"That person never said, check out the bad history of this company, buy PMDG instead!"That may fly elsewhere, but not here--not when you've had to axe as many Ariane threads as I have. It's always the preamble and opening into a slugfest vs. Ariane's products and quite often, those that buy them. I still call 'em as I see 'em. Many members have bashed Ariane with the push to buy something else instead. If you can point out an example where you rose to the defense of Ariane, I owe you an apology. -John

>Come one people, why do some of you stick in the past?>let's talk about how the company's today and the products they>make today.>MathijsThat's exactly what I did in my extensive review of the Ariane Business Jet - search under my posting handle. ricardo

>So what do you guys say about the screenshots, They look fine, but not better than anything coming **today** from other vendors. I stopped getting excited by seeing a rivet on a wing long time ago, for me it is all about cockpit, how well it is done and, how systems are replicated and how smooth instruments are, everything else is peripheral. And I would never get a sim product these days from someone who doesn't offer a support forum - but this is my own personal call.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Mathijs,Please check your private messages.-John

>Well I had a run in once with them but they bent over>backwards to help me sort the problem out in the end. I for>one will defo get the 737 800 when its out. I also own the>PMDG 737 and to be honest I think they compliment each other. >Just my two cents worth, im just taking them as I find them,>like I say they helped me, dont get me wrong everyone's>entitled to an opinion but why not take them as you personally>find them.>>All the best>>RichardHi Richard,I agree 100%. I will also get the B738 immediately when it is released. (even if I am a McDonnel Douglas guy) :-lol I already have almost all their titles, mainly because they have the most accurate visual model IMO. Infact, it is thanks to Ariane and David Maltby (Bac 1-11) that I have learned to like to fly with VC. I have always received excellent support when needed, and I have no complains what so ever. ;-)http://www.scandicair.com/images/sa_banner.gifMy specs are:Dell Dimension 4600 P4/2.8 at 3.0 Ghz1024 Mb DDR333 Dual channel memory (2x256,1x512)256 Mb ATI Radeon X850 Pro ViVoCatalyst 5.9ATITool V0.24DirectX 9.0cW XP Home with SP1E171FPb Flat panel monitor 17"240Gb (2x120) 7200rpm HDLacie 250Gb Extern HD

I have no axe to grind. I also have no reason to defend ariane. I just laugh at these posts that always come a few weeks apart either asking about this new araine company theyve never heard of, or how great ariane is compared to ________. Almost always by new users. And these new users either run away once people respond, or they continue with the _______ bashing and defending a company with insulting bussiness practices and outrageous prices. Perfect Flight use to be the same way, people would ask about this new product from PF every few weeks. Its called good PR. the better PR you have, the more lengths you are going to hide your actual product

And apparently Staffan DOES NOT work for Ariane ;)

Good to hear some of you are enthousiastic about the product.The cockpit qualaty of their 600 and BBJ are great (I posted some shots of this on this forum too)This is the last time I say thisl I have flown the PMDG a few times too but I really missed the 737 feeling, some neccesary systems are missing and most of the cockpit is out of scale.Before I found the Ariane I had a lot of fun with the PMDG, on their site they say that they are working on a forum, I agree this is something what I always like too.Best wishes,Mathijs

>The cockpit qualaty of their 600 and BBJ are great >>MathijsI should know better than to respond to this, but, alas, can't help myself....In regards to the quality of the bbj's cockpit: I consider this one of the myths that Ariane propagates. In fact, the cockpit quality of the bbj is one of the plane's LOW points: all you need to do is to compare the quality of the virtual cockpit on the BBJ to the LDS and the PMDG planes. In contrast to the other too, the BBJ virtual cockpit appears low-rez. The major problem isn't even the low bitmap quality of the panels (just compare the overhead panel in the Ariane BBj to the ones in the LDS and PMDG, or, more recently, PIC 737); no, the main problem is a) the atrocious 1 frame/second refresh rate on both the pfd and the mfd. and :( the slapdash and haphazard way the gauges were integrated into the panel - just zoom in close and you will notice that the gauge bitmaps don't quite "fit" into their respective bezels, creating the impression of artificiality and generally sloppy design. This latter problem is further exacerbated in what Ariane claims as a "revolution" in panel design, namely it's 2di concept - basically a crappy 2 d panel. In the 2di panel the bitmaps move completely out of the bezels, again indicating design incompetence. And, also of course unwillingness on the part of Ariane to fix these problems. Ariane claims that the bitmap problem in the 2di panel only appears when the simulator is run in fullscreen mode and recommends a windowed mode - sure, great idea. NOT!I'm not even going to mention the broken autothrottle system (at doesn't disconnect upon touchdown, rather ,the plane goes into toga mode and takes off again). I spent a hundred dollars on this plane, but what I got falls dramatically short of what other payware designers have to offer. ricardo

Hi Ricardo,I don't have the problems you have, When I take a look in the virtual cockpit of the PMDG it doesn't look quite nice which the Ariane does.I'll post some shots of both later this day, OK?But teh BBJ cockpit is different than the usual 737 cockpit, the whole aircraft is actually different but it looks pretty close.If I was you I should contact their support about your products, the reson I have two of the their aircraft and will soon get their 800 is because it's so close to the real thing.Regards,Mathijs

Hello everyone, In regards to the Ariane BBJ.....I have the 600vce and the gauge refresh is so slow, I cannot fly ifr at all. Is the newer models improved in that area? This is the only reason it sits in my hanger. Thanks for any input. I would get the new models if this was fixed without FPS hits.

My FPS are great, gauagses refresh is very good if you ask me.If you compare the size of the files of others ariane's are much smaller this helps te FPS also a lot.

Wow...!!! Ariane have just published pictures of their all new Boieng 800 Ng. This one is going to be a stunner from these shots - from what I can gather, its going to be all new model and design for the first time (I looked on the site and they have never made the 800 VC version) really looking forward to this one ...Fot he screenshots please look here: http://www.ifcnederland.com/Ariane/Exclusi...oeing%20737.htmBest wishes,Mathijs

"If you compare the size of the files of others ariane's are much smaller this helps te FPS also a lot."I do want to respond to this as it brought one very negative comment which I have removed, but I think there was some truth in what the author said. File size alone isn't the sole measure of performance. For instance, I can write code that will fit into 1K, that will slow any system to a crawl. And I am by no means a "master" programmer. People asking about refresh rates for any complex panel--that's an important question. For that I encourage members to use the search features in the forum, and use the PM system to message real users on the subject. You may have a member tell you vendor x has a bad refresh rate--but are they saying that based on owning the product or based on anecdotal reports? -John

Im not talking about code taking up large file sizes, im talking about code for high res bitmaps and gauges that take up large file sizes. Many companies have made it work in the past. The larger the file size, the higher the quality image