I'll be looking forward to the final product. The demo is a little... unfriendly to Vista Beta 2. I did eventually get it to work. There are a few problems. When it tries to load into IE to visit the pages the demo crashes. When it starts I have to quickly hit the Missions info. I like the mouse-look feature, very nice. I love the new system displays on the CRJ. They have some simple EICAS screens which is a lovely thing to see. I do not like the fact the demo is timed (awww).Beta/Demo bugs: 1. Missions like to start with the engine failing. Also randomly when returning from the menu the engines will fail. They cannot be restarted. 2. Misc minor Graphic glitches. (Texture swapping in and out).3. Any webpages loaded will crash FSX Demo in Vista Beta 2.Questionable: 1. My CH-Pro Pedals are constantly issuing a 'Break' command. I had to disable the imput or use the good ol' parking break toggle.2. Default bindings for the joysticks have changed. (No trim, noooo!)3. The Extend/Retract flaps and Gear (/drop object) switches are reversed from before.So far, a good beta. It looks like it'll be ready by October.

Well here is my take. First performance. My system is a P4 3.8Ghz 2GB system with a GeForce 7800 GT. Generaly I get good FPS, allow it did drop to the low teens on landing approach. This is with all sliders maxed. I wasn't too impressed with the water effects maxed. Got a bad shimmering effect like snow on a TV screen at a distance. Turning that down also improves performance. It does seem to run smoother than fs2004, no pauses to load scenery that I could detect. This is the Carribean though so it's mostly water, so the jury is still out on this. Also even though trafic sliders were maxed, I didn't see any traffic, (May be disabled in Demo) This would skew any comparrison to FS2004, which I fly with UT at 100%. I'll try turning it off and fly around TNCM to see what I get. Ground scenery at default settings look awfull Once turned up they look pretty good, maybe a little better than GEPro or BEV, but not by much. I didn't see too much blurriness, but again, I think this could be duplicated in the same area in FS2004 without the overhead of traffic. It would have been nice if they included the helicopter to see how that is, but I guess you can't have everything! :)Edit: Also controls are slugish in the Demo even at high sensitivity. This is probably just a problem in the demo.

Dont forget its a demo based on a beta - read http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=boo...&topic_id=13120Not perfect, I agree, but since were about 2 months away from release its probably in better shape than most would admit.Here's looking forward to the finished product.Why are some folks never satisfied? They whine and moan that no info is available, moan because of this aint right or that aint right.Moan because a demo that has been put together to let you see whats being done isnt perfect. I bet you went at it like a bull in a china shop and turned the sliders up to max like a true IT guy ;) Like in the real life of aviation you should nibble away at the testing... Oh that takes patience hehe..Off to bed its nearly 4am here, up at 8am lolCheers n beersIanp.s. And yes I tried it, it has lots of potential and lots of room for improvement ;) night all

After some tweaking i really like it now, i can get 22 fps now most of the time on medium settings. The one thing i found out i should not turn on is bloom, that kills my fps.ps. i have it locked at 22fps

Okay - my impressionsNew default texture format - DXT5FINALLY the default aircraft have two sides on the fuselage to paint.I'm really how amazing the default Baron looks - much more realistic than any FS9 high quality addon aircraft. The CRJ is a work in progress.New sections in the aircraft.cfg file for views.New way to choose views - going to take some time getting used to.AI aircraft are visible from the transparent view menu by tail number - can't wait to see how that looks when we load 700 aircraft in the London area.There is a new folder in the aircraft - SOUNDAI,No "aircraft" folder off the root - it's burried under SimObjects - along with Boats, Ground Vehicles and Misc - looks like texturing those, making models, new ones might be pretty easy.Yes ground vehicles and boats have a model, soundai and texture folder just like aircraft and even fltsim.x sections.A thumbnail.jpg is needed with each texture - that is what is displayed in the select aircraft menu - though the model is displayed in the Create Flight menu/ screen.Traffic Tools cannot read the AI traffic file.An AFCAD file in the addon scenery folder does give you new parking spaces.

