FSX-SE FSX Steam — What Is It?

[rrich 0]

I had installed fsx se about a month ago and then went off line. Yesterday turned on online and it started downloading the entire package again. Even thiugh my drive showed that I already have the 10.6g in place. Shut it down wasn't going through that 6hour process again.

[~Craig~ 10]

The excitement was mainly due to it being only $5 (a ridiculous £3.99 in my money) on special offer, and the rumours that it had been compiled using new MS library compilers and a slightly different way of handling the scenery cache, which may lead to better performance.

 

$5 isn't a lot to 'invest' for the promise of the holy grail - better performance in FSX!!! 

 

Anyway, I personally saw improved performance from FSX:SE over MS FSX in some scenerios and with some addons. Others were sceptical but all that really matters is your own experience, not what some other people (many who hadn't even bought it) try to tell you what your experience is   :wink:

 

I ended up using both MS FSX and FSX:SE.   I would use FSX:SE for the addons that performed better in it, but would revert to MS FSX for things like my aircraft that use the Reality XP GNSs, which are not compatible with FSX:SE.

 

I'm on P3D2.5 now so it's all academic but essentially, for $5, FSX:SE was definitely worth the purchase and I definitely saw some usage scenerios where it performed better than MS FSX.

[robert young 2,897]

Guys,

 

Steam is a gaming platform, it has revolutionized computer gaming IMHO.  Unknown developers have been able to get their work "out there" because of Steam.  We wouldn't want the world to only have Walmarts for grocery stores, would we?

 

 

I'm not going to argue whether Steam has revolutionised anything or not, but the idea that unknown developers are given an opportunity that was absent before Steam is not correct. Steam is, for almost all its customers, another digital shop and portal, like many other digital shops. It does have other functions but the vast majority of its revenue is to charge approximately 30% commission on sales, like thousands of other retailers, Odd that you should mention Walmart because if you are implying Walmart is a monopoly then Steam satisfies the criteria for what a monopoly is.

 

Some would argue that Steam does what it does more efficiently than other digital shops. That's debatable. 

 

In the case of niche markets for things like simulator addons, there are hundreds of well established and more specialised digital retailers that have been in existence for years. Most of them operate on a non exclusive basis, meaning they do not restrict developers to exclusive distributon through them. 

 

Trends and habits in digital media purchasing often go in waves, and no doubt Steam is riding high at the moment, and making a fortune. Whether this is a good thing in the long run is also debatable. One only has to look at similarly dominant media distributors like Spotify, Itunes etc, to see that not everything is quite so rosy as it first seems. A healthy system is one that is balanced and gives plenty of choice, not just for the customers but also authors. The growing dominance of one portal over another tends to reach a tipping point where unparalleled success tends to reach a virtual monopoly position and at that point all the perceived advantages start to look not so promising.

 

For many niche developers Steam is in fact a bad choice, even if one happened to gain a market. Steam has mass appeal and that appeal is not always conducive to specialised software that many customers at Steam simply do not have the inclination to be interested in. Flight simulation is a game to some and an educational tool to others. But the worst aspect of Steam is where affiliations are set up by which software is distributed exclusively through two or more layers of middlemen, and in the case of Steam FSX addons, was at one point subject to three separate layers of middlemen all claiming a cut, to the point where it was simply not viable for authors to market anything via Steam.

 

At first the customer will not notice and indeed customers are attracted by things like black friday sales, and respond positively to low prices for core software. What they do not realise is that such low prices have to be subsidised elsewhere and that nearly always means DLC is not quite so cheap. Moreover the price of core software is subsidised not by the customer, but by DLC authors who effectively are given a tiny slice of the revenue for each individual release of DLC material, while the revenue to the Steam affliate seller acts as a compensator for the cheap price of the original core software. Steam, and its affiliates, are generally not at all worried about this, because it is the total revenue stream from DLC that they are interested in and not the individual success of a particular DLC.

