Chris it looks like you went from too many roads to no roads at all. From what I remember FS9 depicted some roads. 'USA Roads' takes away all roads with the right click (even the default roads). I could be wrong but I vaguely remember running into this when I had that add-on installed. Your pic above doesn't seem right. If I get some time I'm going to do a fresh install of FS9 and see what I get. I know FS9 depicted in its own way many major road and highways (especially in urban areas). :-)

Hey Chris- me ASE looks far different- there's detail now! a mountain stream and roads. Wow- and it's default (no shot due to being at work!)

To be blunt, in too many instances, my maxxed out FS9 still doesn't hold up to the look I'm getting with FSX and a few sliders on the lower end. If it did, I wouldn't bother with FSX. FS9 just isn't capable of displaying the finer resolution textures of FSX, and it shows!Larry! I've seen you make this statement before! Do you run FS9 with default textures? Texture replacement packages like GE, GEPRO, and BEV, come pretty close to the textures in FSX, So I don't se how you can make this statement. If you haven't already take a look at the gallery of screenshots at there sites. I agree FS9 default, don't hold a candle to FSX textures, but these addons make the difference much closer.

Here you go Chris stock photos of each. Inqnore the FPS was doing something else while FS9 was running and dont have a muti-core cpu.FS9 Courchevel, France http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161783.jpgFS9 Aspenhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161784.jpgSorry forgot Ambri, Switzerland

I dont think the review is that bad, its a good review imho.Honest, but the Wow - factor prevailed..But this shot made me wonder how 'good' fsx really is:FS5 ?JohanA LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION, AND A LITTLE MORE ACTION PLEASE.."The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they come!"Ulla!

Well if you want to know the turth you can make FSX look like FS5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or FSX try the sliders you would be amazed at what you can do or make it look like.

Lol.. will buy it soon and I shall see..JohanA LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION, AND A LITTLE MORE ACTION PLEASE.."The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they come!"Ulla!

>When FS9 was release a top of the line computer at the>time could run it with all options maxed out.>>Not the way I remember it. When FS9 was released it could>bring any hardware to it's knees. It still can (depending>upon add-ons, of course).>>The difference between then and now is that with FS9 we could>foresee hardware coming down the pike to enhance the sim. Now>all we have to look forward to is dual core and quad core and>SLI, etc., none of which FSX can take advantage of. The>burning question is will ACES be able to release a patch that>will.>>GregGreg,I don't agree with your outlook here, You might want to consider the first gen DX10 card that is out right now has a multitude of Shaders and rendering pipelines that when coupled with Vista/DX10 and the Feb FSX DX10 patch should give us quite the boost, it really looks good, there IS a lot the FSX has that will depend more on shaders than we might think. Sure you say...Look I know right now if you turn ALL video card filtering off we can see that our CPU's and Memory controlers just don't seem to have the power that FSX desires, but a large part of the equation will change with DX10.Think back a bit to FS98 & 3D cards gave a huge shot to FS5, Will DX10 version be that big of a jump...its just months away and we are all going to have to make the jump...$$$$ I know, I know.Take a look back: http://avsim.com/fsbench/3darticle.htmI'm not Aces, I'm just saying wait Bro, Just wait.PaulL01

I like your optimism, but it'll take a lot more than a fancy new-generation 3D graphics card to bring true performance to this mostly CPU-bound game.Gary

>I like your optimism, but it'll take a lot more than a fancy>new-generation 3D graphics card to bring true performance to>this mostly CPU-bound game.>>GaryHigh Gary, I understand believe me, I'm running FSX on an Old XP2600 Mobile pumped up to 2.7Ghz coupled with the Gainward7900GT-512mb-agp card, and I wont be upgrading till about 6 months >After Vista is out.I mention the FS98 conversion to 3d Xleration because it was a huge leap forward...so sit tight, lets just wait and see thats all I'm saying.

>Here you go Chris stock photos of each. Inqnore the FPS was>doing something else while FS9 was running and dont have a>muti-core cpu.Hey..that's awesome..and a relief..because your pictures jibe with what I had posted in the review..mainly that the small detail splotches in FS9 are a good bit more noticeable (coarse) and the overall terrain mesh quality is easily discernible with both (default!) sims running with terrain quality maxed out. I was pretty sure that my autogen was working fine in the rural areas and that pretty much confirms it. The Atlanta picture was indeed wrong and the corrected one (that has now replaced the wrong one) has replaced the wrong one in the review.Thanks for taking the time to do that..unfortunately work got in the way today and I wasn't able to do an uninstall and reinstall of FS9 to get some screens.. :)Regards..BeachAV8R

>I dont think the review is that bad, its a good review imho.>Honest, but the Wow - factor prevailed..>>But this shot made me wonder how 'good' fsx really is:>>>FS5 ?Lol..hey Johan..thanks for the comment..but that screenshot looks like crap because I was a few miles from the airport during multi-player on a long, wide downwind setting myself up for the ILS. I used the scroll wheel on my mouse to zoom way in on the airport environment to show how many multi-player ID tags were around and on the airport. The detail and washout factor is due to the fact that I was zoomed in from very, very far away (probably 64x or more zoom?) so there is no level-of-detail rendering going on there. As a matter of fact..the picture just after that one in the review is a screen of the GPS position from where I took that screen..and it is on 15nm range..(where is there a scale on there though to tell you how far things really are?? or is 15nm the radius from the airplane to the edge of the compass rose?)..so I'm guessing I was 5 or 6 miles away (or more?) for that shot..http://www.simhq.com/_air7/images/air_263a_221.jpgWhat also might contribute to the low LOD at far distances is that for MP in the Seattle area I keep the slider that sets the distance that details are rendered to LOW to keep my FPS high. So..a combination of things made that particular shot..well..pretty darn ugly.. :DRegards..Chris/BeachAV8R