FSX is Good - Really it is

[Guest Rick Baldwin]

Pete,Man you hit the nail on the head!One can either moan and complain that things aren't exactly as you would like, or you can work to change things for the better. -Rick----------- My System -----------P4 @ 2.53 GHz / 1GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce 6800XT, 256MB / Windows XP Home

[Guest tdragger]

>From all the comments in this thread, that one stands out the>most. This happens every single time, yet you are not inclined>to change the way you're developing the sim?>>I'd forget about backwards compatibility and design the next>version from scratch - even if it takes 3/4/5 years - truly>taking advantage of all the new technologies and giving us the>simple and often asked improvements, without having to hear>"we'd have to make major changes for that to happen/current>limitations don't allow that/etc...". Since there were three>years in between releases this time, I was hoping that it>would be the case with FSX. Unfortunately, it isn't. So>seriously, don't make the same mistake again. ;-)>>Even though the moaning will die down eventually, it doesn't>mean you're going about it the right way. Because you're not,>in my humble opinion.I suppose starting from scratch is an option, though probably not one that's economically viable. I believe I've addressed some of the reasons why in other threads so I won't repeat them here. Suffice it to say that product you see today (provide you are one of the lucky ones that have a retail copy) is the result of trying to satisfy a multitude of sometimes competing constraints (customer requirements, market size, development costs, hardware availability, etc.).Inevitably there will be people--perhaps you're one--who feel the new release was not enough of what they wanted, whether that's features, performance, compatibility, etc. We've never claimed we can create a single product to meet everyone's needs perfectly. However we try to satisfy them to such an extent that the cost of the new version exceeds the value you'll get from paying the price.

[Arklight1 140]

>>>And someone please explain to me how it's ok to have to>>turn>>>OFF autogen to enjoy a smooth experience. >>>>Who said you have to? Perhaps if you spent more time>reading>>and less time fulminating, you'd have noticed the very>simple>>tweak that you can make to the fsx.cfg file to reduce the>>number of buildings and trees to a somewhat more reasonable>>level?>>>>In the TERRAIN section, add these two lines:>>>>TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1500 // was 4500>>TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=1000 // was 3000>>>>These two lines are not in the fsx.cfg by default, but as>you>>can plainly see, the default of 4500 trees per cell is>perhaps>>a bit "high" for most user's systems, as is the default of>>3000 buildings per cell...>>>>Simple, eh?>>The guy I replied to said he turned off his autogen. Thats>who.>>Perhaps you should take your own advice before criticizing>me?>>and yes, I have implemented that tweak, with only moderate>results. Not enough to change my mood about this release. >Thanks for trying to help though.I never said I had too turn off Autogen. I said I turn off Autogen (if it was me you were responding to originally).

[Guest Pike]

>>FSX appears to be the victim of sloppy coding, not designs>for>>the future. Explain to me why after all this time, FSX WILL>>NOT support dual core processors? Even on a Vista machine? >>The reason has been explained, over and over and over. >There's no possibility you could have missed it, but here it>is again in simple terms.>>Take a length of string and tie the two ends together to form>a loop. Now you have a visual representation of flightsim's>render loop. Once started, the loop will run forever, unless>stopped manually (or by a program crash!).>>Now, take scissors and cut the string anywhere in two places. >What do you have now? Two lengths of string that aren't>connected any longer. This is what would occur if they were to>break the render loop into two segments so they'd run on>separate cores. How then, could you programmatically "splice">the two discrete sections of code stream back into a seamless>whole?>>What would happen, more often than not, is that "String A>code" would finish it's task and then wait, and wait, and wait>some more for "String B code" to finish. In effect, your>clever ploy has backfired on you, and the end result is>worse performance than may be achieved with a single>loop!>>>Others have had their work straight up stolen from them (see>FSUIPC).>>You know this to be a fact? Have you actually met Pete, or>perhaps exchanged emails with him? I know for a fact>that this statement is complete nonsense, having spoken to>Pete in person, as well as numerous forum and email>exchanges. As it happens, a lot of SimConnect's functionality>is the result of Pete cooperating with ACES in>development!One problem with your example about dual core: other games ARE utilizing dual core capabilities. Vista too. Explain that to me?And no, I do not know Pete. I work closely with someone who does, and related to me how many of Pete's FSUIPC ideas were taken and merged into FSX, making his FSUIPC for FSX redundant. If I am wrong, or Pete comes and tells me I'm an idiot, so be it. I had no reason not to 100% believe the person relaying the info to me. Calling it nonsense is unnecessary.

