Since a lot simmers are putting their intial FSX experience on the forums, I thought I would chime in with mine.Bought it on the 18th at Circuit City (nice price of $47.00). Install was brainless. I even did the telephone activation and it worked like a charm. Installed it on a seperate drive from my FS9 and both seem to work just as they should... no conflics that I have encountered.I didn't install the trial or the beta version. I wanted to try it "cold" and unsuspecting. I read a lot of the threads here, the good and the bad reviews, so I think I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. Just wasn't sure if my PC could handle it or not. Quick PC review:Intel P4 3.4 Prescott2 Gig DDR2 RAMATI All-In-Wonder X800 XT 256MBWin XP Pro Sp2Bla-BlaStarted with whatever the default flight was and just let her go. 10FPS!! Yikes! But then I noticed the FPS slider was SET to 10 so I moved it up to 20. Bamm... was getting 20. Smooth as silk so I thought I would just leave it there.I tried a mission. Forget what they call this one but it is the one where you drop off relief to an African village beside a volcano. Moved some sliders up to around midrange. WoW! For a default setup I was lovin' it. Looked great - ran smooth. And Here I thought a mission would be a little bit "childish" or like an Arcade game. It was great! I didn't read any prep reports or anything just picked the mission and ran with it. Guess I was hoping to see some of that wildlife... didn't this round. Very inter-active. But what I really started to notice was the small details and enhancements. The glare on the windshields, the bloom effects, and so many more options and selections to "customize" my look and feel for this sim. I know many are struggling to get decent performance with their current rigs and I can easily have FSX bring mine to it's knees even if I OC mine to 4GHz I bet. But the potential of what we are going to experience down the road is so exciting. This version is soooo advanced compared to moving from FS2002 to FS2004 IMHO.So I will play with FSX slowly, reading up on all the new assignments and featres and waiting for all the new hardware to catch up. In the meantime, I will happily also continue to use FS9 with all sliders maxed. Who says you can only use one or the other? The only question I have is how in the heck do you guys at MS test FSX at maximum when the hardware has not really been developed for it? How do you know it will work down the road with all sliders maxed or what it will look like? I find that interesting.I guess the only thing I find a little bit of a let down is the night lighting. Maybe I am just not used to it or maybe it is a lot harder to create the effect on photoreal textures (I have the same issue in the scenery I am designing). It just looks a bit too bright and the roads appear to be like shiny ribbons. Again just my take on it.The one thing I really enjoy about this version is not the game at all but allowing the development team to be able to interact with us simmers. What a joy to read, converse and learn from the inside track. Well, this was longer than I expected. Kudos to MS and their FSX develeopment team. I am looking forward to years of enjoyment and growth with this version....just my 2 cents (well at this length - maybe 4 cents)Clutch

Thanks, Clutch. I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I've very pleased with what the mission designers have come up with. I think you'll some of the other missions very interesting and fun! Despite what you read here most users (based on our research) are likely to have an experience like yours: install the product "cold", try the intro flights, move on to missions, etc. The feedback we've received from focus and playtest groups have been very favorable. Of course, the current problems we're seeing with installation and activation are bummers, but it remains to be seen if that's the majority experience or not. Regardless we're working on finding solutions that will work for everyone.The only thing I find curious is the default target framerate of 10 FPS. On an Intel rig with 256MB of VRAM you ought to have been bumped to 15 at least, maybe 20. Anyway, it's been a while since I looked at how that code worked. Take care and enjoy!

An excellent post. Lots of people, including me, must be enjoying this new sim, despite all the negative posts.I differ on one thing, though. There's no way I could use FS9 now. FSX is just too gorgeous!Best regards, Chris