>Did you notice the multiplayer with shared cockpitsI've flown on line with others a couple of years ago and it was interesting for about 3 times, then I personally never saw the need to ever do it again. > tower viewAgain, my personal view is that the tower view was one needless stop in the way of getting to a useful view.>missionsIf there's one part of FSX that truly angers me, it's the missions. When I think of the money and manpower spent to create "looking for elephants" and "dropping bags of flour" games instead of refining and optimizing what used to be a remarkable simulator, I can only be angry that MS chose to ignore their core market in favor of teenage Christmas gifts. > better flight modelsIf you are referring to the flight models in the included new aircraft, they are fantastic. I hope someone finds a way to export them to FS9. But the flight dynamics engine of FSX remains the same as FS9.I really didn't come here to start a robust debate, I came to express my opinion that the FSX development team didn't spend very much time working on the needs, wants and desires of their old core market, choosing instead to try to capture a new market. My sincere hope is that this product doesn't kill the franchise and that the next ACES team changes their marketing strategy for FSXI.

Well I know that ms broadened out so they could sell more copies to people who aren't hard core simmers to collect more bucks because that is what it is all about BUCKS!! Okay, now imagine that some parents or grandparents buy this for their kid for xmas. When the kid sticks it in the tray he expects video game performance. After all most people that are not hard core simmers are not tweakers. Imagine the surprise when he is faced with a slide show! There will be one unhappy camper!

And the sad parts are:1. They will be unhappy about it and not be able to return it.2. The people like us that want to upgrade/tweak sadly have to do without features "HOPEFULLY" until sometime later in the future or stick with FS2004 for now. I thought I would never see FS2004 again after using the FP Beta extensively unfortunately now I don't want to see FSX until I can keep features and higher smooth frame rates.3. Flight Sim is getting a very bad black eye this time around and how can they repair it, short of building a new engine which won't happen in our lifetime.

My thoughts exactly, I noticed the game carries a 'suitable for everyone' sticker, but how many people are going to bother spending hours tweaking to make the sim work well even if they have the requisite skills, let alone a decent bit of hardware to run it on!Porca miseria, it's taken me three years to get fs2004 running sweetly.The positive side of this is that copies of FS*X will soon start appearing in second hand games shops, so I'll wait a bit before I buy it, save a few euros;)

re: "FSuX"Just curious-if you were in a room with live members of the aces team would you address their product like that to them live? It seems to be easy to be rude on the internet to people you can't see....re: "By the way, I didn't coin the expression FSuX, I wish I did. It's already in widespread use throughout the internet and if you haven't seen it yet you likely spend all of your time here."A lot of the worst things that have happened in our world have been caused by the idea that "everyone else is doing it so it is ok. You stating you wish you had come up with the term says much. re:"MS chose to ignore their core market in favor of teenage Christmas gifts." I have been a core market user since 1981-if you look at my signature I am a commercial multi engine pilot,and I am 49-I guess that makes me not a teenager. I am not into gaming at all.I have no problem with your personal opinions-but don't speak for the "core market" or "serious simmers"-you certainly don't represent my view and I am both.Expressing your views without insults and anger will probably earn you more respect-especially in the real world.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

>I really didn't come here to start a robust debate, I came to>express my opinion that the FSX development team didn't spend>very much time working on the needs, wants and desires of>their old core market, choosing instead to try to capture a>new market. My sincere hope is that this product doesn't kill>the franchise and that the next ACES team changes their>marketing strategy for FSXI.>Man I hate when people speak for me (a hard core user/developer)Got the full retail version yeasterday at best Buy, got quite a few hours in it, runs good, missions are great, love the eye candy, haven't tried the MP aspect, but looking forward to it, much more sense of flying than before and the new forests and water rule!Only thing lacking IMO is more headroom for addons, higher sliders, otherwise, I'm happy! Now I have to go dig thru the SDKs to get moy scenery projects working properly.BTW this is he first I have seen of "FSuX", maybe I am not hanging with a bad crowd or sumthin, LOLRegards, MichaelKDFW

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

>>I really didn't come here to start a robust debate, I came>to>>express my opinion that the FSX development team didn't>spend>>very much time working on the needs, wants and desires of>>their old core market, choosing instead to try to capture a>>new market. My sincere hope is that this product doesn't>kill>>the franchise and that the next ACES team changes their>>marketing strategy for FSXI.>>>>Man I hate when people speak for me (a hard core>user/developer)>Got the full retail version yeasterday at best Buy, got quite>a few hours in it, runs good, missions are great, love the eye>candy, haven't tried the MP aspect, but looking forward to it,>much more sense of flying than before and the new forests and>water rule!>>Only thing lacking IMO is more headroom for addons, higher>sliders, otherwise, I'm happy! Now I have to go dig thru the>SDKs to get moy scenery projects working properly.>>BTW this is he first I have seen of "FSuX", maybe I am not>hanging with a bad crowd or sumthin, LOL>If I go to my local Best Buy on Tuesday morning and find that, while they wouldn't sell it to me two weeks ago, that they've run out from over the weekend leaks, I'm gonna blow a major gasket.I'll probably need security...Sorry to stray from topic, but unlike the original poster, I want it and am willing to be happy with it...

