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Sirxamoc

Time to take FS9 and others off life support

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I know I am kicking a bees nest with this post, but there comes a time when you have to pull the plug on those things that have outlived their time!  I grant you FS9 has more than lived up to potential and then some even long after Microsoft abandon it.  Flight sims like FS2000 and FS9 and now FSX have had their time but now should be behind us, but what is the reason they are still here?  Money!  Too many of my flight simmers are so heavily invested into FS9 or FSX with sims they bought almost 10 years ago they just cannot look ahead or open their wallets to a new platform.  A lot of the excuses for not moving to a new platform was "not until they have a 64 bit platform."  Well my maties, they have now!  You can choose P3Dv4 or X-Plane, I thought FSX-SE was going to make the leap but they have just decided to stay in the Shire.

So why might you ask is the purpose of this vomitus?  Simply this, we will never get the full attention of software developers until we can give them a viable and profitable reason to take the time to create something. WalMart does not have copies of FSX on shelves anymore for a wanna be fledgling teen to buy, we are a closed society with very few avenues of exposure to new virtual pilots. Software developers need an incentive like money, and when you ask them to create a new plane and they had to choose, they will always go for the plaform that is profitable and uncomplicated, unlike where they have to deal with multi platforms like FS9, FSX, FSX-SE, or P3Dv3. I can tell you now if it was I writing the code it would be for either X-Plane or P3Dv4 today.  I know a lot of FS9 followers would love to have new stuff, but it just not going to happen.

When I down loaded Prepar3D V4 and realized something - Holy Crap! Did I spend a lot of money over the years.  I also came to a conclusion that a lot of those flight sims are not going to be resurrected at least not with a simple update, meaning we will have to open our wallets and spend money on new stuff.  So after reviewing, cursing, and finally acceptance I came to this one conclusion - Adapt!  It was time for to realize that I needed to Restart from fresh, now that does not mean that if my bought and paid for PMDG 737 gets a free update that will work with P3DV4, I won't turn it away!  But as already stated by Captain Sim or Quality Wings the 757 is not getting an update so they are now officially in the virtual bone yard where all old planes go to their final resting place.  So here is what I am doing - first I am buying FSUIPC v5, it is a needed for my hardware, then I am going to wait for those developers to update those planes are deemed worthy to take the next evolution.  TFDI 717 and and few others I am waiting for, as far as weather programs which ever comes out first for P3Dv4 will get my support and the one that drags it feet, too bad!.  What I am not going to do like I have done in the past and always regretted it is try and make work arounds to get a V3 version to work on a V4 platform!  Any new addition from this point forward, if not written for a 64bit platform it is not going to even get a glance from me or a swipe of my bank card.

How many of you go to AVSIM to the freeware area and wish they had the plane you were looking for that worked or was not generic in its capabilities just because of cross platform issues?  My only wish for X-Plane and P3Dv4 is that they make it as easy and uncomplicated as possible the flight sim population to be able to create their own planes and maybe make a few freeware makers into pay ware makers one day.

Except for my wife, there is very few things that I have kept over the years.  I do not still have my Adam or Radio Shack 64, nor do I have my Atari ST.  I do not have the original Flight Simulator that you had to create an airport if the one you wanted was not around. As always there comes a time to say, that was a great (blank), smile and then start playing on your new sim.  Me, before my time has come for me to go to the boneyard, I hope to see a flight sim, that I can sit in my lounge chair, push a button a small notebook size console, and find myself immersed and surrounded by a virtual cockpit that is just as real visually as the real thing.

 

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I am simply too scared to try and calculate how much I have spent on this hobby.


Mario Di Lauro

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Yes it is scary, but you know what if it is your hobby then that is who you are!

 

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Sirxamoc,

You raise a few very relevant issues with this post but.... LOL

I for one remain and will remain on FS2004 for the one simple fact .... it is the ONLY platform where I can utilize my 6 monitors in its present configuration.

