Well, I've been a Flight Simmer for over 10 years now. I've even built my own real cockpit: http://www.cessnasim.comSo, we've been tortured with the wait. We've all wanted to try the brand new sim out. From all the hype and waiting, my assumption was that we were going to get a totally new sim. I must have not followed closely but all that I can tell is that I went out and spent $70 bucks on the FSX Deluxe version and here I am after taking a few flights. I cannot say that I am "blown away" by the new sim. It has issues, mostly with rendering and I've tried it on an ATI X1600 XT and an older PCI Express Gforce 6600. I don't play around when it comes to hardware. I've tried it out on my dual core P4 3.4 ghz at work (4 GB DDR2 667 mhz RAM) and I tried it out on my cessna cockpit computer (P4 3.4 ghz with 2 GB DDR2 533 mhz RAM). The framerates were pretty #### slow, it studdered quite a bit and overall I cannot say that I'm seeing anything new compared to what my FS2004 looks like with some good 3rd party add-ons.The entire interface for FSX looks much like FS2004 but with "Apple" like title bars and etc. The G1000 is pretty sweet, I must say and a friend of mine and I played multiplayer and I transferred the controls to him and back to me and etc. That was pretty neat. I've been playing Battlefield 2 alot lately and I am just wondering how in the world can that game run so smoothly on my computer -- even in 64 player mode on any map -- and FSX runs like a slide show? I know there's great dynamics in FSX and all but seriously, why wasn't the engine redesigned from the ground up? It's been 3 years since FS2004 was released (September 2003 I believe) and there have been soo many add-ons to improve the sim, why hasn't MS really nailed it on this one?I could go on for an hour typing about this, but I don't need to. All I can say is that I'm mildly impressed compared to what I thought I was going to get, but then again, I've been a Flight simmer for over 10 years now and I have been let down release after release until FS2004.I've got the top-of-the-line hardware and video cards, the only thing I don't have is DX10, but I don't expect to have that on my XP box. I just don't know what to say. To summarize my opinion, and this is just my opinion, FSX looks like a "touched up" FS2004 is all to me. I am not totally disappointed, and I am not totally suprised. I feel like I just got my house painted. It's the same house, just new paint is all.Feel free to bash away as I am sure some people will because I have voiced my opinion, but seriously, I'm not saying that FSX is junk, I'm just saying....

I believe that was a well thought out criticism undeserving of being bashed. I unfortunately can't agree or disagree as I'm still awaiting my copy but as I learned with FS9 sometimes a new simulator has to grow on you. Anway, good post.Ian.

It's ok, Eric. I totally understand. I bought it first thing this morning, and by tonight it has been uninstalled. I'll install it again when there is a patch and/or more tweaks and fixes have been discovered.

If you want to actually simulate flying, yes, absolutely it is worth it.For a long time various iterations of FS have been chiefly concerned with doing nothing more than prettying thngs up and extending the database of airports. However, the big difference with FSX is that this time an attempt has been made to actually improve its primary purpose, which is to simulate flight. In this respect FSX is far better than previous incarnations.This is THE big improvement and it's not before time.Anyone with any real experience of flying will readily attest that prior to this version, FS merely offered the ability to load up numerous pretty models that traverse the skies as though they were sat on some kind of invisible tarmac. Now with FSX there is far more reason to contemplate the kind of things you do when you are actually at the controls of the genuine machine. Icing up, wind shear, changes in air mass and dynamic, these have all been conspicuous by their absence in earlier versions, and if they did feature at all, it was not in a convincing manner. FSX has changed this. Now things are actually approaching the 'as real as it gets' claim. And if that's not an improvement, I don't know what is.Couple this with the fact that the missions feature has the potential to greatly increase the entire remit of the simulation, and you have a product that has grown up and become what it always pretended to be.That said, I think FSX also has a pretty good shot at improving the FS appearance too, take a flight at night and see the difference in the terrain; it is far and away more convincing than previous versions. Normally eye-candy is the least of my concerns for a simulation, as I want it to simulate flying not emulate the look of it, but I have to say that the night lighting effects are really very good and a nice addition to what for me is a stand out version of FS because of the implementation of a genuine attempt to simulate moving through a body of air.Take a trip in the glider and do the soaring lesson if you need convincing.And finally, yes it needs a better machine to run it, but so have all the other versions of FS too, and this one at least justifies that demand with something more than eye-candy.