[Guest Pike]

Yes, but 24 FPS is the basically the most the human can distiguish. And 24 IS what television runs out, blur integreation or not. Less than that, and you see the difference. More than that, and the difference is much much less. In other words 50 FPS doesn't look all that different than 40. You probably know all that, but that was the point I was making. As long as a game runs at 24-30 FPS, and isn't choppy, then all is right with the world. But under 24 FPS, is noticeable and detracts from the experience. Those that argue the point probably hae neer had a system capable of getting them out the FPS 'cellar' so to speak.Anyway, I never meant to become the complaint bazooka or anything, but frustration can do that to ya.

[Manny 1,293]

Folks need more than 24FPS on a sim... not necessarily to run it at greater than 24FPS. But as surplus processing cycles in reserve for addons.By Christmas, the Core 2 duo will be ubquitous and your Joe 6 pack would be able to pick a Core 2 duo by HP or IBM or Dell or Comaq for $899 - $1299 from Best Buy, Circuit city and what not. they may pickup a FSX on the way out... and they'll have no problem running FSX with all its glory.For folks who have slower machines (even 1 yr old machines) its also an issue.For addon addics like me, its an issue. And there is no H/W solution in the pipleline making this issue acute, unless the ACES team addresses it. Normally, we would have to wait it out for the CPU to catch up. It looks like that option is not there this time.Manny

[vgbaron 3,716]

Pike - What makes all this difficult to understand is the fact that you can't tell if the poster is talking about demo 1, 2, beta or retail. Given the variables of every system there is NO EFFICIENT WAY to compare notes. Someone would have to design a default test flight with fixed settings, etc. We're comparing apples and oranges. One person running a p4 2.4 says " all is great - I get over 20fps!" Another, like you, with a great system, gets 12 - 13.SO WHAT? Both figures are meaningless, except to the specific users.It's been said over and over, this is the same diatribe that happened with FS9 and NOW FS9 is the hero.I tried demo 1 - played with it a bit and found it very aceptable. I've ordered the retail version. Do I expect it will blaze new trails out of the box? Not from what I've read here BUT I had the same issues with FS9 in the beginning - now, with Radar Contact and Active Sky, it is as close to flying IRL as I can come. I fully expect to have the same with FSX after I tweak a bit.And I run a P4 3.4, 2G ram - GeForce 6800 - cap at 30. If you can get over the fact that you spent a lot of $$ on speculation and that FSX doesn't take advantage of your specific hardware bells and whistles, I think you'll find that you'll get it to run just fine. It will however take time and patience.I have both and am not concerned.Try to enjoy your system.Just MHO,VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

[Guest archtx]

>"I suppose starting from scratch is an option, though probably>not one that's economically viable. I believe I've addressed>some of the reasons why in other threads so I won't repeat>them here. Suffice it to say that product you see today>(provide you are one of the lucky ones that have a retail>copy) is the result of trying to satisfy a multitude of>sometimes competing constraints (customer requirements, market>size, development costs, hardware availability, etc.).">Any chance there might be an X-Box version in the future? That would at least eliminate the issue of a broad range of hardware configurations.

[Guest tdragger]

>Any chance there might be an X-Box version in the future? That>would at least eliminate the issue of a broad range of>hardware configurations.Well, as much fun as it would be to develop for a fixed platform there doesn't seem to be much market interest in a version for the Xbox right now.

[Guest Metro_3]

DDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!Please..."My FS9 with $150 worth of addons looks better than a $70 product out of the box".FS9- $24.98 Amazon.comGround Environment- $29.95Flight Environment- $22.95Active Sky 6- $37.99Total (without any addon scenery)- $115.87 plus shipping (as necessary)Or, $70 out of the box for something that was said during development was being created for computers yet to come.No kidding....You're arguing against yourself here...And for your "Addons", you bought a Flight Simulator 2004 addon. There's no guarantee that it'll work with any other version. That's about the most foolish thing I've heard from you nay-sayers. It's like saying "I bought a headlight for my old car, but it doesn't fit into the new car! They're both cars, they're both the same model, just different years, why doesn't it work!"

[Toys_R_Us 0]

