Downloading.... 50%... I have a powerful system. Intel Dual Core 3.6mhz (2) X1900XTX (in Crossfire setup) 2 Gig DDR2 (750mhz) 2x250Gig RAID0. If this does not run the demo with all sliders maxed I am not sure what will. I will keep you posted on the results.Regards,Andrew

hm, downloaded and installed the demo but it does NOT START ?!? Installed on my dell latitude laptop and FSX complaints about "1 or more monitors using 24bit color quality" which is wrong. The first (main) diplay is set to 32bit with 1280x1024 and same applies to the optional second TFT expansion for external monitors. How come that FSX still refuses to start?! any hint?Phil

First off my system specs:2x 7800gtx SLI - FX60 - 2gb ram - 24" widescreen panel (1920x1200)I run FS2k4 with Ground Environment and Ultimate Terrain with all options turned up at 1920x1200, 4x AA, and forced 16x AS at a consistent 50+ fps.At this point, FS2k4 with less than $100 of addons looks and runs better for VFR than the FSX demo.I'm hoping that the utter crap ground and building textures in the demo are simply due to size limits on the downloadable file... even with texture resolution all the way up, the textures are unbearably blurry. The roads are just blurry grey lines that kind of melt into the surrounding terrain. The building textures are basic four black window and a door and look exactly like default FS2k4.On top of that, there are Autogen buildings overlapping roads, and hanging half off hills. The cars are neat, but half of them are missing textures and are just black polygons driving around at about twice the speed they should be.The demo looks an awful lot more like stock FS2k4 than the screenshots that Microsoft has been handing out. Right now the only improvments I see are the movable vehicles... everything else is like a step backwards to stock FS2k4.The water is allright... better than 2k4 except for some of the strange lighting effects (most likely driver issues). Absolutly nothing on say Pacific Fighters though...At least the frame rate is decent once I turned off Anti-aliasing. This is most likely a driver issue than a real performance issue. I'll report back after the new Nvidia beta drivers come out.Unless Microsoft can prove that the terrain and building textures in the box are an order of magnitude better than those in the demo and can actually be displayed on a currently released video card, I'm not going to bother until DX10 cards ship...And the biggest disapointment of all - NO TRACK-IR SUPPORT IN THE DEMO!

Howdy guys. FSX has definately gotten better flight models. There are so many things to like. The ground handling is better. I dunno something about the perspective is different, more realistic maybe. Try turning off the frame rate indicator, it actually seems better without a constant reminder which makes it feel even slower. It's going to be a while before I can afford a new system, so while I may buy FSX I don't really see how I can move from FS9. This is not a criticism by the way just need to wait for Directx 10 next gen cards. My system specs:Intel P4 3.4 1 Gig Dual ChannelNvidia 6800 Ultra (set on card 2Q AA 2xAF) Default in Game Setting

>Also, I also get the vc textures black after coming back from>the menus - changing view and back consistently clears it ->maybe its an ATI omega drivers thing. This also happens to me and I'm using an ATI X800XT with Catalyst drivers. As soon as I switch views it clears up. A minor bug that'll certainly be resolved in the final. I also notice with my setup that whenever I hit the ALT key, select the Settings/Display menu and change something the sim switches to full screen windowed mode (menu remains visible). I have to ALT-ENT twice the get back to true full screen where the menu is hidden. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but whatever the problem is I'm certain it will be cleared up.Excellent demo... can't wait for the final!DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 256MB ATI Radeon X800 XT (Catalyst 6.5) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

