Given a recent thread discussion I wanted to make a poll to see what we consider as most important, backwards compatibility with addons, or improvment in graphics/performace/accuracy.

I never had the chance to be the first to vote before :-). Great subject for a poll.Doug

Hi Ken,you are missing an entry at the top:"Full improvements, compatibility is unimportant"that is simetrical to the one at the bottom (Full compatibility, improvements are unimportant)This is the one I vote for!

Man, if FS could be brought up to date, to heck with compatibility! We've been in the "stone ages" in this community for a while. when it comes to updates, I think, in part because of this ever-lasting cry for backwards compatibility. Does it suck to lose money on these add-ons? Sure. But think about it: Don't we desperately need a new engine that allows MS to throw in the functionality we all want? Add-ons will catch up again!Daniel P.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpgMember of SJU Photography. [A HREF=http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=9004]Click Here[/A] to view my aircraft photos at JetPhotos.Net!The official psychotic AA painter. :)

Dan,You hit the nail right on the head! Absolutely. . .it's time to move up and graduate this to the next "level." Considering the incredibly POWERFUL dual-core CPUs and graphics cards out there. . .there should be no reason why the next MSFS should not look, sound, and run as good as the big sims!I'm ready to graduate. . .Gary Hawk

Personally,I would like to see MS start again from scratch using all the technology we have today.Like everyone else, I have invested a lot of money on addons to enhanced the experiance but if this brings us a whole new engine with improved performance in graphics and fidelity than all the better.Like the above poster said 'Add-ons will catch up again!".After all,we'll always have FS9.

As long as I can keep flying my RealAir spit :(Although I am a sucker for improvements in graphics and physics engines!James

As someone says above, we can keep FS9 installed to use are current expensive addons and still enjoy a brand new, built from the floor up, sim. That to me would be the best of both worlds.

Over the last three years I've invested a HUGE amount of time and effort into developing AutoAsm. But, nevertheless, I would like to see FS make a big and revolutionary change, even if it made AutoAsm obsolete, as well as many or all add-ons. After spending a lot of time with the Far Cry editor I have become dissatisfied with the FS scenery / environment capabilities. Compared to many advanced game / simulations (I only have direct experience with Far Cry, though) FS looks a bit primitive. Of course, FS has AI aircraft - but then Far Cry and the other games have AI humans that are quite remarkable. I'm quite confident that a future FS could equal or exceed the scenery / environment quality of current games, and still support the other features that make FS unique. Most likely FS10 is at least a year away, so I hope that the FS team put the time to good use - even if it does make AutoAsm obsolete! Best regards, Chris

I have tons of addons. But I've already had tons of fun with them, and still can in the old sim as long as I find it interresting.However, looking at any other 3d games, car racing or whatever, makes one realize how old fationed fs9 really is. Build it up from scratch please MS, it's the flying that interrests me, else I'd swap to another 3d game a long time ago!Reminds me of the Mac OS 9 to OS X upgrade. Sooner or later old technology has to let go, Apple made that step, and I love OS X (although it had some trouble in the beginning, 10.2 and up is fine).

I would be only too happy to sacrifice all of my literally hundreds of add-ons should MS use the latest technology in the next iteration of this sim.The issue for me is moot as I have what is still pretty much a high spec machine to run it. Some others may have a problem trying to wring the most out of their current possibly older rigs.Chris Porter:-outtaPerthWestern Australia

At the moment, those of us using the more advanced payware aircraft simulations essentially use FS as a scenery engine, as so much of the features/functionallity that we like about these aircraft has been custom developed. FS has reached a cross roads in terms of it's future development. Do they switch from the current CPU based engine to a GPU based engine? If the answer to this is YES, then we can also expect to see an X-BOX2 version of FS, in addition to the PC version.Could we see MS moving from Direct X to OpenGL to improve performance? FS should be split into 2 - a sim engine and a scenery engine. The scenery engine should be improved and made to use GPU based technology. The Sim Engine should be made modular, an X-BOX2/basic PC version, an advanced PC version that includes compatability with the current high end addons. There should also be a combat sim engine.

Backwards compatibility should be important ... to an extent. I have purchased several addons recently, and I'd be unhappy if they were incompatible with the next version of FS :(At the very minimum, the following should be compatible:1) FSDS2 and GMAX planes designed for FS2002 and FS20042) Most gauges from the previous two versions3) Basic scenery from FS8 and FS9, that comply with the SDKs

I think we should not get too exicited but what changes are going to happen in FS.I agree the engine should be brought up to standard with the latest games and technology, but Im convinced it wont make much difference.FS is about flying, and it already does that very well. What i would like to see, is phsyics introduced so that you can have your plane land on its belly (gear up) and react like it should.Over brake on landing and you get a lovely trail of smoke as the tyers lock up. Xplane type physics (no I dont think x plane is better) but it does have an edge.All the eye candy is already good if you ask me, but .bmps should be outed in favour of jpegs, shurley rendeing 200K is better than nearly 3.5meg for some textures?However I dont feel like waiting another year just for the PMDG 747 to be redone or patched. I feel all cureent planes or at least those designed for fs2004 should be fully working in the next release. Scenery dosent bother me too much, but then i fell MS should make more of the scenery out of the box.Jason

Basically I have no problem with no backwards compatibility, if the next version of Flightsim is a significant change, say a total engine re-write. That would make compatibility difficult anyway. However if things stay similar to previous versions, we might as well keep our old addons. Remember, if you have an fs2004 addon you really love, you can still run both sims on the same machine. The only real limit is hard disk space. People did this with fs2002 and the original PIC767 and other addons.