 

This last point is most important to understand. If an author cannot make a profit from a year's work, it doesn't matter to Steam or companies like Dovetail, because they are interested in the ACCUMULATED profit from many products or DLC,

 

This system in the long term tends to drive quality down, because authors now cannot afford to spend large amounts of time and effort building quality products. They have to get new products out as quickly as possible in order to claw back revenue at a rate that is often far lower than the combined revenue Steam and its affiliate distributor are making.

 

And that is why so far you have not seen a single release, even old products, from what anyone would describe as a quality developer, except possibly one, and I suspect the author of that release was given an extremely poor deal. So Steam in the case of flight sim addons, can only ever be a repository for products, mainly old ones, which authors feel they cannot sell anywhere else. It is possible that Steam and Dovetail might occasionally release quality addons having made a one-off deal with the authors that is reasonable, or Dovetail might develop in-house addons. That remains to be seen.

 

There's nothing wrong with Steam per se. The problem is where you get multiple layers of other middlemen all trying to cash in on DLC with exclusive distribution deals. The revenue cake can only be sliced up a limited number of times. 

[~Craig~ 10]

^ ^ ^ ^ certainly rings true with my observations - and certainly with regards to the DLC released so far for FSX:SE!

 

• "Around the world in 80 (default) flights", :wink:
• "Dangerous (default) approaches"  :mellow:

 

So far it does seem that STEAM will specialize in low-lead time, lowest-common-denominator addon releases, from the likes of Abacus and First Class Simulations.

[robert young 2,897]

^ ^ ^ ^ certainly rings true with my observations - and certainly with regards to the DLC released so far for FSX:SE!

 

• "Around the world in 80 (default) flights", :wink:
• "Dangerous (default) approaches"  :mellow:

 

So far it does seem that STEAM will specialize in low-lead time, lowest-common-denominator addon releases, from the likes of Abacus and First Class Simulations.

 

Yes, and when you look at the number of reviews for those addons, leaving aside whether they are positive or negative, it is a fair assumption to deduce that roughly 5-10% of customers leave reviews. If that is the case, sales of FSX-SE DLC have been dismal. The authors of those DLC will have earned peanuts, and Dovetail not much more. Steam doesn't care. It is only interested in total revenue from its total output.

[houstonhear 0]

Guys,

 

Steam is a gaming platform, it has revolutionized computer gaming IMHO.  Unknown developers have been able to get their work "out there" because of Steam.  We wouldn't want the world to only have Walmarts for grocery stores, would we?

 

 

  I thought that Steam was the Walmart of the gaming software vendors! 

[gpbarth 12]

SO - so far, I've kicked around the forums trying to find out what I have that will work with FSX SE, and I'm finding out that PMDG has some problems with the 737 NGX and the 777. I also found out that Active Sky Next is trying with a BETA for SE. I still haven't found out about PFPX or TOPCAT or anything from A2A. So I'm still in "research" mode before taking the plunge.

 

What I'm curious about is how do you install something for SE when you already have FSX installed? Looks like PMDG has an installer that will ask which platform you want. But what about the rest? Do you just choose the new path to FSX SE when telling the installer what to do?  Is it as simple as that?  If I do this, both FSX and SE will be present, and I will be installing everything on SE that is currently on FSX.

 

After doing this cursory investigation, it looks like it may be better to uninstall and re-install FSX.  Decisions, decisions...

[jcomm 5,939]

My experience with FSX:SE is mostly positive.

 

I just installed FSX:SE to be able to use it as a visual generator for Aerowinx PSX, but ended up installing almost all of my original add-ons, although I have gone back to just PMDG and Majestic, ORBX FTX Global, AEROSOFT Madeira island and ASN ( yes, ASN is working great with FSX:SE already ). I am also running it in DX10 mode, using Steve's DX10 Fixer.

 

I had no problems installing all of my add-ons, and although yesterday Majestic released yet another patch that among other features solves a few more compatibility issues with FSX:SE truth is I used the Q-400 flawlessly in FSX:SE so far.

