Is this limited to the US only? I wonder what the chances of non-US participants are?Cheers,Chris Porter:-outtaPerthWestern Australia

It's going to take me about 3.5 hours with 10mbit - really not that long.I still hope it will be available other places that there...

What the heck is your problem? I'm already a subscriber, so I'm just partaking in a perk that being a subscriber allows. Also, I want to help find bugs and hammer them out so as to make the sim run as smooth as possible when it is released. Let people do what they want with this, go worry about something else. You don't have to participate. Maybe some of us want to help bettter the simulator instead of sitting here moaning and whining until release.

>Is this limited to the US only? I wonder what the chances of>non-US participants are?>>Cheers,>>Chris Porter>:-outta>>Perth>Western Australia>I would have thought the selection will be worldwide.

>Man, if this isn't a PRIME EXAMPLE of our modern>gotta-have-it-now mentality!>>>>>Let me get this straight:>>1. You are all going to pay good money to get merely a chance>to download a 12 GIG file. >>2. Now of course you will need broadband and despite that, the>download will tie up your computer for many, many, hours. Has>anyone calculated just how long this download will take? >>3. Oh, and on top of that, if you succeed, you will have>downloaded a program which the publisher freely admits is>buggy (it IS beta, after all).>>And all for what?>>Just so you can get a few WEEKS jump on those of us who wait>for the official release?>>>>>I think you all have bumped your heads one too may times on>the overhead panel!!!>>-Rick>> You missed the point and it is this, if you ALREADY a File Planet registered paying member you have a CHANCE to be picked to be a part of final beta input on FSX. No one is selling the beta for us to use, this was posted for those who might want a chance to use the product here and the File Planet membership is the first step. If you do not want to try your luck then wait like the rest but knocking File Planet and MS is way out of line since no one is twisting any arms. ...............Randy J. Smith................CAUTION! My views represent no one but my own. While I do help companies test products - this in no way means I represent them in ANY fashion.[h4]Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations[/h4]

There's a few things that I thought I should point out to the reactionists around here.I've been in a bunch of these fileplanet betas. Every single time this thing comes up. "How dare the developer force me to pay for a beta test!"The answer is always the same. In the case of the recent Company of Heroes beta, there was a lot of speculation that Relic was getting a cut of the profits. Company representatives came on their boards to verify that they don't get a dime for using Fileplanet's beta service, and suggested that it was quite the other way around.The benefits of using FP:- Already a subscriber base- Easy to track applicants, signups, etc.- Hosting for files and multiplayer servers- Established in the industry for their large scale beta testsBut even early in the morning, something occurs to my coffeeless brain that hasn't been mentioned here. Flight Simulator X, if I recall correctly, will be using Gamespy for multiplayer. Gamespy, which, along with the merged IGN network, runs Fileplanet. Why would they go anywhere else to test their multiplayer component? If you license a technology and the owners of that technology have an established and easily tracked beta system, why would you go some other way? Now, I don't like the idea of having to pay for betas, but I have a fileplanet subscription for one reason: faster downloads, better access, no waiting in line. I understand that FP lures more people into buying subscriptions with these betas, but it would be foolish to buy an account just for the chance of that.Either way, that is a fileplanet process. There is already an established subscriber base for the company that MS is using for a multiplayer matching service, so why wouldn't they use it?

Sorry double post

>As far as I know it is the full thing--12GB worth.I sure hope your wrong about that. For 3 reasons1) Last I checked I'm only allowed 10Gig of downloads a month and that's on the 2nd costliest plan available to me here in Aus ($70 a month). Mind you I think we get pretty bad deals internet wise here in Aus compared to the rest of the world. 2) Much to my frustration File planet took 12 hours to down load the 1.6 Gig "company of heroes" demo despite me being a paid subscriber My cable provider can easily download at 1Mbit/sec but fileplanet was downloading at 50K to 10K. So a 12 Gig FSX demo will take around 144 hrs straight to download i.e. 6 continuous full days of downloading (irrespective of what your connection is; the bottleneck is fileplanet which from my experience doesn't do much more than 100k at the best of times even for subscribers). Seems the only real advantage of being a subscriber at fileplanet is the no waiting time - the download speed is no faster from my experience.3) After waiting 12hrs to download 1.6 Gig "company of heroes" from fileplanet the file turned out to be corrupted and I will have to download again (tried three zip file repairers but none could recover all of it). If that's the error rate with a 1.6 Gig file I don't like the chances of downloading a 12Gig file error free.Bottom line is if MS tries serving us a 12Gig file via file planet they won't get much feed back because not many people will have it working before the full version comes out. I'm willing to bet thought that the file planet people are saner than to try serving out a 12Gig demo file, at least I'm hoping.Don't get me wrong I can't wait for the 12Gig version but it ain't much use to us if we can't play it. Really 12 Gig is best left for the DVDs.