>I have to say I disagree, I like it, the tower controller>option and shared cockpit is great fun. I like the way>everything looks now. One thing I am disappointed about is the>rain on the glass, there isn't any, why drop that ACES? RUSH-TO-MARKET

>Did you notice the multiplayer with shared cockpits, tower>view, missions, smoother gauge response , multiple views and>head latency, better flight models, new avionics (g1000,stec>autopilot), sharper vc views and faster instrument response>there, ability to save multiple cfgs depending on the>performance you want, new detailed airports of shareware>quality....>>Just some differences off of the top of my head that have>nothing to do with textures...>>You might want to check out some of my real compared to fsx>pictures in the screenshot forum as far as how it compares to>reality.>>By the way-I agree on the water. I leave it at 1x not for>performance-I just don't think the fancy water effects look>that real.>http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgall those added features should take up about 6-12 months, tops. not 3 years

Hope you are in charge next time so it can be done right.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Okay, now imagine that some parents or grandparents buy this for their kid for xmas. When the kid sticks it in the tray he expects video game performance. After all most people that are not hard core simmers are not tweakers. Imagine the surprise when he is faced with a slide show! There will be one unhappy camper!And this is the story of MS flight series folks. A fair amount of people will buy it because....well, it's the next in the series. When they give it to their Johnnies they fly it around a little. Find out they have to reduce everything otherwise they get a frame a second. Looks poor now. Sure don't look like Call of Duty 2. In the closet.And that's why the addon customer base is so small. Guys like us have to get more and more powerful systems with greater and greater cost and the majority just leave it to gather dust or sell it in a garage sale. Oh we're certainly hostile to the disenters. The effrontery of them who have the audacity to spend $79 and call the game names. We think it's just peachie and we have to make the sacrifices in performance by slicing and dicing, reducing, getting bigger cards, duo-core. So I don't begrudge any man who calls it as he sees it.

If you run FSX with the default sliders it sets based on your detected hardware, it actually performs quite well. Unfortunately, the default settings seem to be quite pessimistic and give some very bland graphics. Case in point is my new fire breathing desktop that I just put together (see sig) that FSX autodetected three out of five global quality settings to be "low" , one "medium" and the other "medium high" (woohoo! :-lol). Fortunately, the sim actually runs very well on this rig at high to ultra high settings, depending on location, but you can imagine my shock when I saw how FSX rated my system :-eek Gary

Crap performance out of the box, the day it ships, is a Flight Simulator hallmark. It just wouldn't be "FSxxx" if it wasn't a slideshow. That doesn't bother me too much. I'll upgrade, tweaks will come, it'll get fixed. It is a much more solid base than FS9 ever was, and has fewer bad habits, and that alone is worth the price, poor performance or not.BUT...I think MS needs to seriously rework their print advertising:"Actual Game Screenshot" needs to read truthfully as...."Actual Game Screenshot (at 3 frames per second)"or"Actual Game Screenshot (taken one year in the future, on hardware which does not yet exist):)

I am a FS user since FS4 and i dont really like FSXactually i feel misled by the screenshots.Every time i start with a new FS version i fly from Nassau to Miami Intl ...i think the textures look awefull. the water looks good at 3000feet but looks awefull at 30000feet and the textures shimmer very much.Its a slideshow. And i have a real good system and get 8-11fps and the sliders arent maxed out yet.I cant use the buttons in Virtual Cockpit mode because i cant click them the whole screen is moving all the timethe B737 autopilot doesnt work doesnt hold altitudeim tired of tweaking and updating addons.acutally i lost interest in the FS series.

"Crap performance out of the box, the day it ships, is a Flight Simulator hallmark"FS9 without the new clouds and excessively set AI traffic actually performed better then FS8."It is a much more solid base than FS9 ever was"There is no detection of AMD processors so top of the line processors get ultra low graphics settings.It does not perform better on dual cores. There is little optimalisation for dual cores so future quad cores will do nothing for your performance.The height mesh is coming up through the water creating islands and landbridges (where they sould not be).Landclass is worse then ever while it uses the same data as FS9 to show it the textures are all wrong.There are 'black hole' locations (you could also call them large cities) where your FPS are sucked up.