>After some tweaking i really like it now, i can get 22 fps>now most of the time on medium settings. The one thing i found>out i should not turn on is bloom, that kills my fps.>>ps. i have it locked at 22fpsReally? With your rig, I would expect a lot more.It's not really running all that much different than FS2004 for me on my old crappy system, and still looks at least a little bit better.And there are boats. Oh the boats.

First, my specPentium IV Dual-Core 3.42 G of RAMNvidia 6800 UltraSecond, everything maxed in FSXThird, UNREAL!Are you kidding me, I'm seeing like 10 boats below me. I want cars now MS!Pics to come....

They are all around the TNCM airport - do you have that AI slider set high?

how is the ATC? any news on this?

>how is the ATC? any news on this?Exactly the same. ATC window is differnet, thats about it.

found 'em ,sweet

>Gotta say, considering it is a beta demo, I'm impressed.>>The textures, autogen and land details are amazing. The demo>has so many bugs in it that it's hard for me to tell much>else. >>Cranked everything WFO and WHOA!! It maxed out at 8FPS in 3d>cockpit, and I'm running a VERY strong set-up. Backed it down>to reasonable levels and FPS stayed where pinned (30FPS).>>I'm even more excited about "what's to be" with the release>after running the demo.>>I get similar performance as you at the various times you listed. Here's what I'm getting, can you verify similar? Locks at 8 (goes up to about 50 or so when the islands aren't in view)....then locks at 30 when I move to more reasonable levels (goes up to about 70 if the islands aren't in view).

1. The water finally looks like water. I can't get enough of it. There is a feeling of movement..because of the wavy reflections. I feared it would be static...thank God its not. http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=239505&page=2. Night scene ..I like the cars on the road with their lights on. 3. I liked the ATC and mission (landing that crj) ...this technology can open up tons and tons of opportunity. For flight instructions..to whole lot of creative ideas. I see great potential here.When I turned every settings to the right.. it brought my system down. :)I'll need to spend more time later on.Edited to add: I am glad that they released the demo. Now, I can wait a little bit more patiently for the real thing. I hope they would spend sufficient time to pay attention to performance. I am sure they are doing this... But let me say it anyway... I hope their performance thing is not an after thought rather it be a fundemental part of their product architecture.The bottom line: This is a new Flight sim. Not your fathers flight sim. :)Manny

I bet you went at it like a bull in a china shop and turned the sliders up to max like a true IT guy Like in the real life of aviation you should nibble away at the testing... Oh that takes patience hehe..That's right, because that's how I run FS2004, maxed except for animations, which I turn off. If I need to pull back from there so be it. As I said, I'm impressed with the performance so far, but it's very limited scenery and no traffic, so I would like to see what it's like on the mainland, with heavy traffic. I just tried FS2004 with a default aircraft at TNCM without traffic, and it ran just as smooth as the demo. (So did the LDS 767). That was also with ASV6 weather. (Which I think is better than the demo's weather but I'll wait for the release version to decide on that. Right now though, I don't see anything compelling, that would make me want to switch to FSX.

>Dont forget its a demo based on a beta - read>http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=boo...&topic_id=13120>>Not perfect, I agree, but since were about 2 months away from>release its probably in better shape than most would admit.>>Here's looking forward to the finished product.>>Why are some folks never satisfied? They whine and moan that>no info is available, moan because of this aint right or that>aint right.>Moan because a demo that has been put together to let you see>whats being done isnt perfect. >>I bet you went at it like a bull in a china shop and turned>the sliders up to max like a true IT guy ;) Like in the real>life of aviation you should nibble away at the testing... Oh>that takes patience hehe..>>Off to bed its nearly 4am here, up at 8am lol>>Cheers n beers>>Ian>p.s. And yes I tried it, it has lots of potential and lots of>room for improvement ;) night allYep, gotta keep testing. Where there is FS, there's a way. hehe:)It would have been nice to see a little "more" of the FSX world so we could get a better idea of it when compared to FS9. After the newness wears off, people are gonna be looking at content, not water.lastly, time-limited? It's not like the demo covers so much area. IMO, I don't think time limiting it was really necessary.