External beta testing and Vista

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

Only our friends from MS in the forum may or may not know the answer.I presume that in the not to distant future FSX will go out to external beta maybe a couple of months???Those lucky enough to beta will be testing on XP. How will that effect the final Vista versions?Vista could still be some way off so unless MS give beta testers the important bits of Vista needed to max FSX the beta testers will be testing on a platform which isnt designed to extract the most from FSX.I do not know of any previous versions of MSFS which has been developed and released on a platform it hasnt been designed to show its maximum potential on. Bug reports and crashes will be on XP and not Vista.PeterNB My knowledge is this area isnt great so maybe I am presuming wrong?

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Those that are included in the beta of any product will not be allowed to discuss any details you are asking about during the beta.I believe though that your question might be partially answered in some blogs are here in this forum in a round about manner.The outcome I think will be great for all users, if I've read right. :-)

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

round about is fine as I wouldnt want anyone to break an NDA. Nevertheless it does pose an interesting dilema especially weeding out bugs on new technologies in FSX which rely on Vista.If Vista is released late we could have a situation of an XP release followed by a patch for a Vista release and any problems which do not become apparent on internal testing having to be dealt with in such a patch.Peter

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Again, from the 'sounds' of things that are public knowledge, new features don't necessarily effect things down the line. I think Steve Lacey explained it a little in his blog a while ago as it pertained to graphics.You have to reverse your thinking and you'll be fine...lol.What I understand that to mean is that the new FS might be 'downward compatible' not the other way around. So if it's built with the all the new goodies or 'ready' then by using XP you may not be able to see or use them all until you have the new OS or say DX10.That's a very very very general statement and is by no means mechnically accurate, but I think you see my point. I think you can see by the screenshots we'll have all the tools we need at the first release so migration to take advantage of new features should not be a major factor. Again, I could be wrong, and maybe we will need something else from the FS team, but just by looking and hearing we should have a easy time of it.Jason or Mike can explain it better.

[Guest Bell206freak]

The last I heard regarding Vista, it's gonna ship on time.http://www.komotv.com/stories/42081.htm

[tgibson 11]

Hi,As I understand it, the current plan is FSX will ship as an XP/DX9 product, and only later might have an update for Vista/DX10. Everything they plan on doing in the initial release will be DX9 compatible, so I doubt you will see much difference in the sim when moving to DX10 (but they might add something??). You will hopefully have a performance improvement, though.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Currently that's an easy to way to look at it this very instant. I think things are a little more fluid though with this release. I know it's been said that most of the features have been locked, if I've read correctly here in the forums, but I also think there's not much or will not be much to do to FS for the Vista release.My thinking is that it's a little early to say things have been 'totally' locked down, as I think the FS team and MS are a little more forward thinking than they lead us to believe .

[Guest tdragger]

<There are already versions of Vista being "beta tested". Presumably many FS beta testers will also have Vista.

[lmponte 0]

One thing that I didn't yet understand well is this DX9/XP and DX10/Vista thing...Can anyone from MS confirm that we will have FSX shipped with DX10 support, but some features will be disabled whn running under DX9?

[n4gix 4,947]

>One thing that I didn't yet understand well is this DX9/XP>and DX10/Vista thing...>>Can anyone from MS confirm that we will have FSX shipped with>DX10 support, but some features will be disabled whn running>under DX9?"Someone from MS" has already confirmed that FSX will ship with DX9 functionality...

[Guest]

If you'd read the information available already you'd know the answer to that already and it's a resounding NO.

[tgibson 11]

Hi,I know things are not locked down - that's why I said the "current plan". It may be very different if FSX is delayed and Vista is early, or visa versa (for example).Take care,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Yeah, rgr that, it can get confusing some times.

[Guest tdragger]

Or, because I'm a full service kinda guy: http://blogs.msdn.com/tdragger/archive/200.../23/516653.aspx.

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Link doesn't work. :( lol