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.

 

 

Absolutely...  

 

If it's economics and time I perfectly understand but if you read the comments those two reasons are not at play for the vocal critics.  Nothing above spoke of a person wanting to hold out because his investment is so great in FSX and he doesn't have the time currently to upgrade nor the money.  It's more grips in performance areas or not enough features that's touted around.  If you put that same scenario with FSX years ago I would have taken the same position I've taken today.  If Aces was working as hard as LM is to improve the sim I would have given FSX a fare shot.  Aces dropped FSX and basically told us to deal with it (even before they canceled the series).  FSX was geared towards gamers and built for hardware of the future is what we were told.  LM isn't saying that, their saying 'tell us what's wrong and we'll fix it with both the platform and add-on compatibility'.  They've done the best they could to improve ESP's code since they've had control over it.  The communication between LM and this community is on levels we've never seen with Microsoft.  There's no way I would have criticized FSX if these were the same circumstances years ago with Aces.  This community is what made FSX what it is today not Microsoft.  Whether it be Laminar, LM, or Aerosoft, if a company is trying to get it right give them a chance.  

Whether it be Laminar, LM, or Aerosoft, if a company is trying to get it right give them a chance.  

 

You should read the Outerra thread. They are moving ahead with a flight sim demo for kick start. As they have said on their own forums,  flight sim is by far the most requested development they have received. THAT, really IS exciting news... along with word that other "parties" were interested in joining the project. MS perhaps? The new aces team (Cascade Game Foundry)? Our major Devs?

 

 

Chuck Norris!?

 

 

Oh that would be candy. To have a fresh baked sim with the community input along the way.. oh yea.

 

 

I should add, I think a good approach to the "next sim" should be one that is only the basic build, and allow add-ons do all the other stuff. Weather, ATC, Traffic, Nav, etc.

"A Living world" was a good idea for FSX, but that leaves allot of undone, or not done correctly aspects that ended up in the first release. Then you can do your own add ons if they like (which MS never did, and left that money on the table like fools).

I always kind of wished that Paul Allen would invest in a next generation Flight Sim. He has the money and the tech company infrastructure to do it, and also an avid Aviator and Collector of aircraft.

 

Of course he wouldn't do it for big profits but a good chance to employ some very talented programmers, 3D Modellers,Texture Artists and create a new eco-system of future developers and avid aviators. 

 

My wishful thinking 

I have a 3 year old laptop, W7, 64bit, 4GB ram.

I fly FS9 & Golden Wings. I dumped FSX for P3dv1.4. 

 

All flys very smoothly. I cannot go for P3Dv2 as my laptop is only dx10.1 & not dx11.

So there. I have rather gone for P3D, as it is basically a 5th iteration upgrade of FSX (how old is FSX now? And we all know that FSX is the 'Vista' of flight sims.

 

And YES, I am very  happy with P3Dv1.4. It works for me. With all the add-ons I need & want!

 

All flys very smoothly. I cannot go for P3Dv2 as my laptop is only dx10.1 & not dx11.

Can't you get DX11 on any Windows 7 machine?

 

I always kind of wished that Paul Allen would invest in a next generation Flight Sim. He has the money and the tech company infrastructure to do it, and also an avid Aviator and Collector of aircraft.

 

Of course he wouldn't do it for big profits but a good chance to employ some very talented programmers, 3D Modellers,Texture Artists and create a new eco-system of future developers and avid aviators. 

 

My wishful thinking 

Who would be willing? That is the problem. It's not like the ACES team is up for hire.

 

 

Can't you get DX11 on any Windows 7 machine?

 

Windows 7 includes DirectX 11. But a PC requires a DirectX 11 graphics card as well.

 

Not all PCs provide one - my laptop only has DirectX 10.

DX11 is dependant on the graphics card & not the operating system, so, I can have DX11 software loaded, but if my graphics card can only handle DX10.1, it will not work. The card HAS to be a DX11 card for P3Dv2 to work. P3Dv1.4 will run with DX10.1.

 

Paul Allen ...Dunno why his name was brought up here. I'm sure he is not interested in gaming, oops simulators.

 

Paul Allen likes ideas and there is no bigger idea than to figure out a way of understanding the human brain. The American multi-billionaire – often described as the other mogul behind Microsoft alongside Bill Gates – is committed to spending half a billion dollars on scientific research aimed at mapping the brain, which this week produced the first functional atlas of the developing foetal brain.

 

 

You ask 'Who would be willing". Are you not aware that Lockheed Martin is willing? The ACES team is non existant.

DX11 is dependant on the graphics card & not the operating system, so, I can have DX11 software loaded, but if my graphics card can only handle DX10.1, it will not work. The card HAS to be a DX11 card for P3Dv2 to work. P3Dv1.4 will run with DX10.1.

 

DirectX 11 applications can actually run perfectly fine on DirectX 10 hardware, albeit without features like tessellation, compute and multi-threaded rendering. Prepar3D 2.0 for some reason requires a DirectX 11-compliant GPU though.

DirectX 11 offers feature levels that correspond to DirectX 9.1 to 11.0.

 

DirectX 11 doesn't support DirectX 9.0c needed by FSX but FSX itself installs DirectX 9.0c.

 

Also Prepare3d v2.x requires DirectX 9.0c for legacy reasons and also installs as one of its requisites . It's also possible to DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime from Microsoft if it's needed.

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_1

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_2

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_3

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1

 

D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0

Here's what Nick N said recently on SimForums

 

"Dx9 is backwards compatible. All one must do is make sure they have installed the DirectX update after a Windows installation and also make sure they have the video drivers installed correctly..  

 

and last, set up Nvidia inspector correctly

 

 

there is NO DX9/DX10/DX11   its all incorporated"

Here's what Nick N said recently on SimForums...

And here is what Microsoft said in its Windows DirectX Graphics Documentation and extracted from post #84.

 

DirectX 11 does not install DirectX 9.0c and, if needed, the DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime must be installed in addition..

Well I was telling someone over there that FSX needed 9.0c and Nick chimed in with that. I'm not going back there and tell him that! :lol:

Guys,, Hullo.... If you read the requirements of P3Dv2, it tells you that it needs DX11.

DxDiag reports that, on page, 1, System information, DirectX Version: DirectX 11

then on the second page,Display,..Drivers: DDI version 10.1

This is after updates.

 

P3Dv2 loads then crashes with a suitable graphics report.

P3Dv1.4 works like a charm.

So, absolutely nothing to do with DX9.

And here is what Microsoft said in its Windows DirectX Graphics Documentation and extracted from post #84.

 

DirectX 11 does not install DirectX 9.0c and, if needed, the DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime must be installed in addition..

 

You are reading too much into what you quoted.  The latest DirectX libraries, needed by DX11 based software, includes 100% support for DX9 based software.  There is no need to install anything else under normal circumstances, which is was that material was talking to.

Prepar3D also believes the DirectX 9.0c is also needed for v2.x and is part of its prequesites:
 

Quote from Zach Heylmun on December 13, 2013, 09:37
Hey Mr. Karl,
DirectX includes the software for handling the wide variety of input supported by P3D, and while we don't use Dx9 for any rendering, the library is still used for some input and sound functionality. Did you by chance install using the .msi? If so, you unintentionally skipped installing the per-requisites for the program. It is perfectly valid to install the 9.0c run time on a windows 8 computer, otherwise most PC games wouldn't be able to run on W8.

Zach Heylmun
Software Engineer - Prepar3D® Team