>Speak for yourself Geofa, I happen to think eye candy is very>important and will buy the rig to make it happen. :-) Actually, Geofa likes eye candy. He's an aircraft owner/pilot/simmer, who enjoys flights across the country just for the scenery as well as IFR flight. He's posted some excellent video's of flight across the Mountain West, which is an area I'm quite fond of.And I like "eye candy" too, although I think it's one of the most idiotic terms when it comes to flight. Since I live in an area that has some of the best "eye candy", I mean "scenery" in the world, why wouldn't I want to look down? Who the #### would want to fly in a total IMC world, forever? :-hah L.Adamson

actually...I have been speaking for myself-that was the point-one persons "eye candy" is anothers reality...and yes I like it (any kind of increased reality-and I hate the term "eye candy" because looking at a flat computer screen pretending you are flying an airplane is eye candy)! ;)...and speaking of this-in 1998-99 when Pro Pilot was the first sim to have terrain mesh, and 3d clouds (along with built in atc, ai traffic, and realistic cockpit instrumentation)-the fs98 crowd was saying that was all "eye candy" while at the same time they were simming in a hand drawn world of polygons and lines, with clouds that looked like ice cubes.I still remember a particular quote from an fs98 fan addressing the Pro Pilot innovations-"if I want a rock/weather simulator I'll pull out my Rand Mcnally map-when I want to seriously sim I'll use fs98". I pointed out at the time there were many that also said a 16 color pc in 300x400 resolution was all they needed for a serious computer...sound, higher resolutions, and thousands of colors were all....eye candy!I doubt many now would consider mesh that matches real terrain and clouds that match real ones visually are "eye candy", but necessary increased reality-just as in 10 years an alive dynamic world filled with moving cars/wildlife/etc. will be taken for granted as a necessary part of creating an alive vs. dead world to fly over.As for performance-the fs series since the early 80's was always used to demonstrate new computer systems as it was the one title that always pushed computers to their limits. Nothing really has changed here either-except we now have sliders that we can use to get acceptable performance our systems (it didn't in the 1980's and 4-5 fps was the norm before the early 3d cards which pushed that up to 12-15 fps). I don't think anything has really changed about the target market and strategy-but then I've been around a while. :) http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Ian, yes we have sliders to tone down the scenery but when Dell is still selling 2.8gig machines in 2006 and the highest processor is 3.2gigs, sliders shouldn't have to be turned down that much if every feature of the hardware technology (HT, Dual Core, or whatever a rig has) is utilized. Same goes for Video Card features. Anything over a 2gig processors can still work wonders with graphics especially with a good video card. There's games out here that would knock your socks off running on 2gig machines. What does the XBOX360 have under the hood???If turning down sliders a bit gives a look similar to FS2k4 with better framerates that's acceptable for FSX. I don't see why anyone would disagree... "I don't think targeting as many people as possible is such a bad idea"You can't target a wide market with HW requirements no other comparable title is calling for. If Aces can get FSX running and looking great on machines that run most other titles optimally then they've done it. :-)

"As for performance-the fs series since the early 80's was always used to demonstrate new computer systems as it was the one title that always pushed computers to their limits."There was a different target market back then. You had many competing simulators to choose from so there was competition. This competition caused developers to push the envelop and still turn a profit. Today Flight Simulator is almost in a world of its own. FS stands alone at a convention like E3. Gone are the days of Fly, EF2000, Janes F15, Pro Pilot, etc... You can't gamble with simulators and push the hardware envelop like before because (for reason's I don't know) gamers will just revert back to their Playstation2 'Ace Combat' titles. Computer technology was moving fast back in the 80's and mid 90's as well. Things have slowed down quite a bit. Now there's more of a standard spec of gaming machine that you either conform to or die at the hands of the XBOX360. Flightsims are not in demand as before so bringing something to the market that good and doesn't cause too much headache should be the goal. If a gamer can pick up FSX and have it run great on his 'SIMS' dedicated PC then you have a winner. Having a title on the market that requires hardware that hasn't been released yet is a crap shoot. The mass market just isn't into simulations like they used to (a good sim like EF2000 or TAW made you think I guess). FSX needs a wide market and in this day and age ease of use is the best option.

