FSX hits the streets tomorrow in the USA and if anyone was wondering whether or not to get it maybe this will help.If the cost of the program doesn't seem like a lot of money to you and you've been anxious to get it, by all means, go ahead and get it. Sure the criticism here has been brutal, that's because the early birds were the first to have their high expectations justifiably turn to disappointment. If you've been reading here this week, your expectations are likely not so high now.You are no doubt ready to be shocked by the frame rate hit, but frame rates can be managed to a point where even a guy like me with a single core 2003 computer can fly around the FSX world. Expect a lot of work to make things acceptable.You will be greeted with a new look to the flight sim world on the ground. Some people are thrilled with the look right out of the box; others like me find it imperfect. Expect the water to be hideous as usual and need new textures. Expect to see sloppy landclass decisions that create arid plains in jungle parts of Africa and Canadian mountains that look like sand piles with ice cream on top. Expect textures that are new and hold great potential to look fantastic. Also expect textures that are different but not necessarily better. The first "must have" blockbuster add-on for FSX will likely be products like Ground Environment FSX or BirdsEyeView FSX that correct all this. They won't be little products. Expect a lot of work to make things acceptable.On the plus side of things, all of the aircraft are way above Microsoft's old standards. I was pleased to see roads that were straight edged instead of spray-painted. Some people love the missions. Some people can't wait to fly on line with others. And, I'm sure everyone who downloaded the demo can see the nice little changes to the interface.Where does this leave us?I think the important concept here is to expect a lot of work to make things acceptable. I plan to let FSX live on my hard drive next to my more highly refined and in most cases better looking FS9 while things evolve.So, what's the point of getting it?As I see it, what we're really buying with FSX are two little things that FS9 will never have: 1) Terrain mesh complexity can be set to 1 meter 2) And, terrain texture resolution down to 7 cm.This means that in the years to come when we have more capable graphics systems and add-on developers have a year or two to work on scenery we have the potential for mind boggling add-ons. In summary, for many of us FSX is not ready for prime time and it won't be for quite some time. I intend to piddle with it and I'm sure some day in the distant future there will come a sad day when I press the uninstall button for FS9.

Well said

Nice read, but just goes to show not all simmers want the same things.In addition to the 1) Terrain mesh complexity can be set to 1 meter2) And, terrain texture resolution down to 7 cm. there is also much better/realistic water, the ability for more, much autogen objects per tile (FS has a limit) and much more advanced animations, which means the world can be brought alive compared to what FS9 offered. I am also hyped about the opening up of space and the ability to fly over the poles. Imagine the ground detail once we have the systems to max it all out and with the great 3rd party addons, wow.The main problem as I see it is that we have too high of expectations which is why we are dissapointed. Those that like big airports with lots of AI will not be happy as the performance will kill it, but you can get a great GA experience with a high end rig at present.Granted, there are issues and bugs, but I really hope everyone gives the product a chance before jumping on the complaining bandwagon as some here have that haven't even used the product.Regards, MichaelKDFW

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

I doubt very frankly that folks in this forum (in particular) had too high expectations. The reality of this release is that in order to run it well enough to simulate flying (not taking screesnhots) it has to be dumbed down far too much in the display qualities department. It is defintely NOT too high of an expectation to get some form of marginal improvement over what we have now and do it with at least playable frame rates. As Master said so well above, it will be some time before we see required improvements in textures and landclass, along with systems capable of running this software at reasonable frame rates. It will stay on my HD also but I won't invest in it for quite some time waiting while I wait for the hardware to catch up.

This all convinced me. I just cancelled my order. I did like the water though but all I need is another 2 years of frustration as I did with FS9. Tweaking this, tweaking that, this stutter fix, improve frame rates with that. I've spent more time tweaking than flying over the past 3 years. The last year has been good, still no city flying once I added UT, FSmesh, ASV6 etc......Oops...hold on, this is my hobby. If I didn't experience the above where would the fun be? ...where's the phone? :)Ian.

That's right. If you don't like tweaking, you're in the wrong hobby.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Ah --- Now we know.Many of us love to fly but more probably love to tweak and tweak our FS. I have flown thousands of hours in FS9 and likely spent thousands of hours downloading, changing, tweaking, installing and uninstalling FS add-ons.I am ready for FSX to let me start it again on a new product. Long live the franchise.

Even letting it sit on your hard drive for the time being alongside FS9 in anticipation of a future upgrade to a new you beaut system that can handle FSX has its penalty with the activation hassles that MS have chosen to throw in for good measure.Bruceb