XPlane 11 can, I believe, utilize 4 monitors but very hard (I think) to configure. I am still working on it.

 FSX, FSXSE, for me in this configuration crashes gratefully to desktop as soon as I click "Fly Now" and ever since FSX came out, I have never ever been able to fly with more than 3 monitors on either platform.  So, in essence, both these platforms have been write offs with lots and lots of attempted tweaking but NO flights.

P3D. Similar to FSX through v1, v2, v3 and I am still trying to download and unzip v4 Has, I believe potential.

AEFS2. Not yet, I think,  engineered to handle multi monitors.

FSW... enough said...has potential and I am following but still a toy, albeit quite nice looking.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I want to state very categorically, that whilst  I have tried them all I have given up on only one (FSX) and I will continue to tweak and try. The fact remains, though, that having used for years my six monitor concept, I am simply uninterested and uninspired by a single monitor, which I freely admit, I can run all the aforementioned platforms on and they run very well. For me it is just uninteresting.

I am currently looking at a hardware upgrade (see Xeon vs I7 and AMD thread in hardware forum) and with that will look at Trackir and/or VR will probably cost less than all my monitors anyway but... what to do with the old ones LOL

This is of course, just my thoughts and as such are probably unique.  As an old codger it is very hard to change my spots and habits.

 

Anyway regards to all

Tony Chilcott

 

 

 


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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31 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

AEFS2. Not yet, I think,  engineered to handle multi monitors.

:gaul:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=738066887

 


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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HiFlyer,

Wow that looks great.  Not quite the concept I am looking for ie

1 x display for overhead 1080 x 1920 .. 40 inch TV

1 x display for main screen (VC cockpit) 1920 x 1080  ... 60 inch TV

2 x displays for left and right out of cockpit views 1920 x 1080 ... 32 inch TVs

1 x display for FMS/FMC etc 1680 x 1080 .... 22 inch Monitor, and 

1 x display for aft electrical panel  1200 x 1920 24 inch monitor.

I have a triplehead2go available and could configure that for the VC cockpit and two side cockpit views without too much difficulty I believe. However, do you know if the other views are dockable (as in FS2004, FSX etc, 

If you cannot help with this (and believe me, I am extremely grateful for your input thus far) can you possibly point me to where I can glean further information? This could make AEFS2 my main simuation platform

Thanks again,

Tony

 

 

 


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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1 hour ago, himmelhorse said:

HiFlyer,

Wow that looks great.  Not quite the concept I am looking for ie

1 x display for overhead 1080 x 1920 .. 40 inch TV

1 x display for main screen (VC cockpit) 1920 x 1080  ... 60 inch TV

2 x displays for left and right out of cockpit views 1920 x 1080 ... 32 inch TVs

1 x display for FMS/FMC etc 1680 x 1080 .... 22 inch Monitor, and 

1 x display for aft electrical panel  1200 x 1920 24 inch monitor.

I have a triplehead2go available and could configure that for the VC cockpit and two side cockpit views without too much difficulty I believe. However, do you know if the other views are dockable (as in FS2004, FSX etc, 

If you cannot help with this (and believe me, I am extremely grateful for your input thus far) can you possibly point me to where I can glean further information? This could make AEFS2 my main simuation platform

Thanks again,

Tony

 

 

 

Check your PM.


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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There are still one or two very good payware aeroplanes for FS2004 which are not available for any other sim. Granted I don't have FS2004 installed on my PC even though I have some of those good payware add-ons for it, but I can certainly understand why some might want to continue using them..


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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Adaptation to V4 will not take too long , with many Devs taking the free update route its not going to be a particularly heavy investment to replace the existing addons , incentive for the release of new products is easy to understand when one knows that 70 % of the sales are going to P3D v 2, 3 ,4 already.

The remaining 30% is shared between the other 32 bit  " Legacy "  platforms , In fact soon finding products that support 32 bit versions may become the issue bemoaned in this very venue .

