Hi. can anyone outline what is involved in the conversion of an airplane to run on a new flight sim engine? i'm of course thinking of FS9 in to FSX and really directing this at payware developers, some of whom in the past have upgraded the current version for free while another is recently quoted as saying that 'the update will have a VERY modest price tag'. this is extra on top of an already expensive add-on! it seems that for some anything that can generate additional revenue is immediately jumped on; is it the FSX bandwagon? anyway just wanted to share my thoughts on this subject.Adam

Adam, at this juncture there can be no definitive answer to your question, since the beta for FSX hasn't even begun, nor have the SDKs been released to developers.However, that said, given the information that has been released, it is clear that there are going to be some significant, watershed changes to the entire modeling paradigm in FSX that will certainly require payware and freeware developers to do some radical retooling of their existing models.Over the past week, Sebby has posted on his blog a three-part description of the new animation schema that FSX will use, which essentially eliminates all the stock animations in favor of completely new, XML based scripting language.Just yesterday, Sebby revealed that the old .bgl compiled models are being depecrated in favor of a completely new and more efficient file format. Although existing model files (.mdl) will continue to work, they will not be "upgradable" to take advantage of the new feature set that FSX will allow. This means developers will have to invest what may well turn out to be a huge amount of time reworking some or all of their models.In some (hopefully few!) cases, it may even be necessary to start from scratch and build an entirely new model...There are also some possibly significant changes to the panel/gauge system that has yet to be explicated, so it's difficult to prognosticate on the challenges in this venue.I suspect that any public statements made by any developer at this juncture will be couched in carefull language. To do otherwise would be imprudent, not to mention foolish... ;)Until developers have their hands on the SDKs and have an opportunity to study them carefully, they cannot possibly know what will need to be accomplished to migrate their products into full compliance with the completely new FSX modeling paradigm.In summary, anything you read at this stage of the game is simply a case of folks "hedging their bets..." ;)

I envisage running both FS9 for a long period after installing FSX in the light of what Bill has mentioned above. It's not just a question of flyable aircraft, but in my case AI aircraft, scenery and all the other utility addons that need to be compatitble before I retire FS9.

Once again I submit that imho NO developer is under ANY obligation to make an already functioning-AS-ADVERTISED addon useable in a new version of FS free of cost.It's a nice, generous tradition that is sometimes followed, nothing more.regards,Markhttp://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mar.../sup_banner.jpgXPHomeSP2/FS9.1/3.2HT/1024mb/X700pro256

>Once again I submit that imho NO developer is under ANY>obligation to make an already functioning-AS-ADVERTISED addon>useable in a new version of FS free of cost.>>It's a nice, generous tradition that is sometimes followed,>nothing more.EXACTLY!! Well said MarkRegards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

It is not necessarily a generosity-driven tradition. An addon's Sales would probably be affected if it would show up a few months before the release of a new version and an update is not anticipated.