Progress seems to be slowing for FSX

[paulyg123 135]

It seems like 3rd party add ons for FSX has grinded to a crawl.  Nothing really new for FlyTampa, Level D's last update was Dec 2010, the 787 from QualityWings is crawling along.  And where's the new 747 from PMDG?  Maybe I'll take a long leave here and check back with everyone in 4 years and see if there are any goodies out there to buy.

 

[NEXTGENERIC 1]

FSX is almost ten years old (next year in October). I can't say I'm terribly surprised that development for FSX products are slowing down. They should continue to. Prepar3d is a vast improvement over FSX, in my opinion (I don't own it, but I will when I build my next computer).

 

While FSX has served many of us well, I think that personally, it's time to put it to bed. It's old, inefficient, buggy code.

 

 

 

And where's the new 747 from PMDG?

 

The team is working on it right now. They posted some screenshots recently, it's looking very nice. I come along and check for updates maybe once per month. 

 

Some other projects that are coming out for FSX/P3D are the FSLabs A320, Aerosoft A330, and QualityWings 787 - so development is not totally dead (yet)!

[kevinh 409]

Just because FSX is nearly 10 years old is no reason to stop developing for it as a significant user base still exists. For the most part FSX developers have to find spare time to fit development in around their day jobs. As the quality of addons increases so will the time taken to create them.

 

Addons like the QW 787 will take time because a 787 is a very complex aircraft to model even to the usual QW level of detail, and QW appear to have pitched their level even higher on this one. LevelD were probably never serious about the 757 anyway.

 

To say FSX development is slowing down is to ignore the evidence. Aerosoft are regularly turning out new and updated products. A2A have released several GA sims in recent times. Alabeo, Carenado and Just Flight also regularly release addons.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Holy Smokes!

 

I'll have to respectfully disagree about FSX.

 

I'm currently working 3 new commercial aircraft development projects, each one is an Intermediate Level aircraft for FSX, and our team has had to turn down several more very interesting projects. Alos, REX has some exciting projects in the works for FSX as well.

 

FSX:SE (Steam) truly a good step forward from the disk version and helps developers write and debug software where it wasn't easy or in some cases possible with the disk version.

 

I believe FSX has solid future, is very stable and is already owned by a lot of people. Development will continue at a good pace for quite a while.

 

Best wishes.

[joolsd 10]

Just when everyone thought FSX was dead. and everyone was resigned to switching to P3d.  Then the new steam version of FSX comes out. Typical!

 

Flight sim is a very annoying and frustrating hobby.

 

I am still evauating P3D v3....It's ok........ But i would imagine a lot of bug fixing has been going on with this new version of FSX?

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

I also disagree. Seems that there is a ton of new stuff coming out for FSX, especially in the scenery dept. Many well know developers have a lot of sceneries in the pipeline and ORBX is continuing to pump out sceneries all the time. As long as developers continue to develop for FSX and P3D in parallel, we should see a lot more in the next few years.

 

 

Sean Campbell

[IUBrian 151]

Completely disagree - it seems to me that if anything, development has picked up; based upon my observations every new development project for P3D is developed for FSX, or perhaps conversely, they're developed for both platforms concurrently. And scenery? Whereas before there seemed to be a handful of developers capable of making high quality airports, the number seems to have quadrupled in the past couple of years, and the regions covered have likewise expanded, not to mention more general scenery add-ons. P3D may be driving it, to some extent, but it's not the entire explanation. The past year seems to have exploded .

 

As to aircraft development, it may have slowed, but I believe that's more a consequence of the demand for high quality aircraft with incredible fidelity that require more time to develop. If the acceptable standard was pretty but simplistic aircraft models you'd probably see more.

[fs4fun 366]

 

FSX:SE (Steam) truly a good step forward from the disk version and helps developers write and debug software where it wasn't easy or in some cases possible with the disk version.

 

I don't have FSX:SE, but this makes me curious: How does FSX:SE help developers in this way?

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I don't have FSX:SE, but this makes me curious: How does FSX:SE help developers in this way?

 

One of a few examples is that Dovetail updated/added newer libraries which allow developers (coders) to properly debug their software.  Often times a debug program will crash when debugging the disk version.

[fs4fun 366]

One of a few examples is that Dovetail updated/added newer libraries which allow developers (coders) to properly debug their software.  Often times a debug program will crash when debugging the disk version.

 

I see, thank you that's good to know.

[Hirdy2013 104]

To the OP.  Not sure what you've been smoking but there's been a ton of FSX releases this year with more to come.

 

All developers are delivering the same releases for P3D, FSX and FSX Steam edition.

 

Not sure you did enough research before posting this topic.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I see, thank you that's good to know.

 

Most welcome.

[CaptCraig 226]

And to Generic, when was "recently" that you saw these 747 screenies?  Just curious.  

[por930 51]

I wondered if the "perceived slowing" was because the development pool of programmers has been split into several areas. Some developers may have crossed between platforms, or new developers entered, who previously had no interest in FSX due to its 32 bit fixed code rules ancestry:

 

2004, maybe now pretty well stopped.

FSX, still plenty going on as I think still the base platform.

FSX-SE, Looks like pretty close to original code, but moving on and bringing in a new group of users.  

P3D, Looks very exciting here with many changes to the original FSX code, and maybe the new yard-stick in the future. 

XPLANE, Seems to be getting more traction as more developers build a/c and sceneries.

 

Several years ago I wondered why the 2004 users did not simply accept their platform was 'over', and move on to FSX. I am in the FSX pool with lots of add-ons and FSX aircraft. I now see my self in the same predicament with FSX and probably P3D.

Maybe P3D has a great future compared with FSX, but, hopefully, developers will still continue to produce FSX software due to it providing both FSX and FSX-SE markets. We FSX people just need to be more mindful of VAS issue remedies and hopefully, some one will give us a plus 4 GB memory usage one day.   

[kevinh 409]

I wondered if the "perceived slowing" was because the development pool of programmers has been split into several areas. Some developers may have crossed between platforms, or new developers entered, who previously had no interest in FSX due to its 32 bit fixed code rules ancestry:

 

2004, maybe now pretty well stopped.

FSX, still plenty going on as I think still the base platform.

FSX-SE, Looks like pretty close to original code, but moving on and bringing in a new group of users.  

P3D, Looks very exciting here with many changes to the original FSX code, and maybe the new yard-stick in the future. 

XPLANE, Seems to be getting more traction as more developers build a/c and sceneries.

 

Several years ago I wondered why the 2004 users did not simply accept their platform was 'over', and move on to FSX. I am in the FSX pool with lots of add-ons and FSX aircraft. I now see my self in the same predicament with FSX and probably P3D.

Maybe P3D has a great future compared with FSX, but, hopefully, developers will still continue to produce FSX software due to it providing both FSX and FSX-SE markets. We FSX people just need to be more mindful of VAS issue remedies and hopefully, some one will give us a plus 4 GB memory usage one day.   

FSX-SE has significant code changes relating to bug fixes, and P3D still retains some of the original ESP/FSX bugs and limitations. I don't see P3D as that exciting as it is specifically prevented from addressing the hobby market and so cannot respond to its demands. Also you have to wrestle with your conscience over licencing. Unless you are a professional pilot or a student pilot of course.

 

FSX may be a ten year old platform but the ingenuity of developers like PMDG, A2A, Majestic, ORBX and HiFi Technology keeps it moving forward.