 

One major advantage FSX:SE has, specially noticeable for me when flying the most complex aircraft like the PMDG 777 and the Majestic Q400 is smoothness! I'm not very worried with fps, provided they don't come bellow 24 that often, but I have them set at 30 ( 31 in NI ), and even if I can see it drop, specially in cloudy days, the smoothness and stability, even after a 9 hrs flight in the 777, is something that I did not experience in FSX Gold.

 

For me FSX:SE is a good option, from a buyer perspective, and someone who hasn't got that many add-ons...

[Burnspot 5]

I had installed fsx se about a month ago and then went off line. Yesterday turned on online and it started downloading the entire package again. Even thiugh my drive showed that I already have the 10.6g in place. Shut it down wasn't going through that 6hour process again.

If I had to guess based on the "time off" you talk about, I bet it was just downloading an update.

 

To reduce the PITA factor for me, I uninstalled the "legacy" FSX entirely and went FSX:SE all the way. All of my installed A2A planes work fine (Piper, Mustang, Cub, and 172), as does my Orbx scenery (since they've patched the libraries), QW's 146 package, Q400, Ideal Flight 10, FSCaptain, Air Hauler, ASN, Aivlasoft EFB, FSBuild, PMDG 777 (and 737 shortly), Milviz 737, GEX, FSGlobal, and Aerosoft's Twotter all work fine for me.

 

Don't care about the politics of Steam; been a member for 10 years and have a ton of games in my library...I've never had any problems with the service...at all. The overlay is pretty handy on long cross country flights...

[rrich 0]

All of those addons don't mean much if se doesn't recognise the flight controllers, I find the same problem with pr3d

2.5cnts

[robert young 2,897]

  I thought that Steam was the Walmart of the gaming software vendors! 

 

Quite so!

[IanHenry 10]

Hi,

   There's an interesting article in this month's PC Pilot magazine regarding FSX-SE. It says that some of the coding has been changed and that's the reason for the performance upgrade. Also I noticed that the default maximum texture value has been increased. I know on my computer I get double the FPS and the visuals are vastly superior. I'm actually finding that it performs better than Prepar3D

v2.5. 

 

Ian

[Squishy 0]

FSX:SE will probably €5 in the next steam-sale. (just like it was in the last sale).

I suggest you wait for that.

[AWACS 12]

You guys are a tough crowd, but it's all not exactly as you say Rob.

 

Remember that Steam is a community for *PC* gaming, both for developers and gamers.  Yes, it is a publisher as well, and of course publishers exist to make a profit, that much is understood, but it's not all negative.  I am a cynic too, but I think the truth is that it's not as dire as you suggest it might be.  It's because of Steam that startup developers now have a world wide audience to showcase, develop, and test their products.  Developer and gamer interaction is a big part of what makes Steam great. 

 

As I mentioned, Steam is for PC gaming, which has slowly been dying off (if you haven't noticed).  I think of Steam as the catalyst for the revival of PC gaming.  I would further argue that EA is the "Walmart" of the gaming world.  Realize that consoles are big business now, not just big, enormous, gigantic, and any other synonym you can think of.  If people stopped purchasing PC games from EA, would they be hurting at all?  The answer is probably not by the way. 

 

Yes, I understand that Steam has grown and possibly even dominates the PC gaming market, but again, the PC gaming market is of course a very small percentage of the total gaming market, and I sing it's praises, because I have been gaming exclusively on PCs since 1992, and something tells me this is a good thing for PC games.

[houstonhear 0]

Quite so!

Yes, a business model of squeezing suppliers almost to the point of death, then pocketing billions. 

 

Not a bad way to do business in high volume, for both parties.  If you can make 10 cents on a box of tissues that you sell to Walmart, then it is okay IF Walmart sells millions upon millions of boxes of your tissue.  Same is true with Steam, IF you can sell thousands upon thousands of copies of your software.  However, I wonder how many copies of FSX related software will be sold by individual vendors through Steam.

 

Seems to me it all comes down to volume, which appears to be what is what Steam is selling to vendors.  I guess time will tell whether "selling your soul to the devil" is worth it.  In the case of Walmart, it was worth it for some and not worth it for others.  Same is probably true for Steam vendors, maybe.