Well, I can safely say that turning off the window dressing as much as I could and returning it to "Windows Classic" had zero impact on performance.There was no change what-so-ever.I am not completely surprised by this. I was going to make that prediction but though nah, better to check and be sure. Now I am :).Interestingly, the Futurmark benchmarks all ran without the splash screen error this time, but 03 began to show artifacts in the CPU test section when it ran. I was certain the benchmark was going to crash the vid card, but it recovered.With all the window dressing off, the UI wsa so much less visually "busy" and things were much more clear.CheersShad

Complex, yes. Disappointing, not for me.I will dabble with FX10 on XP. I will wait a few months, or a year and then build my "super-duper, Vista-ready, dual-core, RAID-drived, SLI'd-video, state O D' art computer".Reload FSX and BINGO. A whole new Vista!btPS...sorry, but could just not avoid the pun! :)

...and the reason I need to "upgrade" to Vista is?OK maybe when DX10 games start appearing but until then, I'm sticking with my trusty XP. ;)

I've noticed that Aero glass turns off when you go into fullscreen. For example, when switching from fullscreen to windowed, the windows (and start menu) are momentarily non-glassy until the system catches up (still a beta, you know ;) . I don't know whether or not Aero is still running and eating up memory (and it eats up a lot), but I imagine that it gets turned off as well. E

>I couldn't agree more. Consider also someone, like myself, who>has a somewhat aging, but still very well-performing, WinXP>system (specs below). As it appears there will be no high-end>DX10 video card (or maybe no DX10 video cards at all) for an>AGP slot, I'll need to buy not only FSX and Vista, but also a>motherboard, additional RAM, a new much-higher-wattage power>supply, a DX10 video card, and, possibly, a CPU.>>Combine all that that with the Vista situation and I think>I'll be using FSX with WinXP for quite some time. >>Doug >>P4 3.2E @ 3.680 (1.385 vCore - 230 FSB)>Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (BIOS 1019)>2 x 512MB Corsair TWINX CXM3700 (3-4-4-8)>5 x 300GB WD HDD's>Hercules 9800 Pro (128MB @ 410/360)>A-Open 1648 AAP Ripper>Plextor 708A Writer>Enermax 431W PSU>Inwin CaseAging? heheh, thats not aging... My Laptop runs XP... 333mhz PII with 196mb ram and no 3D. My XP based file server is a 2.4 socket A Athlon with 512 mb pc2100 with an ATI Rage Pro (8mb).Just to clear up some misconceptions a few of you have expressed:DX10 is backward compatible with DX9, 8 and 7. DX9 is backward compatible with DX 8, 7 and 6... It has always been this way. Vista will not change anything in that regard.There is no "emulation layer" as far as DX goes. The "emulation layer" that does exist in Windows is called WOW and is there so x64 (XP or Vista) can make use of 32 bit based programs. Having run x64 for the last six months I can safely say there is almost no performance drop in x64 for games in my rig (that I can detect - the variation is all within the normal range of error). X64 as an OS is much faster and much more stable and secure than its 32bit counterpart.Performance in Vista is likely off mostly due to debugging symbols left in the code (so their reporting tool has useful information to report back to MS), and then of course OS and driver optimizations. Given that some Linux distros are a whole lot more broken only a month or two before release (Linux is every bit as complex as Windows BTW) I am sure the performance will become much better. In fact it is getting better all the time and DX9 based games are within 8% of XP now.Click the two bottom scores in the futuremark section.http://www.ascendant-online.net/en/reviews...ta_beta2-05.php3DMark 06 Pro:WinXP: 3803 - this score is on an overclocked 7800Vista: 3515 - this score is normal clocks... (coolbits seems to not work).This shows that graphics performance is getting very close to the equal of XP. Kernel and system level driver optimizations should take care of the rest, which should allow FS9 to run at least as well as it does in XP.The "need" one may have for Vista will be purely personal in the immediate sense for a normal "user" or gamer. Business will likely be early adopters for security concerns alone.Like Win98SE and XP (Millennium and Win2K do not really count) there will be a year or two gap where one will seem faster than the other, but then everything will change and Vista will be "the tried and true" and we will be talking about whats coming next and repeat this conversation once again :).CheersShad

