If the past is any indicator, what you see at E3 is ususlly what you get when it comes to MSFS. Maybe some tweaks to fix thing here and there, but as far as the core product goes there hasn't been much change prior to release. If you haven't seen it yet, read the thread in the MSFS forum started by Yak Yak regarding his E3 experience. Form your own opinions but, IMNSHO and experience, those of us looking for major improvements in the simulator, as opposed to eye-candy, are going to be very, very disappointed. Maybe I'll to go buy an X-Box so I can get in some practice on arcade-type games...Do X-Box games have any blurries?DougEdited because I can't spel

Well, I've got seven possibly encouraging words for you:June, July, August, September, October, November, December.;)Andrew

Obviously this product was intended to be released with the release of Vista (and DX10 for that matter). Obviously we'll see the best "bang" out of it running with Vista and DX10. Hopefully patience will prove that right. Of course backwards compatability will have it's drawbacks but I still we'll see some kick-a%% stuff next year!

who cares about DX10 when they havent updated the weather, AI and ATC ?

You're kidding? Right? All Vista will do is allow the use of DX10 for some additional eye-candy enhancements. It does nothing for the feature set. Doug

And three more: FS9 plus add-ons :-)

"It does nothing for the feature set."What I'm saying is that the coming months are the time in which the team improves (and finishes) what they have.Personally, I'd much rather see better ATC than better ground textures; mostly, I'd want to see both. But I already have ATC as it is, and if it doesn't improve, at least something else will.To me, something like cars on roads and other moving vehicles/environmental factors is a big leap in terms of immersion. Let's not forget people once said "who needs reflective water?" and it has demonstrably changed the immersion factor significantly.So, largely, it comes down to what one might personally consider to be the "feature set".Andrew

It is an often heard comment that a New OS / API will magicly increase performance. In the past this has never worked so don't get your hopes up that it will be different now.DX10 will give improved graphics effects sure but beter performance? There is no DX10 hardware yet so what is written today is proofed with software rendering engines. Nobody knows what the first DX10 hardware wil delevir and how much it will cost.In the end almost nobody wil be able to take a current PC gaming rig and upgrade to Vista and DX10. The best possible scenario is upgrade the graphics card to DX10 Hardware and the OS (+ probabely extra memory) on an existing rig. The speed increase will have to be paid for it will come from the new graphics card.

Enough with the "current gaming rigs". MS's biggest mistake was to make FSX backwards comaptible! What do you want them to write everything for old technology??? In that case stay with what you have and never mind FSX. I know everyone cannot afford new equipment, but especially now on the verge of alot of "new" hardware to come out this year, wait and see. And if you do enough reading and investigating, you will see that DX10 will greatly lessen the load on the CPU which in-turn allows CPU captive apps such as the FS series to perform better. We don't know whether this will be the magic bullet, but take "new" Core technology, a good x16 PCIexpress graphics card built for DX10 and a 2gig of ram and we may finally have a winner. If not, then we can fall back on FS9. These are $50 dollar pieces of software meant to entertain and nothing more!Go Forwards and don't look back! :(

"Enough with the "current gaming rigs". MS's biggest mistake was to make FSX backwards comaptible!"Pretty sure MS has considered that. Briefly.What you're suggesting means that a fifty-dollar piece of software requires a new computer.How many copies do you think would be sold if nobody could use it on an existing system?Moreso, how many people would buy it off the shelf at, say, CompUSA, if they need to pick up a $300 video card in the same trip?Flight sim enthusiasts, maybe. Everyone else, no.Silly.

"So, largely, it comes down to what one might personally consider to be the "feature set" I agree. Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate the new "features" :-) .Doug

You and everyone else have excellent points. And I agree whole-heartedly with everyone! But what I'm saying is that to get the best out of this (hopefully new) breed of software we will need a new breed of hardware. If we run it on our systems now that give us problems....wouldn't you expect even more problems from a new FS incarnation?Maybe we should yell at MS to get on the openGL badwagon and never mind DX. Try a Xplane demo when you get a chance. It flies on most systems (no pun intended).

I think MS also has different hardware in mind but that different hardware will be an X-Box 360 ;-)The market (as Microsoft and the world sees it) lies with the casual gamer. The casual gamer ussualy doesn't have our dual core SLI ultra speed rigs. So a not fully maxed FS has to run on middle of the road hardware and has to have easy 'missions'.Its a shame they (probably) won't break competability. FS tries to be 2 things at the same time so it will not be a super arcade game a la Pilot Wings (slower, graphics could be beter) because it has to support older data formats it will not be a super realistic simulator because that would scare away 80% of the customers.

Why start another thread when in the other one you already spilled your heart out how dissappointed you are with the features of this:- not-yet-released- alpha-stage- still-to-be-developed-more-than-six-months- etcprogram you haven't even tried but have seen a few photographs of?Does it help climb to a mountaintop and shout it out? No, it just makes you look silly.. :-(

You know, if it weren't for the occasional NUGGETS* to be found here, I'd quit bothering to read this forum.I've never encountered so many folks who can make such a HUGE mountain out of what isn't even a molehill... :)Of course, that explains why none of the constant whiners will ever receive an invitation to beta test the product... :-lol* http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c...reamHI_615k.wmv