>OT but I tried Track IR myself and returned it, found it very>uncomfortable to use. It seems I'm one of a very few who don't>like it though, and they do have a 30 day return policy (you>can't return the Vector expansion software though so don't use>it if you are just trying it out). You know I gotta agree with you on this one. IF you do not move around alot or slouch like me in my chair then it's ok but once you move around your "centering" of the view becomes messed up bad.[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]AMD 64 4000+|ASUS K8V DELUXE|SAPPHIRE ATI X800XT PE|MUNCHKIN 3200|80 gig SATA|DELL 1905FP 19" LCD|TRACKir PRO|PFC JEPPESEN MOONEY YOKE|CH PRO PEDALS|

I've been using the TrackIR for over a year now and couldn't fly without it. In fact, for some reason the 2 left IR beams just went out... they don't light up anymore ( well, they do blink on from time to time, most than likely a short in the wire or something ) and this week I'm sending the unit back for a full replacement. The service over there at NaturalPoint is top-notch as well.Anyhow, back to what I was saying.. some people can use it, some cannot. For me, for the first few days it was VERY awkward -- especially when flying helicopters. After using it some more, I got more and more used to it. Now it's second nature. I dunno if I'm gonna do any flights this week because I can't use it! :-hang ... yeah yeah I know I know... poor me :-violin right? :(Thanks for the comments on the movies.Dave, to answer your question, yes I'll be making more :) In January, when I get my next bonus, I'm gonna buy a Digital Camcorder ( a good one, will have around $1000 USD to spend ). Always wanted one, just never could justify it, but my kids are 7 & 12 in January and our old VHS camcorder bit it... so may as well grow with the times. This allows me to pipe S-Video out to the camcorder and record movies that will look MUCH smoother, instead of using FRAPS that eats framerates when you're already pushing 20-25 due to high complex addon planes/scenery and such.Anyhow... that's that! :)

>That TrackIR is really amazing, those vids show it off really>well. Gotta get me one of those... ;)'Active Camera' has always been a cheaper comparison and it does much more.I wouldn't fly without it now, it gives flying in the 'VC' a new dimension.Dave T. .........On the Devon Riviera and active 'FlightSim User's Group' member at http://www.flightsimgrpuk.free-online.co.uk/

I have indeed heard Lou be honest about developers, when he feels the need, he's just not nasty about how he does it.

I have an impression (being in game developemnt business for over 10 years now, both as an artist and producer, not in flight sim tho) that the whole payware market around FS9 is a bit ridiculous. Why? First of all, prices. I know that probably sales are very low due to very narrow market (so prices must be high to generate renevue), but come on, charging $50 for a product which is nowhere near the complexity of regular PC game is a bit non-sense (please note I am not talking about any paritcular developer, just my general impression). Even if the plane modelled is very complex, it's still fairly easy job to do comparing to developing average FPS or RPG game. You don't deal with ai, you don't deal with graphics engine, there is only one or two 3D models to make, all systems operate by logic and flow charts.Second, no offense, but I think there is a lot of semi-amateurs doing it. For example, for professional modeller in game business it would take around 10 relaxed days to model even the most complex plane out there down to every detail, maybe 2 weeks if he would be really slow and do every little animated part. It's mechanical thing and there are blueprints avaliable, so it's not a big deal. Jobs like that are given to beginners in game industry.I have seen a ton of bad texture mappings (stretched and misaligned), tiny textures used in places where thy should be big and the other way around, non optimized geometry with messed up normals etc. In this price range I'd expect professional QA and no obvious bugs at all.Another thing. If an addon slows the original game to the crawl on recommended system ("tewaked" or not), it's a bug. In normal game development it's marked as high priority/fatal bug, and chances are slim that such game will be released (of course not every regular PC developer or rather publisher is so fair). Regular games are tested on many configurations to make sure they keep good frame rates.One more, lots of released addons are simply incompatibile with FS9. For example if you cannot save a plane in flight then restore it properly, it's incompatibility and should never happen. It's up to us if we agree with such hacks or not, but again at current "payware" price tags it should not be user problem, but developer problem.I really appreciate what some of the devs out here do and understand that sales are probably so low that they judge high prices, but I am afraid that FS10 era (if it ever happen) will bring us rather strict licensing and QA restrictions from MS when it comes to addons.

