of FS9, FSX, or whatever is their main sim. FS9 today still eclipses the amount of add-ons available for FSX. You put freeware and payware together FS9 is hard to beat, why trash it? FSX has amazing payware offerings that run well if you have FSX setup/tweaked correctly. Why not have as many sims as you like? I will make the case for P3D v2 when I see pushback on it for the very same reasons you should have with FSX yet we've been forced collectively as a community to use FSX because that's all we had. The bottom line is I don't want to see the LM suites pull what Steve Ballmer and his ilk pulled and that's drop P3D for lack of support. Believe me many read these forums (even CNN today). Slamming this sim because you don't feel like upgrading or your making the same case that could currently be made with FSX is not doing anyone a favor. We need new development plain and simple. Half of this crap people are stating is untrue the moment they type it because LM is actively trying to fix the issue and posting as such.

 

Speaking of telling someone what to do be glad you don't live in America right now. It's the Obamacare deadline and we are all forced to get on board or get fined. Now that's something to take issue with...  :vava:  :fool:

Nice points Dillon and others. Bottom line is, FSX is still the elephant in the room in whatever forum it's presented in.. FSX native dress, or P3D dress.

 

 

Lets all do ourselves a favor and drop that old argument.. We were supposed to be speculating on MS taking up FS again.

 

 

 

That is very likely the reason that FLIGHT was suddenly canned.

 

Likewise, MS lawyers in the room probably made sure they COULD do another sim, so long as it wasn't with the FSX code. There is plenty of real info about the Flight debacle. Google is thy friend. The bullets points would be;

 

1. It was a POS

2. Terrible development management

3. It was a POS

4. The Project Head is a real POS, now doing porn related software (for real).

 

But, we can avoid that debate too. It's bad enough we have to contend with P3D people thinking their renamed FSX is something new, then add the bane of Flight people flying around without cockpits chasing coins in the sky to the mix...

 

It's too much!  (For the humor impaired, the previous statements is truth! (people with humor will get that))

With big Bill back in the fold, anything is possible. I say, if the "community" wanted to get together a petition, I would hazard to guess something would move at MS for FS11.

 

What a load of rubbish. Out of all MS's product ranges, past & present, do you think that they are at all interested in a redundant piece of software.

 

Do you have ANY idea of the startup costs of a totally new sim?

FS9 was discontinues & was superceded by FSX. FSX was the 'Vista' of flight sims, even with FSX Gold &, MS closed down development.

 

Lockheed Martin then bought the licencing of 'ESP' - the professional version of FSX & we are on the 5th itteration of it now.

 

& Flight was a bit of an anti-climax. Fine to introduce kids to flying, but no serious hobbyist would get involved. I tried, but really could not be bothered.

 

So, move with the times, a new FS is the last thing on MS's mind, no matter how many petitions are sent to them.

 

Maybe I must petition them for an update of that amazing simulator that they have not updated for ages --- A card simulator called 'Patience'

 

If you do want the latest sim, them obviously get P3D.

Dratt, this lamenting about Microsoft is like a dripping tap!

"What version of FS can you recall where we didn't have to rebuy add-ons to get them to work in a newer version of Flight Simulator?"

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but one of the headline features that got so many people excited about P3D2 was that the vast majority of FSX addons would work with it. The community hype machine went into overdrive and as usual lost touch with reality.

 

"You can't compare the FS9/FSX debate because upon release FS9 ran and FSX was a slideshow upon release no matter what hardware of the day you threw at it."

 

I absolutely can compare the FSX/FS9 debate - remember the one that you were taking the opposite side to what you are now - because just like now the new sim is having severe growing pains and requires one to give up significant amounts of addons they have invested in for some marginal improvements in some areas.

 

"The goal of this incarnation of P3D is to be a stable training platform that can be used in real world Aviation."

 

Yup, which is why it might not tick all the boxes for the likes of us.

 

"FSX is incapable to doing this because it's so unreliable."

 

I really fail to understand how you can keep repeating this mantra when the fact is I can run FSX straight out of the box all day with all the sliders maxed out with absolutely no problem at all. If I try the same with P3D2 I get am OOM. You keep accusing FSX of being unreliable/unstable/not working when ironically P3D2 is the one that has the major problem right now - far more serious than any FSX has.

 

"One shoe needs to fit all and that's the goal right now where you can install it without issue and get on with the business of flying."

 

And that's exactly what you can't do, because you can break P3D2 using just the sliders in the options screens without having to resort to the kind of arcane cfg tweaks to push FSX beyond what it's meant to do that are required to break FSX.

