http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/microsoftfl...creenindex.htmlWhat's your take on the new ones?dito

They look great! The new hi res ground textures really makes a difference. Also, the roads look crisper. Are the just higher res or is it actual vector data now?

seen it :-boom

My concern is all about functionality and performance. Notice also the lack of hard information pertaining thereto. Enough already with all the hype about eye-candy...yawn...Doug

> My concern is all about functionality and performance.>Notice also the lack of hard information pertaining thereto.>Enough already with all the hype about eye-candy...yawn...>>DougWhat do you mean "yawn"? I like "eye-candy", as you name it, more and more so, and i've flown msfs since version 4. See, you fly in the world, that's the reality, you don't fly in nothingness. Your airplane is just a part of the world, it interacts with the world and that, to me, is the real beauty. I am here above and i see things below, i fly! That's interaction, and that's what makes me feel a certain way.I guess in the real world you would buy a ticket on a cargo plane without windows?Eric from Eham.

kind of agree with you hear Doug,not only do we not hear much if anything about WX fixes, ATC or AI but we get a load of junk about eye candy. Do you remember the 'fly through barn shot with the flying chickens' in the FS9 vid clips before release? I said it then and I will say it now - totally pointless, it served nothing in the sim.And now we see this same junk - moving elephants!!! you have got to be kidding me! All I see are scenery elements, again, that are done so poorly that I will be turning them off.I mean, look again at the new screenshots. See the one showing the airport apron with the support vehicles? Look closely at the size of the ground support elements compared with the adjacent airliner. They are 2 to 3 times normal size. This is why it ruins the effect and why, I for one, will be turning it off. I would rather not see it then destroy what little 'suspension of disbelief' I have.I honestly would like to sit down and ask the guy who actully designed these ground elements that are so totally out of scale and simply ask, 'what where you thinking?'I swear, if they dont address major items like wind shifting at altitude that are so bad (due to poor algorithims) that damage modeling has to be turned off...moving elephants or not!this puppy is getting returned, and I mean with malice!

Others will come up with alternative scenery. The compelling improvement is movement. I like this "platform" thingy. If its extensible, everyone will have a shot at getting what they want.

>I mean, look again at the new screenshots. See the one>showing the airport apron with the support vehicles? Look>closely at the size of the ground support elements compared>with the adjacent airliner. They are 2 to 3 times normal>size. This is why it ruins the effect and why, I for one,>will be turning it off. I would rather not see it then>destroy what little 'suspension of disbelief' I have.>>I honestly would like to sit down and ask the guy who actully>designed these ground elements that are so totally out of>scale and simply ask, 'what where you thinking?'There is nothing wrong at all with the scale.http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/211...1_screen010.jpghttp://p.airliners.net/photos/middle/8/1/6/0937618.jpghttp://p.airliners.net/photos/middle/2/1/1/1062112.jpgEdit: Let's not forget this shot:http://www.avsim.com/pages/robertw/FSX/airport.jpgNot all airliners are the size of a T7... :-roll

"I guess in the real world you would buy a ticket on a cargo plane without windows?"You made me laugh!!! Great point.

I agree...I FLY for the views/vistas (in real life), so why put down eye candy?

I think we should not think about the FSX animals,but what dev's can do with the FSX code that put them there:-)

You're absolutely right. And someone will come and replace the 1966 truck by a modern one ;) I don't want to make much comments on beta screens, so the Aces probably will get the shadows right before final release. I noticed aircraft and building shadows double where they overlap and you can see the aircraft shadows through the plane itself. Also the aircraft shadows are darker than the building shadows, but i like the buildings are selfshadowing as well. I'm not sure about the pic where the aircraft seem to be half in the shade, if they are then the lower half of the fusetube should be of the same darkness.No doubt about, i will go for FSXGerrithttp://members.chello.nl/g.kranenbarg/gwkh...s/bluesmall.gif

>There is nothing wrong at all with the scale.THANK YOU!!It's amazing to see how worked up some people get.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/ambanner.jpg

Indeed Mike. I think it unlikely that all the new eye-candy will be used on most current systems once the impact of using the maximum capabilities of DX9 becomes known . The performance change is going to be significant - and not for the better. And, given the current MS penchant for third-party development, it seems that we may have seen the last major advance in functionality from internal development. The handwriting isn't hard to read nor the message hard to interpret...Doug

Given that most of my RW flying is in the hours of darkness the "no-window" ticket option wouldn't matter. But since less that 20% of those buying tickets for daylight flights are even near a window, and since 90% of that 20% are either over a wing, sleeping, reading a book, or watching a movie, the eye-candy argument even in the RW makes little, or no difference to 95+% of those paying passengers. Doug