Rayed I hate to say this but you're shooting yourself in the foot coming in here telling us your an artist and producer in the game industry. First and foremost you don't knock other developers because everyone in the business knows how hard development can be especially for those starting out. Every developer knows that building add-ons for any particular platform can be challenging to say the least. Whether it be WindowsXP, the Falcon4 franchise, and/or the various role playing games out there like Ultima Online. Rayed you can't come in here saying your in the gaming industry with the comments you've made above. You come off as a general user 'trolling' around. Even with the 'SDK's' Microsoft has provided they still could tell us more about the inner workings of Flight Simulator. People are doing the best they can and actually doing a remarkable job in this hobby

Thanks for replying to this, Les. Saves me the trouble have having to. It's amazing how ignorant some people are when it comes to payware revenue models. However, I would like to see one of the major developers take a chance and release a high-end addon for a fraction of what they would normally charge. Say, an addon that would normally cost $40 for $15. I wonder if there would be enough of an increase in sales to justify this low of a price. I know that I've held off on purchases of payware because I felt the price was to high. And these have been for addons that are very respected. I'm not saying that the people who buy these are wrong, or that the developers themselves are wrong for charging those prices, but if prices continue to climb as they have been, demand will fall, and they will be forced to charge even more, eliminating even MORE potential buyers.

It us, the CONSUMER that are setting the price, not the developer.If there ever was a luxury item, addon planes are it and we have shown we are willing to pay good money for a quality product.What Im worried about that now all developers feel they can get away with charging 40-50$ for anything they sling out the door.Also more and more programs which either were or should be freeware are being sold. I mean a program that makes the sky a little brighter. Another makes AI planes a little louder. Look the cargo dissapears when I press a button. CA CHING$$$$$Still cheaper than my trophy wife and does not get headaches.

I am sorry if I offended anyone by my post as it wasn't my intention. I understand why prices are high (in 30-50 range), I doubt these addons realiably sell in ten of thousdands, but still need considerable amount of money to develop, research being probably the most expensive.No disrespect to anyone here, there are a few outstanding developers who make great stuff which I happily buy (and it is pretty obivous who they are ;) )I also understand that probably there is not even half million dollar budget FS addon and half million dollar budget is pretty normal for a PC game.I didn't know that the companies developing for FS werent't employing their people full time and they work after hours - thanks for claryfing it. Looks like I kinda compared apples to oranges which I apologize for.Frankly, I should never post that and keep my opinions to myself, even if they didn't change at all :) The whole point of my post was that at this price tags we should expect much higher level of QA at the end of developer.P.S. I work 10/6 usually and have kid :).

>I agree 100% here, everyone is entitled to their opinion.>But there is no way you will get fluent gauges if you already>have more than 1 vc entries in the panel.cfg>If you don't understand what i am talking about just ask, and>i will explain.Speaking as a professional developer of both models and gauges, that is absolute poppycock. While it is true that under some, specific circumstances, a single VCockpit entry does indeed work best, it is by no means universally true.There are plethora factors that all contribute to VC clarity, refresh rate, and smoothness. Using a single VC entry is not a panacea for every instance.

I know Bill that you have enquire a couple times about this, but let me reassure you that with FS9, the less VC sections, the more often the sections will be updated. This is normal and intentional by design in FS9: each VC section is composited from the bitmaps and the gauges, and then sent to the video card as a texture. If there are two sections, they get sent to the video card one after the other, not one and the other, in a round robin fashion. In turn, if you have 4 VC sections, section 4 will be sent to the video card as a texture only after sections 1,2 and 3 are sent. In turn, section 4 is refreshed 4 times less often than if all 1,2,3,4 sections were assemble in a single larger section!The issue is that with a larger section, bus bandwidth contention is higher too, and this is most likely why the FS team decided to do this round robin fashion in the first place. However, since the release of FS2004, video cards, CPU and motherboards/RAM can sustain higher video card bandwidth and no longer suffer as much from being sent a large texture 18 times a second.The single VC section is universally true, and is a concern of VC gauges refresh rate only. Other considerations like clarity is another topic.Hope this helps!

Level D has three and is still smooth as butter.

>Level D has three and is still smooth as butter.I dunno about butter... I can only give that title to Real Air Simulations on their Spitfire and SF.260. Level-D's are really, really good, but not in the same league as RAS.Not to say I don't love to fly my Level-D, just stating that the only ones I'd say are smooth as butter are RAS :(True fluid-like movement.

hmm just went to the wilco page and it says "Pay attention that Download Center allows 3 downloads per livery file."does that mean that if you have the -300 series i can only get 3 paints...or only three times the same paint..if so i find that a little..well..lets just say i'll wait for the talented painters to put the liveries in the liberary..My opinion is Feelthere did a nice job developing with Wilco just well making it all a mess..again this is MY opinionAVGAS

No, the information is wrong. The livery download is currently bugged. It points you to a link to download the product with the house livery (which is protected by the 3 time download limit).You will be able to download all liveries.