With the new toolsets we can finally get past a wall that existed , there was a limit to how complex a model could get before it caused artefacts in sim , we would see parts all over , bones visible and flashing polys scattered hither and yon , it was at that point items would start to vanish from the project until it " Fit " inside a 32 bit model again, Just wait till particle lighting comes online in the aft cabin , with passengers , I doubt anyone will feel nostalgic for long clicking through the 3d operating manual .

Best CJ

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Well, FS2004 just works, & always has. Not everyone wants the latest payware planes, & there are even some that do not have PMDG.

There are also some that do not play the hardware catch up game to get newer sims to run as smooth as FS2004 does.

Lets face it, there is not all that much difference in flight models between the sims, only an abundance of eye-candy!

I'm very much sticking to FS2004 because I really support freeware developers, & I have found nothing out there that will cause me to change, and there is constantly new stuff being released. Also, there is great freeware scenery for my country, South Africa, & it is of a quality that is not available for newer sims. FS2004 is perfect for the 2x sims we have built up as well, using actual controls & seats etc from the real aircraft (Avro Shacleton & a twin seater MB326), using a 'normal' PC, nothing fancy at all.

In FS2004, we also have sloping runways & ramps. Great fun, as the late Garry Smith, of Ford Tri-Motor fame, has said... "Simming is all about Facts, Fiction & Fun!"

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Robin


"Onward & Upward" ...
To the Stars, & Beyond... 

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I was running FS2004 up until the point when the PMDG Boeing 747-400 V2 got released last February, at which point I started running FSX. So far, I've only been running FSX because the only plane I have been flying so far was the Boeing 747-400. If I wanted to fly any other plane, I'd still be running FS2004. I would only consider P3D once I get a new computer (might take a while, as I need money for that, and I'm only running a laptop right now for FS2004 and FSX) and once I am satisfied that most of the issues I have seen pop up have been resolved. Until then, it's FSX for the Boeing 747-400 and FS2004 for everything else.


Captain Kevin

nGsKmfi.jpg

Air Kevin 124 heavy, wind calm, runway 4 left, cleared for take-off.

Live streams of my flights here.

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I've been with FSX since '09 and will continue with it for a while longer before I try P3D.

My only issue going to P3D is that I'll need to build another new rig which is what I did for FSX back in 2012/2013. 

Frankly I don't mind paying for some addons which will have to be repurchased, but fortunately a lot of my Scenery addons have free P3D upgrades.

Besides the computer upgrade my only other reason for not jumping ship is the time it takes to set up a new OS, drivers, P3D and install the whole works. That and the time it takes really turns me off. Since '09 I've only installed and setup FSX twice and hate the routine each time, especially when you have lots of addon scenery and AI setup. The last FSX install with all my addons and setup duties took me almost 3 weeks to complete doing a little every night after work.

Since FSX works fine and I don't suffer OOM or FPS issues I'll probably stay for another year or so while I save my energy for the next move to P3D.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Oh the great debate.

I guess one question is, who is being harmed and what is the harm being done if people choose to stay with the simulator of their choice? Nobody has empirically ever answered that question.

Most people who choose to remain with "legacy" platforms are the ones who enjoy it as it does what they want it to do. I have FS9, I use it exclusively, and It meets my current needs. 

Another reason is pure economics. See, I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I have two teenagers and a wife who must travel every chance she gets. So, for me to drop a couple of grand on a new machine doesn't even fit into my budget at this moment. So, pragmatically, I choose to stay with the old simulator. By switching now, the only harm I do is to my family and possibly moving into an early grave or a apartment for recently divorced guys. I don't think I am harming the community by staying with FS9.

Several developers have completely dropped further FS9 offerings. 

I don't see the harm in staying until I'm ready to move on. Heck, 9/10 doctors will say don't make any changes to your lifestyle until you're ready.

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Don't blame for my name, my parents were hippies and met in Woodstock

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