 

This is the very crux of the problem - in fixing the original release version bugs LM introduced a major memory leak. That's understandable, but how many more iterations will we have to go through before P3D2 actually becomes a problem free, stable, static target for addon developers? That's something neither you nor anybody else knows, which is why I say time will tell if P3D2 is "the future". As somebody stated very eloquently back in December - P3D2 certainly isn't unicorns with rainbows coming out of their bums like so many people were so ready to believe, and continue to want to believe.

 

"FSX was nothing more than a visual improvement over FS9 when it was released and to many then it was 'worth it'."

 

That's utterly incorrect. Umteen developers stated FSX was the far more capable platform and allowed them to do things that simply weren't possible with FS9. Unless I'm mistaken there never was an Accu-Sim aircraft or Orbx scenery for FS9.

 

"To take issue with this concerning P3D is either a case where you weren't around when FSX was released or your trying to find fault where there isn't any."

 

No Dillon, I'm a realist and I'll call a spade a spade. We are now well over seven years since FSX was released and P3D2 is nothing more than a re-badged and marginally polished FSX. If that's seven years progress then colour me unimpressed.

 

"To have much of the display process off loaded to the video card is a good thing"

 

As I understand it the autogen is still running on the CPU and as such the programme is still essentially CPU bound, hence the autogen related OOM whilst the GPU memory is still sitting under utilised.

 

"to display new visual features not yet seen in Flight Simulator is not bad either"

 

Pseudo HDR, volumetric fog, slightly better clouds and water and hopefully soon some cloud shadows. We waited seven years for that?

 

"Again how can you criticize this and for whatever fault put P3D in a static development state which is so far from the truth."

 

See what I wrote above, we've already had one instance of a patch that was one step forward and two steps back.

 

"OOM issues have already been addressed with 2.2"

 

Which hasn't been released yet so the efficacy of the fix has yet to be verified, and we still don't know what existing issues remain, nor indeed what new issues may have been created.

 

"Speaking of Blurries download 2.2 and see if you still have the problems you mentioned."

 

I can't because it hasn't been released yet.

 

"P3D is evolving and getting better so whatever visual grips you have today rest assured they'll be corrected if valid tomorrow"

 

If only I had your faith. You would do well to remember LM aren't in the entertainment software business and we are not their intended customer. They will cater to the demands of their intended customers first and our demands later, if at all.

 

Hence their selling of what is basically a marginally modernised FSX/ESP that makes some improved use of a contemporary GPU.

 

"FSX is the platform that's static with no hope of improvement."

 

And FSX's static state of development is what's allowed some of the truly remarkable and ground breaking addons to be released over the last few years. I wonder did you consider that?

 

"Again we all know the game. If this was a 64bit evolution it would be much worse and you'd (or others) would really complain."

 

Actually no we didn't "know the game"  because confirmation that P3D2 would remain 32bit came very late in the day. As for me complaining if it were 64bit, far from it. I'd jump for joy because it would mean one of the most significant barriers to addon development and usage would be removed.

 

P3D2 is the only open architecture desktop flight simulation that is still exclusively 32bit. X-Plane, Flight Gear and DCS are all available in 64bit versions. Again, this underscores my belief that the developers of P3D2 don't place a great deal of importance on the requirements of the flight sim enthusiast as opposed to the professional or institutional user. Hence why I am not willing to fully commit to P3D2 as I believe it was not meant for the likes of us and probably never will be.

 

"it's a massive code/bug fix versus a totally new rebuild."

 

Exactly, and what we need more than anything else is a totally new platform that properly utilises modern hardware, not FSX with some DX11 lipstick. I'd gladly forego my addon collection for the opportunity to install a sim with a totally new engine that actually made proper use of all my computer's resources and hardware. 

 

"Now my question to you is when you have official statements of support by 90% of the commercial add-on community how can you raise an issue here?"

 

I'm not so thrilled about a "new" sim that is basically FSX with some DX11 lipstick - a sim that brings comparitively little to the table in way of new features or improvements, yet has done just enough to break compatibility with many of the more popular addons. One modest step forward, two steps back.

 

I'm even less thrilled about having to potentially buy everything again when it eventually goes 64bit.

 

"How many years did it take for this to happen with FSX, 6-7 years..."

 

Irrelevant to the discussion. I'm talking about the here and now.

 

"I could run P3D on day one without issue at the rate FS9 is running on my box."

 

So could I, then they released a patch that introduced a major memory leak unless I turned autogen down below what I have in FSX, and thus greatly detract from the scenery I was flying over.

 

"It's only gotten better since."

 

No it hasn't. On day one I could run both autogen sliders at very dense, Mach 1 at treetop height for over seventy miles at 30fps without a blurry. Can't do that in 2.1!

 

"I stuck with default aircraft/scenery (and the sim looked amazing)."

 

LOL It's exactly the same scenery as FSX had out of the box SEVEN YEARS AGO!