I still run a central website for a community where I previously lived, in Florida. I have about 500,000 hits per year (1350 a day), of mostly retired folks. Many are looking for new things to do as a hobby, especially the men. And, they have the time, money, brains, and desire. Many of them are former pilots.I ran 3 feature front page articles about the upcoming FSX, with very strong editorial justification of why this was the right time to jump in to the "wonderful" world of flight simulation. These front page articles were lengthy and included, pictures, feature lists, and talk about new functions never seen before. They also included links to Avsim and other interesting places. I sold them the world, right at their fingertips, and in all of it's beauty. Picures and all !I further did recommend that they not consider the simulation, without having a fairly good PC, or be prepared to buy a pretty decent new one.Then this disaster hits ! These folks can't be expected to go out and buy machines that are "spec'd" to the hilt by what they would call "experts" who know about, RAID 0, PCIe, Core 2, Dual Core, 64 Bit, Vista, DX-10, 2 gigabytes of special high speed ram, special and specific model number high end video cards with abundant memory and special drivers. Their extreme edges of knowledge are "Pentium", "VGA" and for sure "Dell", maybe. Now if they did go out and manage to actually buy a decent machine, does anyone in their right mind they are going to suddenly become tweaking experts, ".CFG" file editors, and folder-file sorters & eliminators, just to get the dXXXed thing even remotely reasonable to view without being nothing more than a "slide show". I quickly went into my website and posted a simple retraction headlined... "FSX - Not Ready For Prime Time.", and a brief description of the problem.I didn't like to do that, but I felt is was the right thing to do for these particular folks, and I continue to see it that way for now.I think MS needs to know about the kind of business they are losing by bringing out a product like this after 3.3 years of development. Bob (Las Cruces NM)

[Manny 1,293]

Bob,I am predicting (Just a hunch) that if they buy new PCs during the Christias holidays... a Core 2 Duo E6300 machine would run FSX pretty decent. You don't need RAID 0 and what not... A Core 2 Duo is required, along with 2Gig RAM and a half decent video card. i.e. provided they go buy a new PC... not, just get FSX and run on their old PC they may be using for their E-mails and stuff.As long as you don't introduce them to Addons, They may be OK.:)Manny

[Guest Rayed]

>My system.>>1. Core 2 Duo. E6600 OCed to 3.3Ghz. 2Gig RAM, nVidia 7600XT>256MB. 19" CRT Monitor (I am yet to attach the 24" Widescreen>to it)>>FSX runs with almost everything to the right (90%) and I get>15-20FPS and runs very smooth. and FSX is specatcular.>>ISSUE 1: Not much room for AI and other addons like Fly Tampa.>>>ISSUE 2: Future h/w is in Multi core...so no solution from the>Hardware front on the horizon.>>I look at MS Fsim as a Flight Sim operating system with the>add ons as applications running on the Fsim OS. :)>>Manny512 megs of ram on gfx card makes a lot of difference, just a suggestion if you would like to improve performance, but I'd wait for new nvidias 8xxx. Also I'd not even touch FSX w/o 2Gigs of system memory on board (which you obviously have). I believe with great system as yours, you should not worry about addons. Addons won't be out soon, and then you just upgrade gfx card and off you go!Also muticore does help. It just free up more processor resources for FSX, I believe there is a noticeable difference. Well written application will use multithreading via system.Cannot wait for release version (probably will get it at the end of the month, busy at work). People still don't realize how revolutionary this release is (7 cm/pixel textures!!, 76m default mesh, etc...). It might be picky on hardware, but which PC game isn't... problems like that will be sorted out and believe me it's not easy (next to impossible) and costs a lot of money to beta test every possible PC configuration.P.S. I am running demo on nvidia quadro FX4500 + dual opterons (4 cores in total) system and my results are only a wee bit better than yours :). (not trying to smash FSX at all, just a bit nervous ;) about how good gaming systems are these days!). Try it on 24 wide ASAP, looks gorgeous.

[Guest Rayed]

>>Any chance there might be an X-Box version in the future?>That>>would at least eliminate the issue of a broad range of>>hardware configurations.>>Well, as much fun as it would be to develop for a fixed>platform there doesn't seem to be much market interest in a>version for the Xbox right now.>Count me in.. if your marketing department will do a survey, lemme know, I'll get my girlfriend and friends to vote ;).Seriously.. it's a pity, would love to have FSX on XBOX360, even a slimmed down version.

[Mike... 7]

>I suppose starting from scratch is an option, though probably>not one that's economically viable. I believe I've addressed>some of the reasons why in other threads so I won't repeat>them here. Suffice it to say that product you see today> (provide you are one of the lucky ones that have a retail>copy) is the result of trying to satisfy a multitude of>sometimes competing constraints (customer requirements, market>size, development costs, hardware availability, etc.).>>Inevitably there will be people--perhaps you're one--who feel>the new release was not enough of what they wanted, whether>that's features, performance, compatibility, etc. We've never>claimed we can create a single product to meet everyone's>needs perfectly. However we try to satisfy them to such an>extent that the cost of the new version exceeds the value>you'll get from paying the price.Fair enough. I understand you're in a difficult position. I wouldn't want to trade places, that's for sure. The rest I'll save for that e-mail address you just posted, I wouldn't want my thoughts to get lost among the inane drivel. :DAnyway, even though I was disappointed to learn some areas I'm interested in weren't really improved, I'm looking forward to seeing it in action. I don't have a copy yet, it's being released this Friday here and I'll pick up the Deluxe version. Friday the 13th. ;-)