According to the recently published review i could safely say that fsX is simply a refurbished FS9.I see nothing new in this product expect of maybe some eye candy ****.Seriouslywhat a total disappointment shame on you msft. shame on you.

Hey, FS9 could use a good refurbishing.Regards, Carlos

You really do seem to be having an unhappy time of it. Here is a good place to start understanding FS9: C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9Uireslc01.htm ...after acquanting yourself with it you should be more enabled for critiquing addons and the upcoming FSX.Enjoy life, if not MSFS find something that does make you happy,Zane

I don't think the review says that at all... but congratulations for being the first naysayer. There always has to be at least one!

I want to know exactly what I can expect from FSX on a 2.6gig machine.It makes no since to require a highly robust machine for a WindowsXP version of this new sim. When you think about it FS9 doesn't fully take advantage of what all WindowsXP has to offer (that's one of the vary reasons we have the many performance issues with FS9). An upgrade to FS9 should finally take advantage of the features of DirectX9 we've been missing thus far. The Vista version should take things farther with DX10... I could see a higher PC requirement for the Vista version but not the XP/DX9 version. I hope MS gives us a break here as most of us will be upgrading twice. It's a pain in the #$@$ to upgrade OS's and deal with reinstalling everything plus waiting for updated drivers. Not to mention all the bugs that come with a new OS...Judging by the preview Aces has some high expectations for the Vista version. My take on buying a new machine would be after Vista is released therefore I can get Vista pre-installed. Bottom line is this new Version of Flight Simulator should take advantage of older hardware technologies like HT and all the DX9 features not used in FS9 (I'm sure many of you have more details on the shortcomings of FS9 than I do). All the current video card features utilized in other games should finally come alive in FSX for WindowsXP. I shouldn't need a new Dell XPS 700 (Pentium

I suspect many of us will see a significant performance hit with FSX under DX9. Everything now with FS2004 is basically DX7. Once the full DX9 capabilities are realized with FSX, those of us with a marginal DX9 card are going to be in a bit of a pinch. I expect my old 128MB 9800 Pro to really choke on all the new eyecandy. It will be interesting, indeed, to read the early reports of the brave among us who go with Vista earky next year. I'm still looking for a recommendation for the best available DX9 AGP card...Doug

"It makes no since to require a highly robust machine for a WindowsXP version of this new sim."This is a major point that should be driven home to Aces. Considering most of us will have to upgrade twice, the incentive of releasing FSX before Vista should be the sim finally fully uses all the hardware features most other titles on the market currently use. FS9 lacked in performance simply because the sim couldn't use hardware features that surprisingly were available when FS9 was released (case in point, HT Technology). FSX for Windows XP should be the sim FS9 wasn't and be geared more toward simmers with at least 2.0gig machines and decent video cards (my card listed below should be a good example). Let FSX for Vista be the sim that requires the top of the line hardware requirements. I'm with Chris on this... If my current machine can't run FSX for WindowsXP without looking like crap then I'll pass as well. I see no reason a sim using all of the current and previous year's technology can't run and look great. PC's running at say 2.0-2.8 with a decent video card should get better performance from FSX than they did with FS9 if this new sim takes advantage of current features other games do. DX9 still has allot to offer if software is optimized correctly. You can see example of this is all the new titles released this year for the PC..."but congratulations for being the first naysayer. There always has to be at least one!"I think there will be many more depending on what FSX for WindowsXP is requiring us to have... :-roll

Doug let's use Dillon's PC specs below as an example of a good PC running FS9 optimally. He should get much better performance with FSX if the new sim uses everything Dillon's hardware has to offer. If Aces expects more than that then this new sim in my book is over bloated and not optimized as it should be... I would more so lean to the thinking of a company taking advantage of the market to get people to buy new hardware sooner than later. Like I said for all the new features FSX/Vista has to offer, a new XPS 700 system makes since. But requiring simmers to purchase a new machine to get the best out of the XP version of FSX is insane... Especially if it's found out that we're running around the same old horse as FS9 did where the XP version doesn't fully take advantage of DX9 and current hardware features...Like what

Well even if FSX is kinda of a patch of FS9 I do think it does look quite a bit better than FS9 in some ways. You have more vegetation and ground texturing than that of the aweful green grass you find in fs9. I for one is looking forward to the release. The sky seems darker blue as well. Now these are some major improvements comparing FS9. One thing I am a little disappointed about is that weather seems to be quite similar to fs9s weather, but with either payware addons like Flight Enviroment and Active Sky, and with Freeware developments like FSskyWorld FS200? could really improve clouds, haze and sky. There seems to be even more planes in the delux version. That means I will have to perhaps buy myself a bigger Nvidia Videocard but necessarly have to buy a whole new system yet. Even better yet.. It says in the article a trial version! This is a good test to see if your system could handle FSX before you buy it.

Sure, there will be quite a performance hit with the new features. Probably mainly because of the increased traffic, dynamic scenery, high-res DEM, etc. That does not mean that you won't be able to run FSX on a lower/mid-range machine. There are still a lot of settings that can be tweaked in order to get good FPS.More features, better graphics = higher CPU/GPU requirementsMost of the current games cannot even be run on anything less than a 2.0GHz machine with plenty of RAM and a DX9 GPU. Why should FSX be different?Pop in a new mainboard ($50), mid-range processor ($150) and GPU ($150) for a total of $350 and you have a new mid-range machine.Pat

As MS said earlier, there will be "incremental" changes. From what it sounds like, you'll get much better terrain, better airport scenery, a slightly improved ATC, an improved flight planner, a good multi-player feature and a mission engine - that's at least something, no? For me that would justify a purchase.Heck, who is still on FS2002? *chirp*We just don't know what or if is going to be improved when it comes to weather, flight model or any SDK features, but it will be a step forward not backwards.Pat

He's hardly the first Matt. Almost the exact same text was posted within minutes of the first screenshots being posted...In fact almost the exact same thing was said about FS2004 as well, that it was just a little eyecandy on top of FS2002 and should be a free "patch" (usually then followed by people using that as an excuse for pirating it, after all it "should have been free so I'm only taking what I should have gotten").

"There are still a lot of settings that can be tweaked in order to get good FPS."Pat what Chris is saying is that you shouldn't have to turn things down for an XP version of FSX (within reason this is O.K. but for the most part you should get more than what we currently have with FS9). I happen to agree with him. I want to see a new sim that fully takes advantage of current hardware. Since Microsoft is in this mess (releasing a title before the new OS), make the XP verion out shine FS9 with current hardware. All the performance tweaking should be done when Vista arrives as that will be the more intense version to get...

Nothing new? That's not what I took away from Robert's preview at all. Several brand spanking new features were mentioned in addition to a slew of enhancements and improvements. While I have no doubt that many people will have their own set of gripes about aspects they felt should have been improved, overall FSX looks like it will be a significant evolution of the FS series. I'm looking forward to it tremendously.

I think all of us see the improvments in FSX over FS9. No one can doubt that it proudly carries the series forward. The big issue is performance under WindowsXP. I'm all prepared to upgrade to the latest and greatest for Vista but not another program for the current OS...No matter what I see or hear from here on out, performance is the biggest issue for me. I already know FSX is a sizeable improvment over FS9 but at what cost before Vista???