 

If you're used to FS9 then I can understand how the default scenery and aircraft are ok. The rest of us that have been flying over Orbx scenery in Accu-Sim or RealAir aircraft for the last few years might disagree.

 

"What's the point here your trying to make?"

 

Ultimately that you are performing all sorts of crazy mental gymnastics to denigrate FSX and promote P3D2, when the latter is essentially a marginally polished version of the former.

 

"I'll make a point in saying tweaking is a thing of the past."

 

No it's not and it never will be as long as it runs on a PC and not an Xbox or PlayStation.

 

"I'm glade LM is doing the tweaking for a change so I can install and run P3D 'flawlessly' at some point with anything I throw at it."

 

Funny that you keep reiterating the point that it took 6-7 years to get FSX running flawlessly (it didn't) yet you've just admitted that you yourself don't know for sure when you'll be able to run P3D2 flawlessly with anything you can throw at it. It certainly won't right now.

 

"You can't begin to make a point about unfinished product when your sitting there upholding FSX that took this community years to make it somewhat reasonable to enjoy."

 

Interesting choice of words.

 

"Load up default FSX Gold or any version you wish and see how you make out default without any tweaks."

 

I have, all sliders maxed out I get 60fps which is the refresh rate limit of my monitor. Without vsync I get a framerate in the hundreds.

 

"Now go do the same with P3D v2.2 and see what you get."

 

An OOM.

 

"We are all but four months after release on version 2.2 with a runable sim."

 

As far as I'm aware 2.2 isn't out yet. Unless you are in an alternate timeline to the rest of us?

 

"That's a whole lot better than year five or six which was the case with FSX before is slowly started to shine."

 

Ah, I'm slowly starting to get it! P3D2 awesoooommmmeeeee. FSX baaaaaaaaadddddddd.

 

"FSX is nothing more than FS9 with better visuals."

 

Still spouting that tired old mantra I see.

 

"The irony is how can you mess up FS2k2 and FS9 code to get FSX."

 

No the irony is how LM can release a patch that make P3D2 OOM using just the sliders in the option screen and you still sing its praises whilst denigrating FSX which could never OOM using just the sliders on the options screen.

 

"The irony is FSX add-ons run much better in P3D than they did in FSX when made fully compatible with the new sim."

 

At which point they are not FSX aircraft any more, but P3D2 aircraft. BTW, how many "native" P3D2 aircraft are there available right now that you are basing this conclusion on?

 

"No one is telling anyone what sim they should use."

 

But you are Dillon by expressing your incredulity that anybody could not believe that P3D2 is "the future®".

 

"FS9 today still eclipses the amount of add-ons available for FSX."

 

No, airliner repaints don't count. Again, still pushing the same very tired old mantras.

 

"You put freeware and payware together FS9 is hard to beat, why trash it?"

 

I'm not trashing your beloved FS9. If it makes you happy then more power to you I say. I tried several times going back to FS9 over the years but just couldn't get over what a massive backwards step it was after using the best FSX has to offer.

 

"The bottom line is I don't want to see the LM suites pull what Steve Ballmer and his ilk pulled and that's drop P3D for lack of support."

 

*Sigh*. Still thinking that P3D2 is meant to be an enthusiast flight sim and LM make their business decisions based on our usage or consumption patterns.

 

"Slamming this sim because you don't feel like upgrading or your making the same case that could currently be made with FSX is not doing anyone a favor."

 

LOL given your years of "slamming" FSX and vehement support for FS9 I'd have to say there's a pretty big logical fallacy right here.

 

"We need new development plain and simple."

 

Indeed we certainly do. We don't need an over seven year old 32bit platform with a DX11 buff. May as well have just called it FS SP3 or follow the example of the FS9ers and start calling it FS10.5

 

"Half of this crap people are stating is untrue the moment they type it because LM is actively trying to fix the issue and posting as such."

 

As I've stated already, you've already got an example of how the very first patch for P3D2 introduced a major issue. How many more times are we going to see this? I'll support P3D2 for the sake of it being a possible way forward but right now I am far from convinced.

As I said... A dripping tap.

If only we can spend as much time flying as we do moanin'

WOW, They where right and haven't all us naysayer been made fools of, on April fools day no less:

http://flyawaysimulation.com/news/4695/

 

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

 

 

As I said... A dripping tap.
If only we can spend as much time flying as we do moanin'

 

Who's moaning? If you don't want to read a discussion then don't visit a forum.

Thanks EngineRoom for that. I do apologise  with my moaning comment. Just so interesting to see how my fellow simmers can get so vocal about so much that has been regurgitated so many times. I am also entitled to have my little rant.

 

In any case, FS9 & FSX...  what did Microsoft actually give us, apart from the flight sim engine? Nothing!!!

