For a change I'll put the bottom line right up at the top: I think the demo is truly excellent. Despite many rough edges it shows enormous potential. I hope the final release lives up to this promise.My main interest is in scenery and the environment created by the simulation. Fortunately (for me but not everyone!) this is precisely what Microsoft concentrated on.On a fairly average machine I was pleasantly surprised by the frame rates and general smoothness. I have the frame rates locked at 16 FPS and for much of the time this frame rate is achieved or exceeded. In general my settings are slightly above medium. However, there is a serious problem with dynamic blurred textures - more on this later.TEXTURESI think the most impressive improvement is the ground textures. Very often the clarity and detail is startling (I have texture resolution set to 1 metre). You can easily resolve individual cars and I'm quite convinced that after a careful search it may be possible to see people on the ground. I'm not sure but I gained the impression that the highest resolution textures occurred on one of the lesser islands (where cars are easily seen). I noted that the texture files are four times the size compared to FS9, so there is up to sixteen times the amount of detail.Unfortunately, very often the textures are badly blurred as the system struggles to keep up with the user's aircraft. This was a *major* problem in FS2002. In fact I have to take some of the blame because it was me that coined the phrase 'dynamic blurred textures'. At the time we decided a good solution might be a setting that could change the balance between frame rates and the rate at which textures would be updated. Microsoft were listening, because they did precisely that in FS2004. Ironically, because I found the problem almost non-existent in FS2004, I never explored this setting in any detail so I'm not sure how effective this setting was.One of the Microsoft team released information about a new setting which sounds very promising: FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 (in fsx.cfg, in the MAIN section). I tried this and imagined some improvement, but it probably was just imagination. It may be that this will only work in the full release. But it's extremely encouraging to see the team taking this problem very seriously.STARSAs a one-time amateur astronomer I am naturally interested in the night-time star display. When I wrote the original AutoStar program I added the ability to show comets by adding stars. But the brightness dynamic range of the stars in FS2004 was seriously crippled: it was about 3:1.I was very happy to find that in FSX, not only is the dynamic range limit removed, but the stars are shown in full colour. I have set to work on AutoStarX which exploits this enormous improvement. Already the comets look far, far better than in FS2004.I also love the Milky Way, though some think it's too prominent. It also appears to be in the wrong position. It could be that Microsoft are thinking big, that they're planning on selling FSX to other advanced civilisations in remote parts of the galaxy.I'll now start a list of problems/bugs, and then finish up by listing the improvements I particularly like.BUGS/PROBLEMS1.When some types of buildings are behind the clouds they are actually shown *in front* of the clouds. This applies to objects such as storage tanks and the cruise liner, but does not apply to autogen buildings. It looks like for some objects the drawing order is wrong.2. Quite often the sound switches off. Cycling the Q button has no effect. It can occur after selecting slew mode, visiting the menus or after a heavy crash. This seems particularly bad with FS2004 add-on aircraft such as the Cessna. I use an Emu 0404 sound card. Generally I have to re-start the demo to get sound back.3. The jet does not have illuminated gauges and nor is the MFD illuminated. At night you have to switch on the cabin lights to see the MFD, which is bizarre in the extreme. I'm still fairly confident that the final FSX aircraft will have self-illuminated gauges - but a nagging doubt remain. After all, the FS2004 aircraft did not have illuminated gauges. It would be great if one of the team could clarify this once and for all.4. Sometimes the spot view is very jerky. I found that reducing the frame rate limit helps. In fact now the problem seems somewhat less.5. Another problem that has apparently cured itself: for the first week or so every time I returned from the menus the scenery was completely screwed up, forcing me to cycle the S key to clear it. This has been widely reported. But for the lastweek the problem is noticeable by its absence. Very strange. When I return from a menu the scenery goes bad for maybe a second and then immediately clears.6. Mouse-look problem: suppose I'm in the VC and using mouse-look. I change a setting and return from the menu. Everything looks fine - until I touch the mouse. The smallest mouse movement makes the view angle change violently to some arbitrary angle so I have to re-centre my view. This problem occurs in many conditions. It looks like mouse movements while accessing the menu were stored in a buffer. After returning to the VC, and after the first mouse move, the moves stored in the buffer are released, causing the view ti change violently. If so, the solution would be (or something similar):1. Whenever returning to any view that currently uses mouse-look, first clear the mouse buffer.2. Then restore the 'remembered' view settings for this view.7. When using mouse look or mouse as yoke, a cursor appears on the screen when the mouse is moved. I find it annoying. There is an argument for this in mouse as yoke - the cursor indicates the effective yoke position - but it seems pointless in mouse-look mode. I would prefer that the cursor remained invisible, certainly in mouse-look position.8. When panning the view in mouse-look mode, the angle of pan is restricted to 360 degrees, which can be annoying. Often, when you're near your target view, the pan stops because the end of the range is reached and you have to rotate backwards almost 360 degrees. It would be nice to remove this restriction so you can pan around for many turns without restriction.9. When using mouse-look in spot view, the horizontal pan direction is counter-intuitive (well, for me at least!) Vertical and horizontal panning use the opposite convention so they're inconsistent. I would like to see the horizontal panning direction reversed (or is there a setting for this?)10. The water landing effects struck me as rather poor. There is a very obvious bug: the spray effect rises into the air like steam!11. After changing the time setting, and particularly if the setting is for night, the screen goes completely black - until the progress bar reaches 70 percent, when it pops into view!12. Both mouse-look and mouse as yoke stop working if the joystick is disabled - I can see the cursor moving on the screen, but the view or yoke does not move. A bit ironic this, as the one time you really need to disable the joystick is when you're using mouse as yoke! 13. There was no sign of any vector autogen (e.g. light posts running along roads) or any of those 'special' objects (remember the huge chicken in FS2004?) I hope vector autogen will be in the final release.14. Sometimes there is a vertical mis-alignment of maybe half an inch between the mouse pointer and the actual menu.Well, those are the complaints. And now for some compliments.1. In low visibility you can still see a pale blue sky - something lacking in FS2004.2. I like the smooth zooming.3. The terrain dynamics are vastly improved. FS2004 terrain has at least two problems that probably few have spotted - they only smack you in the face if you attempt to do some dangerous, crazy things. This problem also occurred in several earlier versions, possibly going back to CFS2. Here's an example: in FS2004 choose a convenient volcano. Mt Fuji will do nicely. Go to the top and then fly down the slope, keeping close to the surface - but do not fly into the surface! Chances are you'll appear to repeatedly hit the surface and crash - not because of poor flying, but because of a terrain defect. So far FSX appears to be free of this defect.Now for something crazy: fly towards the volcano and attempt to land on the steep slope by pulling up the nose and letting the wheels hit the side of the volcano. It won't work because the terrain at this point appears to be soft. The aircraft will dig into the rock. An instant later FS decides Mt Fuji really is solid and you will crash. Most likely FS does not do any collision checking on the assumption that nobody in their right mind would attempt a landing on the steep side of the volcano. This means that in FS2004 it's essentally impossible to attempt landings on any very rough terrain, which is a shame (I remember practising landings on vert rough and steep terrain in Flight Unlimited). I'm glad to see that this problem also appears to have walked - or flown - in FSX. I've done quite a few landings on steep hillsides in FSX with my trusty Cessna. In my novel, Tsunami, I have a character landing a Cessna twin engine on the steep sides of the Cumbre Vieja volcano just after it collapsed, creating the biggest tsunami in recorded history. Now I can try it in the demo to see if it would be possible! (By the way, the tsunami will happen, it's only a matter of time. It will destroy the American eastern seaboard. The good news is that most likely it's decades or even centuries away - but not in my novel!). A related issue: I see that after a very heavy landing the sim throws you 500 feet into the air. Please don't do this, Microsoft. If I disable all damage I want the aircraft to bounce etc after a heavy landing - but obviously not break up. But, last time I checked, in the real world a crash will not magically cause the aircraft to be elevated 500 feet into the sky. This can make attempts to land on rough terrain very frustrating.4. Mouse as yoke: very glad to see it brought back, it's such an obviously useful feature. The only mystery is why Microsoft took it out several versions back.5. Mouse look: again very welcome.6. The view system has at last been updated significantly and it's a huge improvement. At last FS has a flypast view! Being able to define camera positions is also excellent.7. The water is excellent. But if you use higher settings and objects are actually being reflected in the water then the frame rates can fall quite a bit. I use a low setting but it still looks very good (apart from some circumstances when the water tends to look like bluish milk).8. The autogen is greatly improved, particularly the trees. I have it set on medium for reasonable frame rates. In general the autogen merges very well with the background textures.9. Ground traffic and other dynamic objects. Again, very welcome. Unfortunately the ground traffic is badly broken, probably due to missing textures. It seems that any untextured objects appear black instead of displaying their assigned, untextured colours.Well, that's it. I think I would give the demo 8 out of 10. Hopefully the final version will score 10. In particular the high resolution textures make the terrain very beautiful. In fact the demo can throw up images that are almost stunningly beautiful. All I can say is, roll on October! Best regards, Chris 3.4 Ghz Pentium, 2Gb RAM, Windows XP Home

>FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 (in fsx.cfg, in the MAIN>section). I tried this and imagined some improvement, but it>probably was just imagination. Correct, this requires software fix and will only work in the released version.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/for...argo_hauler.gifhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

I was not sure if this required a thread on its own or ,,,I just hang it here. Oh well!. :)Manny.OVERHEAD:Quote : "I have to say I am completely confused as to what sort of etiquette to follow as regards reporting problems. It's now almost impossible to know whether we will get shot down in flames by the ubiqituous FSX demo a really excited user or thanked by MS because we've pointed out something they haven't seen.RegardsA very confused Jon"

Chris,Good info on the Demo. Microsoft created a level of building frustration (for some) since there are some common problems seen by most and thus they yearn for a fix. It seems improbable that any update for the demo will appear and thus we have to live with anomalies.On the Tsunami - to be fair and balanced you should now create a novel where the UK enters a very cold period as global warming causes the Gulf Stream to deviate from its course, leaving the UK with snow in July.Regards,Dick near 5G8

HI, ">FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 (in fsx.cfg, in the MAIN>section). I tried this and imagined some improvement, but it>probably was just imagination. Correct, this requires software fix and will only work in the released version.]"Also, it appears the "TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400" tweak was not working due to a FSX bug as discussed in tdragger/Mikes blogThanksChris Willishttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6...development.jpg

1.When some types of buildings are behind the clouds they are actually shown *in front* of the clouds. This applies to objects such as storage tanks and the cruise liner, but does not apply to autogen buildings. It looks like for some objects the drawing order is wrong.=============================================I also noticed that you cannot look through the boundary fence at your aircraft, as you magically disappear. Strange..

>1.When some types of buildings are behind the clouds they are>actually shown *in front* of the clouds. This applies to>objects such as storage tanks and the cruise liner, but does>not apply to autogen buildings. It looks like for some objects>the drawing order is wrong.>=============================================>>I also noticed that you cannot look through the boundary fence>at your aircraft, as you magically disappear. Strange..Both are mentioned in the DO NOT README.txt file...;)

>Both are mentioned in the DO NOT README.txt file...;)Hmmm... my version of the readme only mentions that "Airport boundary fences currently block out views of terrain and buildings behind them.", not anything about the player aircraft.But I get your point.