First of all, I haven't flown flight sim for about 7 months. Retirement and switching to ramping up my music business has kept me fairly busy. A couple of days ago a flight instructor friend of mine asked me to come over to his house and check out his new FSX and PC. He previously was using FS9 and said he wasn't happy with the newer version and wanted my opinion. He had a new Dell XPS 210 with a souped up graphics card ( I think it was 512 M). We fired it up and the first thing I noticed was the limitations in the default aircraft vs the LDS 767 I am used to flying. Oh well, I guess add-ons will be out soon. Then I asked him what kind of frame rates he was getting and he explained that in order to get good frame rates at the larger commercial airports he had to turn the sliders down, like autogen and AI traffic. While the sim ran smoothly, I don't think it ran any smoother than my FS9 with autogen on, and AI at about 60% on a Dell 8400. ON climb out FSX looked like it might be interesting for GA flying, but then I have Ultimate terrain and Misty Fjords and some other sceneries that are pretty good for low level GA too. I now noticed that the ATC wasn't anywhere near the quality my Radar Contact 4 and probably was about the same as FS9 when I used to use it's ATC on rare occasions ( and it would drive me bezerk) . After flying it around for about 45 minutes, I left his house fairly unimpressed, but I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I stressed the possilbilty that some patches might make it alot better.Now I get home, and run over to my PC and fire my FS9 up for the first time in over a half a year. It took me awhile to get everything running and start the engines on my 767 ( with the flight manual close by) , and fire up AS6 and RC4, but eventually I actually got clearance to taxi out to the runway on a short flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia in my UPS 767 heavy.... I had AI aircraft with me, the buildings and autogen stuff looked good, sound effects from FSE plus vehicles running around on the ramp. I looked at my frame rate and it was locked at 22 and running smoothly ( I usually leave it off unless I am getting some kind of problem). As I was flying the ILS into 9R at KPHL with pretty realistic ATC from RC4 and turbulence from AS6, I realized that FSX, compared to what I have now on this older PC, doesn't interest me very much, especially considering the money I would have to lay out to get it to run at all. Well the end result of this curiosity is that I am already planning another flight on FS9 this evening. ( here I go again!!!!!) ;-)

They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but fsx will only get better as it matures. On another note, you have my interest tweeked on this RC4 that you spoke about. What is this and does it work well? Is there an eta on an fsx version? Sounds like it might fit the bill on replacing this lame default atc.

FSX is a sim you must use a while to appreciate. At this point, I'm convinced it won't do everything FS9 does with addons, and still keep an acceptable frame rate.But it does have several distinctive pluses over FS9. The first is a very obvious improvement in texture resolution. If I climb out of KSLC and numerous other areas where it's a combination of city textures and mountains, the crisp clear look of subdivisions along the foothills, is almost photo-like, and a tremendous improvement over FS9's capability. And this is with auto-gen off, even though some are tweaking for various combinations of auto-gen.The second big item for me, is a much better sensation of flight. It's a combination of simulating moving air masses, combined with some built in head latency. And even many of the default airplanes trim much easier than FS9. Once again, it's just a much improved feel of simulating flight.I do keep settings that normally allow fps in the 25-30 range. At that point, FSX is smooth and stutter free.I've also loaded up FS9 on my newer machine, and have been adding addon's to it, once again. But..........it's just those textures and the feel of the air mass in FSX that keeps drawing me back!And FWIW, I'm 99.9% sure that the high detail airliner addons will be better off in FS9 at this stage. It's just a good reason to keep both simulations.L.Adamson

FSX is an improvement over FS9 in many aspects with the major price being FPS. I bought it the first day it came out and spent fair amount of time tweaking it and playing. Currently it's sitting on my HD unused and it'll probably remain that way for quite a long time to come (execpt for maybe playing the missions occationally). The reason is just what you said in your post, the overall experience I get out of my FS9 w/ all addons at this point is far superior to that of FSX. I figure even if right now all addons are available for X and my PC can handle them together with ease, I'd still ask myself if it's worth it to spend the $1,000 - $1,500.00 to get everything going in X. Non-speaking that I, and most others here, need to invest in a PC that doesn't exist yet. It took me a few months to switch from 2002 to 2004 and it'll take me a couple of years to do the same for X.X didn't fail me for being the next generation FS. I just won't be able to enjoy it the same way I've been enjoying FS9 till after a long time and a lot of money spent.Jason

My assessment is that if you have a fairly high end machine and mostly enjoy bush flying with stock aircraft, then your experience will be satisfactory.If on the other hand you like to fly with scenery addons and aircraft, weather, atc upgrades etc. then you will want to wait until much faster hardware is available for purchase. Purchasing a new system now will not get you there if you are in this second group of flight simmers.

Why does people continue to compare/complain about FS9 and FSX??If you don't like FSX, then stick with your FS9, don't care..---------------------------------------Kasper BehrentzsDenmarkhttp://img410.imageshack.us/img410/4853/bannerigifru8.gifALL NEWS FROM FSX COLLECTED AT ONE PLACE!MY SITE, http://www.xflightx.piczo.com

Probably just because people are people. And FSX is a bit controversial to say the least. I think it's a most natural thing to compare FSX to FS9.Doug

Modern-day musclecar afficianados may be reminded of the "discussions" in current GTO and Mustang GT forums between which of those two cars are "better". They're fairly evenly-matched in the quarter-mile with the GTO having an edge (an additional 100HP will do that despite being a bit pudgier). Others feel they're close enough to come down to a "Driver's race" which is similar to the content vs. discontent feedback here about FSX.Mustang GT owners retort that their car (with 300HP stock as opposed to the LS2's 400HP) recently "walked" a stock GTO at the last Friday night dragstrip event. Of course, they do mention having added a hot chip tune, cold air induction, and other mods. 'Stang is better.GTO owners pipe back that after adding their own mods, tunes, CAI, cam, whatever, they're getting into the 12's easily and can whip a Mustang with half their cylinders shut down. GTO is better.Mustang GT owners who've added a supercharger kit to get into the 450-500HP realm and are breaking into the 11's then brag about shutting down every GTO in the country. 'Stang is better.Point is, that once you start adding mods all bets (or comparisons) are off, aren't they. You make a good point in the same manner as far as sims go:"...the limitations in the default aircraft vs the LDS 767 I am used to flying.""ON climb out FSX looked like it might be interesting for GA flying, but then I have Ultimate terrain and Misty Fjords and some other sceneries that are pretty good for low level GA too. "I now noticed that the ATC wasn't anywhere near the quality my Radar Contact 4 and probably was about the same as FS9 when I used to use it's ATC on rare occasions ( and it would drive me bezerk)"So just as the owner of a heavily modded GTO or Mustang GT would of course choose their ride over either a stock GTO or 'Stang, it's no surprise that as you say, "...the end result of this curiosity is that I am already planning another flight on FS9 this evening."Of course...just as the modded GTO or Mustang GT would be the ride of choice down the dragstrip as opposed to plain-vanilla, stock versions of either.I know what I'm expecting, but I'm curious how that aligns with expectations of other more demanding users, and so am asking this in an honest, non-contentious and non-argumentative way: Was ACES/MS's expected goal to release a simulator that acted as a full replacement for all/most of the specialized aftermarket add-ins entirely?(and no offense to owners of other fast rides for not including their favorite make or model in the above analogy)