 

Thanks to all those payware & freeware developers out there who has given us such fantastic stuff. Lockheed Martin, for their 5th iteration of a sim. yup, there do listen & try give us a decent product & all those who have developed add-ons for it.

 

Now, to Microsoft... thanks for the FS9 & FSX engines that have given those developers vision to inprove the basics.  Flight?? We all know that Flight is/was an arcade flight sim version that did not really fit anywhere.

Quite honestly, MS cannot be trusted in the pc gaming market:  they worship the almighty dollar and ROE.  Not gonna work.

As you say, GAMING. If you want gaming, find a free version of 'Flight' or any other similar.

 

At least, with P3D, we have moved on a bit. Well, for them, it IS purely a business, as it is any other vendor. 

When a product life expires, or if the product has come to the end of it's economic life, delete it & move on. It's a basic business principal. Unfortunately, there are those who have demands & expectation & expect a life-long commitment. 

 

Yes, money rules. Any company will 'worship the almighty dollar' to be successful. No profit, no business any more. I'm sure the guys that do X-Plane feel the same way.

 

As I said.. Any idea how much it takes to produce a new sim?  For such a small section of MS's business? Nay, the cost do not justify it, as we have seen.

& support from all the add-on guys for a totally new sim? At least with P3D, we do have very good compatibilty. Obviously, for the stuff that is not, stick with FSX.

 

Me? I'm still using FS9, 'Golden Wings' (a regressed version of FS9) & P3D.. I tried Flight.. Meh! Thanks to all those add-on vendors, I'm missing nothing.

 

I'll support P3D2 for the sake of it being a possible way forward but right now I am far from convinced.

 

 

 

And with all that it seems your main issue is with 2.1.  Please try the 2.2 patch when it becomes available and let us know how it's working for you.  Any issues you have let LM know as their listening to all of us.

 

A few things to address in your statements above:

 

1. Orbix cut their teeth on FS9 with a project that covered the whole country of Australia, I'll let you find out what it was.

 

2. 'Gamers' was Microsoft's target market and we see how that turned out.  LM being in the arena simmers have requested for years is the legitimizing many of us have been wanting.  I don't know about you but from any private pilot's prospective I would much rather have P3D legitimized like XPlane has been over the years in real world aviation circles versus competing head to head with mindless titles like MineCraft, Ace Combat, or Halo because it's in the 'Game' category.  FS over the years has laid the path for so many new pilots it's influence is immeasurable.  In LM's hands we can push for more realistic features like SID/STAR ATC controlled approaches, traffic routes, aircraft spacing on approach, and a more robust ATC engine in the core platform to name a few.  Wes from LM has said such and willing to incorporate as much as we can into the platform in the coming years.  Aerosoft is working closely with them on more than a few titles/ideas.  There's nothing to shoot at in Flight Simulator which is why it never should have been classed as a game in the first place (at least not in the truest since of the term).  Your term 'meant for the likes of us' is interesting, Aces told us gamers were the target market for FSX.  Which one would really work for us because geared towards real world aviation you don't think would work and geared toward gamers clearly hasn't worked (FS was in an identity crisis at Microsoft)?  I can't figure this one out, you tell me.

 

3.  Wes from LM has already stated that P3D for 64bit is in future plans which is how it has to be because everything has gone 64bit.  Like I said before cleaning up the old FSX code and getting intimate knowledge of where they want to go first (features, possibilities, feedback as to what this community would like to see in the sim) was priority next is moving everything over to 64bit.  If you read their forms and ask questions you wouldn't write half the things your complaining about.

 

4. Repaints aside, I challenge you to prove FSX has more add-ons available than FS9.  When you count all the freeware on Avsim and other sites plus payware it's not even close.

May as well have just called it FS SP3 or follow the example of the FS9ers and start calling it FS10.5

 

 

 

 

That's why it's called P3D v2.  Can't use Flight Simulator as that's already copyrighted.. 

Dillon,

Has it not crossed your mind that folks may be staying with FSX for exactly the same reasons you stayed with FS9 all these years.

Namely that they have FSX running really well with a lot invested in addons and cannot be bothered upgrading their systems at this time for a platform that is still not working well and has almost zero native content.

 

That is exactly what you did through all these years that FSX has been a mature stable platform. and yet you seem to think we are all slightly mad for not rushing to adopt P3D.

 

Please put your hardware specs in your profile then folks can judge if their own rigs will run P3D just as well as you say yours runs it.

 

At this point in time I can state that my system runs FSX in DX10 better than P3D, I really need to upgrade this GTX570 to a GTX 780 and I cannot be bothered and have better things to spend my money on than another Graphics card just to run FSX under DX11 which is what P3D is just now.