Where is the info that states that FS will require hardware that hasn't been released yet?Just curious.... FS has always historically been a top seller and has always had a wide market-I don't think it will be any different this time.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Have you ever known a version of FS not to??? Problem is even with screaming rigs most simmers still get stutters and various other performance problems out of any particular version of Flight Simulator (especially FS2k4). FSX could be the first in the series to break that cycle... FS2k2 was the start of it. Before that we had more issues than we have now with in game performance.Geofa as far as I'm concerned this is just a friendly discussion in a forum that we haven't had before. We now have the ear of the FS developers in a way that wasn't possible before. Since 'eye-candy' is the order of the day, discussing performance only comes natural. History tells us in the FS world that there's a cost for visuals. FSX is still being optimized for release with a suggested average user target market. I challenge you to find an average gamer with anything much over a 2.6gig rig. The gaming market in general doesn't require much more than that (if that)... That's grounds for a reality check if one hasn't been made already. Like I said it's just a discussion piece...

Its not about features. FSX will have lots of features but there are somethings which are basic to any flightsim and if MS does not correct them I will feel let down.1. No parallax in perspective. This is one of the most important cues for pilots for the sense of height and the one way human beings use invoulantarily to stay on path while landing. No add on gives you that either.2. A more granular look up table. Why only upto 25mb in pressure? Why not lower? If the flightsim physics were based on aerodynamic eqautions then why not upto zero-i.e vaccum. Atleast the look up table can be made more granular or do we have any aircraft-payware/freeware/anyware which adheres to the 50' clearance data? All of them perform way, way better under any situation And if any aircraft does stick to the 50' obstacle parameter then it wont climb anywhere near its rated ceiling! Same old linear restricted flight envelope. In every respect really-be it pitch trim, rudder input,thrust etc. FS is modelled for a very small and limited portion of the flight envelope and as a pilot and a flightsim enthusiast I would like the flight envelope and DoF to be enlarged!3. Is there any aircraft payware/freeware/anyware which skids off the runway? Air to ground transition is the single most difficult thing in flight and most accidents are caused there, why such a important thing not modelled properly? Its one thing to "see" wet runways another to feel it. Takeoff roll and wheel airpressure as no effect. 4. Why does FS time fall behind/go ahead of real clock? When an arc is approximated as a staight line it happens! 5. Hanging by the thread model. We all know this. Treating the entire aircraft as a point in the flight envelope is really an archaic flight simulation method.Does all this mean I wont have fsx, sure I will. Nor does it mean that I know more than MS about FS. FS team in MS and even most forum users know more than me but then everybody have their happiness sweet spot. It bothers me when MS publishes so much information about the peripheral things like graphics ( which has nothing to do with FS programming), utililites etc but not a word about the flight model and impovements made there in.

Bill has been taking a more slam the poster type approach lately..if he is still with Eaglesoft, he is giving them a real bad name. Bill really, go away if that is all your going to contribute.As far as Dillon's post is concerned, he hit the nail on the head. I could not agree more with what he said.

One part of the argument that I disagree with is the believe that current games such as the sims2, battlefield 2, halflife 2 on the PC aren't as demanding as FS9, well let me tell ya, getting battlefield2 to run smoothly for my son cost me some dough for a new video card and power supply (at least that was what I told my wife it was for), and it runs fairly well now, but these games all utilize the new graphics technology in shading and grass etc... Another one is Oblivion which has stunning graphics, but I hear the computer calling for help everytime my son starts it up, so I don't believe FS is ahead, but just catching up to the gaming market of today. By the way, if I remove all my add-ons which includes FSgenesis, ultimate terrain, activesky and radar contact, I get 40-70 fps in city to rural. To me that's acceptable performance with all sliders maxed (though it took 2 years to get there which maybe what your are talking about :) )Also, I don't believe FS users are the only consumers caught up in the ever advancing computer technology battle. Many hard-core gamers face the same battle over better graphics versus cost and have to decide on when to buy that bigger better computer. Another thing to consider is that many gamers are in their twenties and have a large amount of disposable income and can afford the latest and greatest gaming rig. Lastly, we still don't know how good or bad performance will be for FSX until the final release, maybe we'll all be suprised, or maybe we'll all be screaming bloody murder, until then, this is all speculation of course.Ian.