I have to say that I agree with your analysis. Some areas of the FSX world seem really amazing. The city textures, farmland. Other areas seem very sparse to me. Right now I am mostly flying FS9 as it has all my add-ons which I can't do without. I am getting ok frame rates with FSX on a pretty good system. I shudder to think what will happen when I add all PMDG aircrafts, active sky, ultimate terrain, traffic add-ons and the many airports I have bought, From my reading in these forums and the FS Team blogs I think that this will prove to be an amazing sim once the hardware catches up and the add-on makers begin to utilize what they now have. I would wager that in a couple of years once the add-ons come out (and we have all spent thousands more) then we will see a truly amazing sim that does not even compare. It takes alot of time, tinkering and money but the way I look at is I will never really be able to go out and get a real pilots license, so I am happy to spend some on this great hobby. Time will tell if this sim grows up to be better than its older sibling FS9.

Hi Eric,I am totally impressed by your perseverance in the flight simulator you made! I wish to do something similar but I am going to build mine custom. Have been checking around and figure I can get started this winter. I would like to communicate with you on this if you have the time.That being said, I am also in agreement with the "same old house, new paint" feeling about FSX. But the paint is really detailed! No more downloading addons that give more realism. That, to me, is worth the buck. I have been flying 2004 for over a year and the freeware addons, although very appreciated, just don't do it. The trees in FSX at low altitude are worth my 70 bucks alone...

It seems people with 2G or RAM and 512M vid cards are getting far better performance than the rest of us.1G vid cards are on the horizon and once they are available, and you've also got 3-4Gigs of RAM installed, you'll see FSX run the way it was meant to.In about a year such systems will actually be quite affordable. I have a feeling FSX may have been released too early.James

Well, I don't plan to shelve my FSX just yet. I definitely want to mess with it some more and try out some of the other things. I've got the hardware, I just don't know if I have the patience anymore. Years of tweaking FS2004 and loading add-ons, etc. I've probably lost more software keys for FS add-ons than I can count. Well, thanks for the follow-ups. I'm happy to see that my post was taken in a manner that wasn't me crying about FSX.

I don't know if you are aware of DX10 and how it's not just another upgrade. It's built from the ground up. Anyways heres a good link if you want to read about DX10. We just have to wait around patiently and hope that the DX10 patch really improves things and I honestly think it will.http://blogs.technet.com/windowsvista/articles/447226.aspxDon't forget that this game was released MONTHS before Microsoft's new operating system Vista and next generation DirectX application. Wait until you see some of the specs from the earliest DX10 cards. We are talking 1gb video memory easily and some crazy specs. There's next gen console gaming and now there is next gen pc gaming. This game IMHO was made for next gen pc gaming which is right around the corner. I just hope that MS will come through with an excellent patch taking advantage of as much as they possibly can with Vista/DX10.

>It seems people with 2G or RAM and 512M vid cards are getting>far better performance than the rest of us.>>1G vid cards are on the horizon and once they are available,>and you've also got 3-4Gigs of RAM installed, you'll see FSX>run the way it was meant to.>>In about a year such systems will actually be quite>affordable. I have a feeling FSX may have been released too>early.>s>Jamesi think its going be longer then a year until we see FSX run the way its suppose to run.

>>It seems people with 2G or RAM and 512M vid cards are>getting>>far better performance than the rest of us.>>>>1G vid cards are on the horizon and once they are available,>>and you've also got 3-4Gigs of RAM installed, you'll see FSX>>run the way it was meant to.>>>>In about a year such systems will actually be quite>>affordable. I have a feeling FSX may have been released too>>early.>>s>>James>actually i dont think the real problem is video ram or system ram...in some cases where youre running a very old video card (less than 256mb ram)or you have less than 1 gig of system ram then yes you will even be getting worse performance than the majority. The biggest and baddest problem i can see so far is the exact same as it has been for all these years in flightsim...its the cpu choking. 3-4 gigs is simply not enough for this game. 4-5 gigs is alot more reasonable and i would think 6 gigs would be running everything maxed at not fantastic but acceptable rates.Im saying this because i tested both my system ram and gpu ram being used as i flew along in the sim around NYC...and when the fps would take a dive neither one of those was even close to being maxed out (i have 2 gigs system and 256mb gpu ram...i barely went over 1 gig of system ram being used and never over 145mb gpu ram) which leads me to believe its the cpu thats bottlenecked in this game alot more than the memory.Also keep in mind that i tested this after applying some of the texture and cfg tweaks floating around...so it was not a stock install...but it actually proves my point even more so i feel, that even after relieveing you gpu and system ram youll still tank on the fps in busy places or in larger more complicated aircraft....so umm, we're gonna need a big bad a** cpu for this puppy.anyone running this on an amd fx-57 single core by chance?...isnt that supposed to run things at a virtual 5.7gigs?..it would be interesting to see results with that proc in comparison to all the dual core's.Dave