The ligthing and clouds made the feeling of flying a lot more real. To me it was a huge deal!

Well, *less* blurries anyway.

I think it was about Microsoft not allowing add-ons to work within the sim. There was a brief move by Microsoft to keep everything default. At the time they didn't like what we were doing with FS5.1. Papa Tango around this time frame had already raised eyebrows by trying to own the American Airlines logo within FS where everyone in the community had to go through them to use the AA livery. The deal was inked with AA I believe and next Microsoft seemed to want the same for FS. No add-ons were the plan for a brief moment in time....I believe that's how it went down but don't quote me... It's been along time since the days of FS98...

Whew, sure glad that MS changed their minds:-) :-)

You can save even more money and look at screenshots (Pics) on Airliners.net. If performance is nothing short of a slide show with FSX with FS2k4 comparable graphics, what's the difference??? :-) If on my 2.6gig machine I have to turn sliders down to a point the sim looks like FS2000 then I'll pass. Vista and a new rig will be my upgrade path. I very curious to see what we really get with the XP version of FSX...

WOW.. Didn't know that. Must have been some Lawyer corporate type who is clueless that decided that. Every organization has such people. I'd be darned. I am glad MS is now like we seem them today. Awesome.Intersting.Manny

I am looking forward to FSX. I have already seen and read from the on-line reviews that FSX will have features/changes that I and many others had suggested to the FS Team a few years ago. I am sure that the FSX project team members had several meetings with management and engineers to determine a good balance of value-added features that the team can program into FSX and features that 3rd party coders can offer.Quite honestly, I would even suggest to the Aces Team to take the time necessary to optimize the existing FSX code. Well, I know that all projects have a deadline.I may not have the hardware to run FSX the way I like to, but I plan on getting FSX as soon as it lands on the retail runways.Looking forward to FSX this holiday season!David

What do you expect with your old 2.6Ghz machine, just stay with FS2004.Most of us will spend the money to upgrade and move to the next level of FS (ie FSX).Like they say "there's no such thing as a free lunch". :)

You do realise L.Adamson that your comments are falling on deaf ears. I've tried to explain why FSX will be a big improvement but I may as well be talking to a wall. In reality you're just wasting energy.dillolo can stick with FS9, I really don't care. He'll be the one missing out.James

Seeing we haven't moved much past 3gigs (2.8 processors are still being sold by Dell), a 2.6 processor is still nothing to sneeze at. We haven't seen the jumps in Hardware speed like we've seen in the past. If you judge by the rate things were moving when FS2k4 was originally released, we should be at 5gig 1200FSB by now. Anything under a 2gig processor is pushing it I admit but 2.6 and 2.8 shouldn't have a problem with FSX. The highest processor speed currently being sold is 3gigs dual core (or 3.2 I believe without DC Technology). It's been said just like 'HT' before that FSX will see no benefit from 'Dual Core' technology. How that's going to work I don't know but the natural progression thus far has been 2.6, 2.8, 3.0 etc... The low end of the scale at Dell now is still 2.8 with 800mhz FSB.If the target market for FSX is the gaming community only the most hardcore among us have top of the line machines. Avsim's and most other Flightsim's sites' forum membership are comprised of 30+ aged people. Microsoft is pushing for the younger market where parents are still buying the hardware. Do you think parents can afford a brand new DELL XPS machine costing $3,000+ or a $400+ video card for just one game??? Heck many 30+ people here on these forums are constantly protesting add-on prices and they control what they spend

Great post Chris... :-beerchugWe actually have some promising news written by 'tdragger' above about an Athelon 2.6gig machine (even though I would put Intel's comparable processor at 3gigs). "That's actually not a bad system for FSX (our min-spec is a 1GHz machine with a 32MB video card). If you like add-ons you might to upgrade at some point but with those specs you should have lots of fun with FSX when it comes out."To put things in proper perspective about this statment, I don't think FS2k4 would run on a 1ghz machine with a 32mb video card (well it would run but in the crudest form imaginable). Can someone try that and tell us how far they get with FS9??? :-lol

I wouldn't use a system like that with FS2000, let alone FS2k2 (forget about FS2k4)... :-lol O.K. I get it, tell us anything 'Tdragger'...:-roll :-abduct :-zhelp

>It's been said just like 'HT' before that FSX will see no benefit from >'Dual Core' technology. How many times does Mike (tdragger) have to repeat himself? Why do folks still not understand that FSX will make use of Dual Core systems????? :-roll

Like many have said here already Bill, nothings final until the official release. Maybe FSX will support HT Technology too... For the record I hadn't been following every thread here in the FSX forum. All I've been reading are the reviews from people with actual stick time with the sim. Either I mis-read or misunderstood but it's been mentioned more than once FSX won't take advantage of DC Technology. That's good news if the info I read was incorrect... HT technology is another one Aces should look at for older machines running the XP version. For obvious reasons I mentioned above, anything to help performance would be a huge benefit until Vista arrives.

Meigs start up. "Sliders left." --> 8fpsThrottle up. --> 3fps, then about 5fps average after that.Yes, I have a 1Ghz machine with a 32MB vid card around here to try it out :)The kicker is that this was with 512MB of RAM, 1GB didn't fare much better.