>1) Last I checked I'm only allowed 10Gig of downloads a month>and that's on the 2nd costliest plan available to me here in>Aus ($70 a month). Mind you I think we get pretty bad deals>internet wise here in Aus compared to the rest of the world. >Does your provider allow once in a while downloads exceeding 10GB?>I'm willing to bet thought that the file planet people are>saner than to try serving out a 12Gig demo file, at least I'm>hoping.>It's not a demo it's a full (AFAIK) beta.

It would make sense to make the beta as widely available as possible (ie all subscribers who register an interest). That would allow a vast range of systems and set ups to be tested and enable a large number of people to report any bugs they may find.

>Does your provider allow once in a while downloads exceeding>10GB?Actually my provider (Optus in Australia) will allow me to exceed 10GB as much as I want, just that once I hit 10GB the maximum speed is ramped down from around 1000Kb/s to 56Kb/s for the rest of the month. However considering that file planet only seems to serve (big files) at about 50K it probably won't impact the download time of the FSX beta any i.e. it will take a week in any case. (Though having the rest of my net surfing lmited to 56K won't be fun, I'll probably do it anyway).>It's not a demo it's a full (AFAIK) beta.It would be great to have a full beta rather than just a demo, as long as we can dowmload it that is. Given the error rate and speed of file planet's file server I don't like the chances of any of us getting the beta working in less than a couple of weeks if they do serve the full 12Gig (even those with fast connections and >10Gig download limits, unless fileplanet do something to get their servers working properly that is). Congratulations to microsoft for trying to give us a beta, good on them for that. Just hope they do it in a way so that we can actually get our hands on it.

Given the impracticality of serving up a 12Gig beta over the internet (at least via fileplanet) perhaps microsoft could break the beta up into 12 seperate 1 Gig betas each with a different part of the world. That way the full world could be tested but with many more people having access to the beta (otherwise you'll probably be able to count on one hand the number of people who get the beta if they go with one 12Gig version). The main problem is fileplanets download manager is highly unlikely (from my experience) to deliver a full 12Gig error free (you'd think it would have error checking and error correcting going on but no it doesn't seem to). It only takes 1 binary bit out of all those 12 billion bytes (i.e. 96 billion binary bits) to be corrupted and the whole thing can be stuffed. If they do try serving the full 12Gig I hope they at least don't try to zip it. That way if an error does occur there is at least some chance its in a texture file or something that doesn't matter, but if its zipped that single corrupted bit can stuff up the zip file extrator and you lose everything (I don't really want to spend a week downloading a 12Gig file more than once nor does anyone else I suspect).

Perhaps they will do it in small chunks. It would make it far more pratical. Anyway, if all else fails, there's always the free demo when it comes out. :-)

I'm sorry man, but that's pretty insane.It took me like a quarter of that time to download the CoH beta. And it was fine the first time.Sorry that your connection is so poor. Have you checked for other options?Also, 12 gigs is massive. That is certainly true. That's a couple of DVD's in content.

>>>If you don't have $8 or whatever to spare, you aren't a>>>subscriber already, and all you really want is a chance to>>>participate in the FSX beta I wouldn't suggest you>subscribe.>>>>>You may be disapointed if for some reason you aren't chosen>>>(however, I have been with fileplanet for 3 years or so and>>>every beta they have held I have been able to participate>>it,>>>I honestly don't know how the selection process works, if>>>there even is one)>>>>Paying to be part of a beta test, ANY beta test is>ridiculus.>>Personally any developer that would choose their beta>testers>>from a group of people that paid for the right, lose most of>>their credibility in my mind.>>>>Regards, Michael>>KDFW>>>>http://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/ambanner.jpg>>>>Well, the reason I subscribed is because I do play games and I>need a place where I can download patches and such without>having to wait forever. To be fair you aren't paying for a>beta, you're paying for a download service. I wouldn't>specifically pay for a beta either. This is absolutely the most important post in this thread.Access to closed multiplayer betas is simply a perk of joining their premium download service.You aren't paying for the beta, you are getting it as a bonus for purchasing it something.Also, there are always some sort of requirements for testing, i.e. compatible hardware, etc. That's why they don't guarantee access.