First off:*THANK YOU THANK YOU* to MS / ACES for releasing a small beta demo. Performance: Exactly where I expected it to be. What?! Did you all think that all these great new features and graphics were going to come for "free"? In taking a look at the sliders, mesh and terrain capable of moving down to a 7 CENTIMETER resolution... enhanced texturing and oh - the water! The performance hit between FS9 and this unfinished FSX beta is right on target. Bringing sliders down to an acceptable fluid performance level, I get a visual treat far exceeding what FS9 could do. In time, as hardware and checkbooks get fatter, bringing the sliders farther to the right will only exceed my expectations! Good stuff!Stability:Understandable that there are bugs. It's prerelease with two more months of coding and performance tweaking to go. But it is a great preview of what may be to come.Demo Range:Originally, I thought it was just TWO airports... NOT SO! Many more to find and explore.I poked down to Antigua, where I had the pleasure of visiting last spring, and while the ground textures aren't real-world photoreal (they're autogen), I EASILY found the bay and area of the island I stayed at - and it was right on target. FAR superior to anything FS9 could have provided.Conclusion:Performance "hit" makes sense. Enhanced features, terrain, and textures are superb. Bugs are understandable in this version. Looking forward to October, or whenever the product is slated for release! (*don't rush! Clean it up and release it when it's done!)

Thanks Alfred!

Hi,> PLEASE lose the horrible music when the game loads.Isn't there a setting for that someplace? Can't remember right now, I'm at work but I thought I noticed something last night. Thought there was a combo somewhere with a checkbox above it; you can pick the music theme or disable it completely. Anyone know where this is offhand?HTHJim

I'm frankly a little disappointed with this demo. The graphics certainly aren't as good as the ones in the screenshot. Not much above FS2004 other than the cars and stuff on the road. That leads me to believe that it really does need DX10. I'm sure they'd like me to buy Vista for it, but that ain't gonna happen. It runs slow on high, as I expected. Ignore the setup in my sig because my new CPU and motherboard haven't arrived yet. I'm currently running an AthlonXP 2000+ with a Geforce 6600. Even people with high end cards are complaining about the image quality on other forums. I haven't had a chance to check out some of the other new features yet. From what I've seen, I hope this is based on the beta. It's going to need a lot of improvements.

>Hi,>>> PLEASE lose the horrible music when the game loads.>>Isn't there a setting for that someplace? Can't remember right>now, I'm at work but I thought I noticed something last night.>Thought there was a combo somewhere with a checkbox above it;>you can pick the music theme or disable it completely. Anyone>know where this is offhand?>>HTH>Jim>Not terribly suprising, it's in the sound section of the options, labelled as "Menu Music" I believe.

Were you able to run FS9 at high graphic settings when it came out? It ain't a lot of games you can run at highest graphic setting when they come out.

Indeed. Look at any of the major games that people use to benchmark their rig.The Elder Scrolls: OblivionF.E.A.R.PreyThese have all been out for a few months now, except for Prey, and even those with top of the line comps have had to scale back. Not to mention it was like this when FS2004 came out, and the complaint was "It's the same as FS2002, only with shinier clouds." I'm not dismissing come very legitimate concerns about performance, but I think that people still still expect that their 3-year old setup, that ran FS2004 like a champ will do the same with FSX. Unfortunately, that 3 Ghz processor and Radeon 9800 Pro are mid-line hardware now. You're gonna have to pull back some sliders.

Impressions:I'll take the demo with a grain of salt, heeding various warnings about poor performance, bugs galore. Don't forget though, many people are basing their decision to purchase the game on this demo.Graphics: Wait a minute; did I install a FS9 demo? Water while looks nice, doesn't perform the way it should. Terrain looks good, but I still have yet to see mesh look the way it does in the various screenshots. VC gauges look good, fluid. I do have to admit I like the new runway/taxiway textures. Rain on the taxiway/runway needs work.Performance: I'm not going to get into that because it

So are we getting 'position and hold' to the ai after an a/c lands, or do we have to wait to clear the rwy. And no I haven't tested out AI, I've just run the CRJ landing mission. Will we really get to hear 'World Travel Two-Sixty-Eight?' At this point, I'll take anything ATC-wise.

636mb for poxy demo - shove it MSAybe