Amen

I hate to break it to you but FSX will probably be much easier on people's systems than most of the games being released this year.The XBOX360 is an extremely powerful gaming machine, more powerful and better suited to the role of any PC you can buy today (until a DX10 card is released).And FS9 ran beautifully well on my machine even when it was released. I only had a P4 1.7 at the time.James

What's the internal specs in an XBOX360???

Ian, what's the specs of your son's computer now? If you don't mind me asking what hardware requirement were the games mentioned above calling for on the box???I guess it would also help to know what you had in the computer prior to your upgrade as well...A good thing to concider in your argument here is you were able to upgrade your existing computer not buy a new one.Thanks in advance because you offer some interesting facts to toss around..."gamers are in their twenties and have a large amount of disposable income and can afford the latest and greatest gaming rig"With high gas prices and increasing tuition I don't know about this one but I could be wrong... :-)

>Ian, yes we have sliders to tone down the scenery but when>Dell is still selling 2.8gig machines in 2006 and the highest>processor is 3.2gigs, sliders shouldn't have to be turned down>that much if every feature of the hardware technology (HT,>Dual Core, or whatever a rig has) is utilized. Same goes for>Video Card features. Anything over a 2gig processors can>still work wonders with graphics especially with a good video>card. There's games out here that would knock your socks off>running on 2gig machines. What does the XBOX360 have under>the hood???>>If turning down sliders a bit gives a look similar to FS2k4>with better framerates that's acceptable for FSX. I don't see>why anyone would disagree... >>"I don't think targeting as many people as possible is such a>bad idea">>You can't target a wide market with HW requirements no other>comparable title is calling for. If Aces can get FSX running>and looking great on machines that run most other titles>optimally then they've done it. :-)>I think what is also missed is the concept of "3 GHz" processor. If you look at the latest processors being released, few of them are over 3 GHz. Multiple cores have changed the dynamic of the whole "higher number = better" deal and allowed for increased performance on slower processors. So when a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo is outperforming the much faster clocked FX-62, that makes that 3Ghz rating a relative performance scale.

FS in any version is gonna be hard on a PC, not because of the graphics, and yeah I'm glad they've been updated of course I am. The biggest single hit in FS since 2002 is traffic. That has to be tracked, in real time, or when you accelerate it. FS has to know where every plane took off from and will land, and keep track of all that so that what you see and hear will match up. That's pretty clever in my opinion.It's not perfect, it's never going to be perfect, take one of my old favourites, NASCAR RACING, which toward the end came out every year, even so real world rules outpaced it, so it was never perfect, the same is true of FS, as soon as it's out it's gonna be dated, the world changes fast. My biggest concern after what I've gone through the last few weeks will be stability and frame rates, heck I still with a 3 Ghz CPU and ATI X800 can't run FS9 smoothly with a lot of detail on. Whether that would be any better for an out of the box FS9 I don't know.I do see where Dillon is coming from, I also see where tdragger and others are coming from. Heck you all remember I was one of the most vocal against the idea of 'missions'. But my objection to that was cleared up by tdragger et.al. when they pointed out that all the planes would still be open to me with or without missions. Like many here I am very much a 'line' pilot when I fly, airliners are my love and working toward them my goal. I like to start in a Cessna and eventually climb into the cockpit of a 747 or Concorde and feel that I've achieved something. FS is as tdragger said, many things to many people and satisfying us all is hard. Sorry for rambling a bit there.