X-Plane is competition, ships on 8 DVDs with mesh and terrain textures of any part of the world, has autogen that rivals FSX, birds, moving cars, excellent flight model and runs with 50fps on my system with everything maxed. In my eyes that would be a pretty strong (if not the strongest) competition out there. Yes, X-Plane is lacking AI traffic, ATC and some other important goodies, but it's still a good sim.Granted, things would have been a lot more interesting things, if Richard Harvey was still alive. We might have seen a Fly 4 by now *sigh*. God bless him.The numerous add-on artists and developers are the ones shaping the sim. Imagine FS9 without any add-ons and compare that to FSX. MS gives us the base and the tools. At least that's how I see it. And I think a few darn exciting things are coming up pretty soon.Pat

>World hunger - usually caused by a few large corporations>monopolizing the food industry WRONG. World hunger is man-made by corrupt local governments and food corportations have nothing to do with it. If this is your level of understanding of the current world no wonder your have have no clue about flight simulation either :-lolMichael J.

I'm new to the forums here but by no means new to the world of flight sims (way back to FS4 on my 16 mhz CPU) and this post is brilliant. Am I happy with what I've read about FSX? Not really. Did I buy it? No, I'm sticking with FS9 for now but I can at least make a statement that our hobby is now owned by a large corporation with vested interest in not only the income stream from our hobby but in an associated operating system whose characteristics (functionality, bugs, customer support, etc.) are beginning to appear at the very core of what our product has become.Maybe this has always been the case to some extent, but I know in the old days I could fire up a flight sim (MS or otherwise) and not have to worry about the program being so intricately tied to the creators of the OS and a broad new market appeal. I was just there to fly, and to expect the absolute best for my money "out of the box" plus whatever add-ons I could get my hands on as a virtual pilot. Have there always been bugs at time of release? Yes, but with competition the developers have to look long and hard at certain details their customers expect, demand even, before final release. And if they don't, well they're out of business and deservedly so short of any reasons external to the product itself. Which will never happen with MSFS because its sustainability is credited more to the health of the author than to the product.Oh FS is a popular franchise no doubt, and it has to be somewhat good at what it does to even exist. But think about it: improved ATC and AI traffic? Accurate flight models within reason on every included aircract? Generally accurate mesh AND landclass? A reworked weather engine to truly simulate the environment immediately surrounding our favorite planes? Programming that takes full advantage of the latest CPU's and GPU's? More flexibility within the program without having to endlessly tweak config files in a text editor? Not having the silly program distrust us because we happen to go through some regular hardware upgrades to make it run better? These are things I expect in a flight simulator, and always hoped would improve with the advancement of our hobby and of technology.Perhaps those improvements will still take place. And don't get me wrong, a lot has changed for the better... the round earth model, new textures, the shared cockpit, attention to graphic detail a.k.a. eye candy. I'm just guessing that if more competition existed leading up to FSX release, things would be different than they are today. They'd have to be, it's called accountability to sales and the bottom line. Maybe none of us would be dealing with a half-finished product that was obviously pushed to market a little too soon. Then again maybe it's this accountability that prevents serious FS competition in the first place. Which is sad because the free market is supposed to be on our side here... though one can always wish for the ideal I suppose!Just my opinion.Aaron H

X-Plane --> http://www.x-plane.com/

Geof,So true!Regarding Fly!, Fly!2K and Fly!II, some people are still adding to the program with FlyLegacy.I downloaded the ProTrainer Demo from ETC Interactive and am having trouble with the rudder control. Can't get right rudder to function by using the keyboard command (.).What was the lead programmer's last name? All I remember is that it started with a P. Mark P?

> WRONG. World hunger is man-made by corrupt local governments One could say that corrupt governments exist because there is nobody in a position to compete with them...Personally, I think bringing larger-scale humanitarian issues into a discussion centered around an electronic entertainment title is a little absurd in the first place, but that's just me. When the original poster mentioned needing competiton inside the realm of software development - I don't think it was even remotely in the same context as needing food, water and shelter...

>In my eyes that>would be a pretty strong (if not the strongest) competition>out there. Yes, X-Plane is lacking AI traffic, ATC and some>other important goodies, but it's still a good sim.IMO, I believe that X-Plane with global scenery is worthwhile competition too. However, I wouldn't be satisified with X-Plane, to the point of replacing either FS9 or FSX with it.Since I'm in the explore a new sim mood at the moment, I use both FSX & X-Plane 8 about 50/50.BTW- the X-Plane global scenery disks that use higher resolution mesh data, cover the world from 60 degrees north latitude to 54 degrees south. For Alaska, as an example, you'd have to use some prior version scenery. The generic photo real city scape textures of X-Plane mesh is much like whats included in FSX, although not quite as clear from a low alitude, but sharpens rather quickly. And the included airport layouts don't rival FSX or FS9 at all, although you can import models.I do think that if X-Plane was the new FSX from Microsoft; that we'd certainly hear the endless groans on these forums that we do now, perhaps more! X-Plane with global scenery mesh certainly runs at high fps (I get 36-72), but then you need a decent CPU and you won't be getting those fancy frame rate hogging airports, that many want!L.Adamson

>>>The numerous add-on artists and developers are the ones>shaping the sim. Imagine FS9 without any add-ons and compare>that to FSX. MS gives us the base and the tools. >>PatMS gives us the base and the tools with FSX?But thats where I find a gap. There is not much room within FSX for addons. We need FSX to operate at 70-100FPS. and the CPU technology is going in another direction than from what FSX can use. However your argument is valid when we migrated from 2002 to 2004.:)Manny

Thank you

Hi Bill-Unfortunately that's about all I can remember too!http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

>>World hunger - usually caused by a few large corporations>>monopolizing the food industry >>WRONG. World hunger is man-made by corrupt local>governments and food corportations have nothing to do with it.>If this is your level of understanding of the current world no>wonder your have have no clue about flight simulation either>:-lol>>Michael J.>Wrong yet again - if you really really think about it - it is the product of the smallest country in the World having spent the last 1400 years raping and pillaging all sorts of civilisations for their WEALTH (obliterating them in a lot of instances) and placing themselves in a possition of POWER so that they can control entire economy's without the obligation to ever pay taxes to anyone on the biggest FORTUNE ever ammased in the history of civilisationThink about it - BG has still a long way to go to achieve the ultimate status - but his company is working on it with alliesbtw - have you actually ever tried to find out exactly WHO owns the biggest companies in the World - including those that own the biggest real estate Holdings and the biggest Tobacco Companies and Food companiesA few thousand tonnes of GOLD stolen from undeveloped civilisations back a few hundred years ago provide a very nice base to further expansion - what a pity they dont have to pay taxes like the rest of us

Wholly crap !!You are joking , right? Whatever happened 1400 yers ago have nothing to do with hunger today say in East Africa where warlords and other local factors prevent food delivery and pillage wahatever is left. Get real or stop smoking and inhaling. Unless you are one of those people that specialize in global conspiracies, then I do understand. Linking gold with hunger - good demo of your IQ. Michael J.

>Well I guess I'll bite and insert my opinion on your opinion.Well I suppose I will do the same - since we have both been around - about the same time>>You mentioned three things that I can see. Perhaps there more>but mainly I see three.>>1) Performance:>>Some people like the idea that as the sim ages you can get>newer hardware to receive a better looking and performing sim.There are also some people that are observant enough to realise that this is just another ploy to control the Earth by stealth - there are much publised "requirements for FSX" - namely the absolute necessity to have XP SP 2 - that in itself supercedes some of the original EULA and adds potentially destructive powers to a certain company upon their whim - which is of course ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS HONOURABLE - sorry - I have to include here a very distinct DONKEY LAUGH>2) There are certainly some people that are having activation>issues. That could possibly come under the category of Understatement of the Year>However, I do think that number is probably a somewhat small >percentage, but it's also probably larger than it should have been!Do Tell >I'd be fairly ticked off and probably even be thinking about>getting a refund Try that and see how you go - it would be quite interestin>The new activation system may end up turning some people off and away. Do Tell - most of us are sick to death of the concept - having read numerous posts of hypothetical difficulties that will ONLY GET WORSE IF WE ARE stupid enough to install Vista>How much it deters piratesIts not about combatting Pirates - It is about double or triple charging LEGITIMATE USERS to compensate for Piracy that they cannot stop>and well it works in bringing in more revenue, Not even worth a comment>3) Competition:> Nevertheless, in the end I think MSFS is>pretty darn cool. And for them having the ability to be able>to pretty much dish out whatever they want to us, I feel they>do a pretty decent job at advancing the sim and I am grateful>that new versions continue to be developed. Now for a poke at>my gripe with the current version... ;) However, if there were>some heavy hitting competition I have some doubt that we would>have seen the Great Sahara Deserts of the Globe(from what I>hear, I have yet to fly outside of Colorado yet, but it too>has vast swaths of desert) and the Rockie Mountain Range>turned into the Sandy Mountain Peak Range that we got handed>to us in FSX!!Well - IMHO - you sort of hit the nail on the head - but - lets not lose sight of the fact that nobody appears to have been able to improve all that much on the original assembler model - otherwise - why are they still using it - this is absolutely NO DISRESPECT to the ACES team - they are only doing what they are told to do by some bean counting peanutWhat gets up my nose is the fact that the overall "owner of the original software - by aquististion" is using it's popularity to enforce draconian measures of Privacy Invasion by stealth.Perhaps it is time fr everyone to contact their own particular representative to try and resolve the issue as the EU are attenpting to do Some Google searches that may be of interest - dont bother with MSN for obvious reasonsCombine target company with all itterations of Anti-trustCombine target company with all itterations of WGACombine target company with all itterations of Vista and/or EULACombine target company with all itterations of DRMHave a great day and great reading - contact your Political representative with whatever results you find - I have