>I've noticed that Aero glass turns off when you go into>fullscreen. For example, when switching from fullscreen to>windowed, the windows (and start menu) are momentarily>non-glassy until the system catches up (still a beta, you know>;) . >>I don't know whether or not Aero is still running and eating>up memory (and it eats up a lot), but I imagine that it gets>turned off as well. >>E>I would hazzard a guess and say that Vista's shell uses no more resource than does the existing XP shell. Again, there are likely a lot of debugging symbols left in the binaries. If this is the case then the binaries are larger and consumes more memory than they will in final "stripped" form. I would want to confirm this before I will say it is fact though.CheersShad

If memory serves, when I turned off Aero (and just went to windows basic (I don't remember what it's called, I'm at work)), my Performance meter memory gadget dropped about 10%. I didn't test FS then, though.I hear subsequent releases have included significant performance increases, though. Definitely good news.E

Doesn't sound so promising, does it? I'll bet that the key to smooth performance of FSX in Vista will depend heavily on dual-core processing and dual, PC-Express, SLI based GPUs, even if that is not the recommended minimum system specs out of the box. Not an industry insider, so just a guess. http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD

I am curious how you came to that conclusion? ;)Early reports suggest that FSX will run fine on today's equipment. If Vista is any indication of things to come, I am very excited. The more I use it, and as time passes and more is fixed, I can see it is going to be a sweet performer. XP was a slow hog compared to win98 (even 2k). Vista is much better already in that regard.The problem with writing anything like a review, I sometimes forget to say all I wanted or needed to say. One thing that I should have prefaced in the review was I actually expected performance to be off by 25-30 percent, not 5-15. It is already beyond expectations.FS9 runs slow because so much of it is based on DX7. The CPU has to do so much more work because of it. DX9 should allow the CPU to do CPU things and the GPU to do GPU type things. :)If FSX is optimized to run DX9 it should prove smoother than FS9 - on today's equipment.CheersShad

Just a note to some in this thread.Vista does not require a DX10 card to run, FSX will not require Vista to run, FSX likewise will not require DX10.As to the speculation that FSX will require Vista, dual cores and a dual/sli DX10 GPU setup... no, it wont.Not exactly sure what some people are expecting with the changes - sure, the graphic enhancements will be there but we're not moving over to full 3d holographic rendering yet. There have been far more demanding graphic engines (i.e. FPS games) out for a good couple of years or more that are more demanding than FSX.

Shad:Common, man, these conclusions are based on your own words:"...Like the benchmarks above its quite a bit off the mark in frame rate compared to XP. I am floating between 7 and 12fps in Seattle (all sliders maxed).""..with a frame rate of only 15fps in the default Cessna in fair weather, I suspect the normal load of add-ons will bring the poor sim to its knees. This should get better however and I have high hopes for the sim in Vista."That doesn't sound too promising. Mind you, I think it's impossible to run this game with full max sliders if you want a realistic flight experience, especially if AI traffic is involved, or if there is even one scenery or payware aircraft add-on, which most users will desire. So perhaps your evaluation was unrealistically stringent, yet, it doesn't sound good to me all - why should we abandon XP / FS9 for the performance you describe above? So I can see rivets on a helicopter? PASS.http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD

<>Brand new FS version to run on a brand new OS? Pass here to.Regards,Jim

>Shad:>>Common, man, these conclusions are based on your own words:>>"...Like the benchmarks above its quite a bit off the mark in>frame rate compared to XP. I am floating between 7 and 12fps>in Seattle (all sliders maxed)."True enough. I was more wondering why there is an assumption that it will not improve? I fully expect it to. This is beta software afterall (real beta, not FS beta). By the end of the artice, I mention that a lot of things were improving at a rate that was somewhat phenominal.Right now I am more wondering at the crappy state of Nvidia and Creative drivers. I suppose they are not as badly broken as they appear. They probably have a lot of working drivers and apps, but that they are not actually releasing the good drivers at this time (protectionism? Ensure that beta never gets the real drivers so release version will sell? Or perhaps we will see some improvementa when MS takes Vista from beta to RC1)CheersShad

Shad:Other simmer friends I know actually suspect that nVidia "dumbs down" their drivers to optimize frame rates at the expense of graphic quality. Who knows. Well, I look forward to reading what you learn in the near future.Regards,http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD