FSX : does it have a future ? ...

[n4gix 4,961]

>Cost me eighty unrefundable>quid)but!MS offers a very generous 45 day refund. Please take advantage of it and... move on. ;)

[Guest Valkyrie321]

>MS offers a very generous 45 day refund. Please take>advantage of it and... move on. ;)^ *nods*

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

nah!smugSecond rate we love itAndy

[LAdamson 240]

>As a throw-away suggestion, but one which I think actually>deserves SERIOUS consideration, I put it to the ACES team that>what they SHOULD do is abandon FSX for a year or two, and>patch FS9 to near-FSX levels in the key areas of>scenery and texture resolution, autogen and the replication of>atmospherics and flight dynamics. >Let's see...Rewrite FS9 to increase texture resolution from 4.8 meters per pixel to approx. 1 meter. I hear the file sizes are about 16 times larger, but it sure would look a whole lot better, wouldn't it?Rewrite FS9 to better simulate moving airmasses, and increase the percieved feel & look of flight overall. Yes, this would be an excellent improvement!And while they're at it, Aces might as well supply FS9 with up to date, topigraphical & navigation data-bases. Sure wouldn't hurt!All the above, is what I prefer FSX for. As a business owner myself, would I expect a complete re-write of FS9 as a patch for free, or just market three years of programming, and call it FSX? Your "serious consideration" makes little economic sense. Microsoft would be fools to do it, and so would Austin Meyer from X-Plane. Notice that these two simulations, are the only "full world" flight sims in existance. You don't stay in business by issueing patches every three years. L.Adamson

[Guest allcott]

>>As a throw-away suggestion, but one which I think actually>>deserves SERIOUS consideration, I put it to the ACES team>that>>what they SHOULD do is abandon FSX for a year or two, and>>patch FS9 to near-FSX levels in the key areas of>>scenery and texture resolution, autogen and the replication>of>>atmospherics and flight dynamics. >>>>Let's see...>>Rewrite FS9 to increase texture resolution from 4.8 meters per>pixel to approx. 1 meter. I hear the file sizes are about 16>times larger, but it sure would look a whole lot better,>wouldn't it?>>Rewrite FS9 to better simulate moving airmasses, and increase>the percieved feel & look of flight overall. Yes, this would>be an excellent improvement!>>And while they're at it, Aces might as well supply FS9 with up>to date, topigraphical & navigation data-bases. Sure wouldn't>hurt!>>All the above, is what I prefer FSX for. As a business owner>myself, would I expect a complete re-write of FS9 as a patch>for free, or just market three years of programming, and call>it FSX? Your "serious consideration" makes little economic>sense. Microsoft would be fools to do it, and so would Austin>Meyer from X-Plane. Notice that these two simulations, are the>only "full world" flight sims in existance. You don't stay in>business by issueing patches every three years. >>L.Adamson>>And the economic sense in issuing a product which is dead before its born by being unusable on most systems is?What MS have been dealt here is a serious economic lesson - that simmers won't just buy any old tat and sit on it until the hardware exists to run it halfway decently. Instead, they either return it (I believe some of the major stores are seeing a 2-in-5 return rate and my local PC World only has 2 copies on display, not because they've sold the rest but that is all they need to maintain stock levels, the manager told me) or just don't buy it in the first place, which we have seen happening in this forum and elsewhere. And let us never forget we represent the enthusiast tip of a mmuch larger customer base, who if our results are to be believed are staying away in droves. Hopefully, the salutary lesson being delivered is that it was a mistake not to withhold the game until after Vista release, make it DX10 only and have it work out of the box with the hardware it should have been designed for, even if that meant waiting six months while the hardware matured. But that's not OUR problem. MS released this product in full knowledge of its shortcomings into an XP-DX9 world. Now they are the ones who need to do something `economically sensible` to retrieve the situation. And fixing FSX might NOT be the best answer, if there might be an `easier` solution (one achievable within a timescale abd budget that would ensure the survival of the FSX name, as shelfspace costs, and MS will only have purchased a limited time on prime position, after which the product is relegated to the bottom or top shelf as a long-term `slow burner`). To be honest, MS could have done a lot worse than contract Ultimate Terrain, FS Genesis and the Ground Environment team and shipped FS9 with those products integrated and called it FSX. Throw in Active SKy as the weather generating engine and you already have a product that exceeds FSX on every level, EXCEPT detailed texture resolution. Would we have complained if the default FSX looked as good as, and ran as well as, a `mature` FS9 with addons? I don't think so. Especially not if those two tweaks had been included. And you're quite right, you don't stay in business issuing patches every three years. Four in six months usually ensures most of the bugs get ironed out. And that's not usually just to get a game that's duff actually working acceptably.Allcott

[Drumcode 1,909]

I wonder what the return ratio really is, I wonder what is really going on at the ACES studio, what is being done if anything etc. Man, they totally screwed this realease up. LOL.

[GHarrall 494]

Allcott,You are wasting your time with the 'apologists'All is well in FSX world through the rose tinted spectacles provided by beta testers and photo scenery lovers.On a related issue, have you noticed the only 3rd party devs that are defending FSX are the ones who were clearly invited to the 'inner sanctum' by MS?All the tweaks and bugs in FSX have done nothing more than make me enjoy FS9 even more. I spent the best part of two weeks trying to tame the beast. I got fed up and just wanted to fly, so I reverted to FS9, Tongass Fjords, UT, DF A36, Active Sky and relaxed.......I really, really hope FSX can become what is should be. It has GREAT potential, but kidding oursleves that all is well and that future hardware (which doesn't exist on any roadmaps) will cure our problems is just crazy, as is insisitng that 15FPS is "perfeclty flyable and smooth". Not for me it isn't. I have no intention of returning FSX (it was a gift from my wife anyway) but saying nothing and pretending all is well is not right either. I haven't even mentioned the coastline data which in many areas is about on par with FS98. If all you do is fly in the USA, all is well of course......

[Guest smarti05]

Refund yourself dood!!

[Geofa 108]

While I understand the worry of future add ons-I have already added quite a few to fsx-and haven't seen any earth stopping problems-at least no more than with fs9. It seems to me the updates/products for fsx are coming out fast and furious.I have already added the worldwide fsg mesh-the US down to 9.6m,Canada 19.1,Mexico 38.2 and the -the rest of the world 76, and to be honest I can detect no performance change. I seem to remember one in fs9 when I added the mesh to it, but I could be wrong.I have added the Georender Teton scenery-and actually peformance got better. I look forward to the highly detailed rendition specifically for fsx which will be out soon and will show off the increased resolution of fsx.I have added several aircraft-and two are very complex and probably give a typical complex jet a run for the money in fancy systems being modelled.I have the Aerosoft SR22 for fsx. It has the glass cockpit, the avidyne, and dual garmin 430's among others. I get about a 8fps hit with this. A hit about what I remember taking in fs9 with the same product.The Aaopa cherokee 6 which models Sandal 3500,stec 55x, garmin 530/430/jpi analyzer,flightmax ex500 I get about a 10 fps hit-but as of yet this is not an fsx product (an update is promised).Now-for me-here is the part that I think a lot are missing out on.How many FS users are users of the fs9 program called tweakfs ( a great set of utilities for fs9- http://www.tweakfs.com/)? The idea of Tweakfps came from a series of talks with me and the creater of the Tweakfs series. I was at the time frustrated because in fs9 (yes fs9)-when I wanted to load a high power aircraft like the SR22, or fly with extremely real detailed weather downloads, I was constantly in the graphics settings turning down parameters such as autogen, water,mesh resolution, ultimate traffic, so I could get the best mode of flight from a particular situation while preventing the sim from crawling (and I could easily get single digits with the right combination of add ons). Tweakfps was created so that you could save various scenery/performance configs-e.g. "best for vfr scenery", "best smoothness for serious ifr", "best general config" etc., and then change the sim on the fly without having to continually tweak every slider. This utility made (and still does!) fs9 much more pleasurable for me-as if I tried to fly a complex aircraft with real weather downloads, with everything turned up I would get well into the single digits and massive stuttering which killed the fun. With this utiliiy I could always change precalculated pretweaked personal settings on the fly to give consistant performance for the mode of flying I was choosing to do on a particular flight.Fsx now has this feature built in. You can save multiple configurations, for multiple scenerios, and insure you can in most cases get the performance you desire, depending on that mode of flight.I presently have a setting for for mountain flying, and one for city flying. I personally think the cities look better without autogen where the high res textures can show thru -and without it I get excellent performance. Mountains,countryside, and out of the way strips-I use full autogen so I can see the incredible variety of trees (I don't have any autogen tweaks installed as I love the beautiful variety, and the folliage is outstanding)-and I get good performance.Juggling these two settings keeps me on average at a low of 15fps and a high of 40, and an overall average of about 25-35. If I am going to primarily fly a session over cities I pick option 1-if I am going to be primarily in the bush I use option two. Imho an idea for a patch from MS might be a mode that puts full/near full autogen once out of the cities, and turns it down/off when inside a metro area-it would be nice to have both going at the same time.Over ocean flights-I have water effects full up (where it looks incredible over the ocean and performance is good as nothing to display but water) -inland flying-water turned down to 1 notch from the bottom-rivers/lakes looks much more realistic-and better performance. Full ifr flying with real world downloads and heavy clouds-autogen/water/ completely off-after all you are in the clouds-can't see anything anyway but want that smoothness for ultimate control-and when breaking out at 200 ft. on a low approach I'm not going to be looking at trees!For me the best "tweak" for this sim are these saved config settings which can be adjusted to the look and performance of flying you are going to do. With one click you are ready to go with these settings you choose. Yes-it initially takes some exploration-but I have found the sweet spot for each mode that gives me the best looks/performance and allow me to experience all the new things this sim has to offer.With this approach-on average I get 15-40 fps for 95% of my flight experience. Now true-if I take the Aopa Cherokee into KSEA with full autogen and a good deal of ai traffic-I can bring the sim to its' knees-and even with my approach I can still dip to a low of 8 and a high of 13. I look forward to a day when outstanding performance will be everywhere. However, for 95% of my flying-applying this "tweak" makes the sim outstanding-both in looks and performance. Yes -there may still be an occasional dips here and there-but is really very good-to be honest performing better than how fs9 was performing for me after I had bogged it down with the countless add ons I bought for it.I mention this post not to really start an argument, but to show a feature that I think many have not explored that may bring them happiness. :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

ALCOTTI think your idea is agood one.I had had similar thoughts ie taking some of the best bits of FSX and blending with FS9(I know ,i know easy to say probably very hard to do).But nonetheless to many people seem willing to lie down and let Microsoft get away with this debacle and to try to intimidate forum posters who don't blindly heap praise(where not a lot is due in my humble opinion)on this product.cheers Andy

[Jimmy Angel 19]

>Like Allcot and Tom have been written : there is no hardware>nore will be hardware released that will be able to make FSX>run like we all would like it to run.I think the jury is still out, and some people do report good performance in dense situations. Some of that is probably rose-colored-glasses, some of it is probably reality.I have a decent system, and I still can't run FS9 at full detail in all situations. Heavy clouds, for example, can be a killer. Most of the time I am at 40+ fps but flying close to heavy clouds can actually introduce stutters. I've heard that the weather performance in FSX is actually improved.I haven't bought FSX yet. I won't buy it until a PC upgrade probably in late 2007. My current system is 3-yeard old. I wouldn't expect to be able to run FSX on what I have now. When I do buy FSX, I'll probably be buying one of the UK VFR packages and flying there exclusively. I'm pretty confident I can get great frame rates with that scenery (even if, as planned, they introduce custom autogen objects).That said, I sure can see how heavy iron fliers are disappointed with the state of the current release. There is very little headroom for any complex add-ons. >Eg My 8 year old son has a Celeron 1700 pc with a 6800 card>and is playing San Andreas very fluidWow. 8 years-old? San Andreas? Really?That aside, as has been said many times, you can't really compare something like San Andreas to FSX.But I do wish that Microsoft had poured more time and money into making FSX cutting-edge in looks and performance. It's just the reality of business, I suppose.

[GSalden 4,708]

It would be nice if Phil Taylor or Paul Lang ( who I have met ) could tell us straight forward what can and especially what cannot be expected for the future.FSX is already low on framerate and what will happen when detailed addon scenery /aircrafts will be released.I even take it one step further : which addon compagny has the guts to built a very detailed scenery or aircraft and take the risk of being critisized for the slideshow appearance in FSX ? ....

[Guest baksteen33]

>>On a related issue, have you noticed the only 3rd party devs that are defending FSX are the ones who were clearly invited to the 'inner sanctum' by MS?<< Hi Glenn, you wouldn't believe how euphoric many of the addon makers are! Averaging 15fps must be a great base to sell addon software! ;-) If at all, IMHO, we're seeing many addon developers offering a more balanced (less emotional?) view on certain realities. Holger Sandmann to name one whos comments make a lot of sense. Of course, some of the details will need some form of assistance from Aces... Looking at our current

[LAdamson 240]

>I have a decent system, and I still can't run FS9 at full>detail in all situations. Heavy clouds, for example, can be a>killer. Most of the time I am at 40+ fps but flying close to>heavy clouds can actually introduce stutters. I've heard that>the weather performance in FSX is actually improved.>The weather performace has improved!While I can run FS9 with frame rates ranging from the mid 30's to 70's on many occasions; I've tried some real weather scenarios which pull FS9 down to 14 fps, and FSX with the same conditions is still running close to 25. L.Adamson

[GSalden 4,708]

" While I can run FS9 with frame rates ranging from the mid 30's to 70's on many occasions; I've tried some real weather scenarios which pull FS9 down to 14 fps, and FSX with the same conditions is still running close to 25." " While I can run FS9 with frame rates ranging from the mid 30's to 70's on many occasions; I've tried some real weather scenarios which pull FS9 down to 14 fps, and FSX with the same conditions is still running close to 25." The weather engine has improved a bit but for the most this is probably due to the detailed addon clouds used icw AS in Fs9.