microsoft tech support is incompetent

[Guest th3flyboy]

the first tech support session i had with one of the people at ms tech support went ok, but the things the first person suggested didnt help, in other words a clean boot and a reinstall of vid card drivers, the second session with a different person was outrageous, here is a transcript.The session has been accepted.{Mary S} Hi Paul. Thank you for using Microsoft Games online Chat Support. My name is Mary and I will be helping you today.{Mary S} Thank you. Please confirm your email and phone? I need you to verify this information in case we get disconnected. If we get disconnected I will follow up with you in email. In the meantime, I will look up the problem description in the case notes.{Peter} [censored]{Mary S} How can I assist you today?{Peter} in fsx i am getting frame rates of around 3-6 with gfx on low even though i have a 512 meg vid card and 2 gigs of ram, the last tech support person said to clean boot and try the vid card drivers, and i did that and there was no change{Mary S} Did you go to Windows Updates, select Custom install, then click on Hardware and install all three drivers listed?{Peter} i already checked that{Mary S} Was anything listed?{Peter} there was nothing to install{Mary S} Ok, since you updated your driver did you uninstall and reinstall the game?{Peter} yes i did{Mary S} What is your video card{Mary S} ?{Peter} visiontek x1600xt xge 512meg{Mary S} please hold while I check further information.{Mary S} Is this an onboard video card?{Peter} no it is not, it is agp8x{Mary S} Ok, the last thing that we can recommend from here is to purchase a new game and if you have the same issue you will need to contact our refund department at 1-888-673-8624.{Peter} alright, i know that wont help because if you take a look at the community boards, pretty much everyone is having the same issues i am no matter what their system is.{Peter} i can provide you with links to a few of the boards i have checked.{Mary S} I do understand it is frustrating for you, you can try a new game if not you would need to contact our refund department at the number above.{Peter} i have a question, do you have a contact method so i can talk with someone directly at aces, because this isn't helping at all.{Peter} i have a feeling if i can talk to someone who made the game they may have a better understanding of the reason why this is happening.{Mary S} No, there is no number that I can give you so you can contact someone who made the game, the only number I have is for technical support for Microsoft Games instead of chat. 1-800-537-8324.{Peter} alright, i guess i'll have to do a little more research, because tech support isn't much help right now.{Mary S} thank you for contacting Microsoft games support.first, the person doesn't even get my name right, second the person can't even tell after i give her the type of vid card i have if it is onboard or not, and last the idiot has the nerve to suggest i go out and buy another copy of the game when she cant figure out whats wrong.moral of the story, microsoft tech support sometimes can be incompetent. if anyone knows how to fix the fps problems, could you please post the procedure here, and also, please feel free to post about the transcript i just provided.

[MD83 1]

Well you don't see that every day :-lolGood luck ... I don't have a solution for the problem :(

[JSkorna 137]

Well Peter/Paul,It is not up to Mary, reading from a script, to solve your FPS issues. If you knew of so many community boards you already knew where to get help from. And no, you cannot just dial up ACES. Why would you even ask that?Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

[aerdt 0]

Agreed. I am a little surprised that you even called up MS for low fps issues. This topic has been extensively discussed in here and there is currently no magic patch to improve your frame rates unless you spend some time and follow the forums in here for the known FSX tweaks -or- are willing to reduce your FSX settings to a level that is a compromise between quality and performance for you.Good luck,Pat

[duckbilled 310]

I agree that avsim is the right place to go but Microsoft should have a list of all of the tweaks and they should walk him through them. They don't know what to do so yes, I agree, they are incompetent.

[David Vega 348]

An interesting conversation with tech support. At this point, believe it would be best to return the product and get a refund. This would eliminate any more frustrations.Have funDave Vega

[JSkorna 137]

Jeff,There has only been one tweak approved by MS, the terrain.cfg fix for rocks in rivers. No, it is not up to MS to compile every tweak, test each one, and then script them. They are not there to optimize everyone's experience. That could take hours per user!Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

[Guest Kev_Is_Soaked]

"I agree that avsim is the right place to go but Microsoft should have a list of all of the tweaks and they should walk him through them. They don't know what to do so yes, I agree, they are incompetent."Actually, they are not incompetent at all... they're just doing their job. Do you think that it is Microsoft's job to walk you through community derived tweaks? Nope. It's their job to fix the problems and then release a patch.... and that is what they are doing.If you think for a second, that MS Tech support would sit on the phone and tell someone whom has no clue what they are doing, how to go in and modify cfg's and all that... then your out of your mind. Tech support is a front-line service that is intended to work around most regular issues related to their products. They will never ever walk you through a 'fix' that was not designed, tested, and rolled out officially.... in fact, no software developer would have their tech support center do such a thing, especially on low-level calls. The only way this would happen is if there is a known workaround that the developer has in place, and for FSX, this is yet to come.The techie was right, go get a refund so you can buy something else that WILL run on your current machine, come back to FSX in about two years when a machine is capable of running it full-steam.

[Bob Familton 14]

Hi. Was she from a M.S. U.S,, India or Nova Scotia Support site? I found out that the Support Team at Nova Scotia was way ahead of the India support Team. Regards, Bob.

[Mace 1,927]

Don't ever expect tech support to be able to know as much as people here do about FSX. The MS Tech support people are trained to solve general games questions: Vid drivers, installs, system maintenance, updating.You would be surprised how many people out there, can benefit from the above advice. But in your case, you need more in-depth help. If you want to talk to the developers, the best place is, well, here.I think you were trying to use MS Tech support to do things it is not designed to do.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Excuse me, Jim, I would like to clear up a possible issue.Microsoft did not approve the modified terrain.cfg file that Richard Ludowise and I put together.The modifications are solely our responsibility, and while the developers were aware of our discussions on this matter, at no time did they authorize or participate in working them out.The only reason that I listed Microsoft in the credits for that file is out of courtesy - they are the authors of the original file, a long and very complex document. We only made some minor changes to it and are not the principal authors.Microsoft never releases patches, fixes, updates in collaboration with members of the FS community. Nor do they ever release them on a generalist web site.All Microsoft patches are to be found exclusively on the FS site, FSInsider, and when they appear are only credited to Microsoft.Best regards.Luis

[nudata 10]

Unfortunately, this type of so called customer service is all to common across many companies. These people read from scripts and are encouraged to solve your issue as quickly as possible or place you in a dead end so they can move on to meet their objective service count. Their advice is almost always for "Joe Six-Pack" who knows little or nothing about computers. If you are knowledgeable you are in for a rough time.As to the comments about using forums for support. Sadly this is the only source for all but the most basic technical issues. The original poster made the mistake of posting his frustration and was then chastised for even using Microsoft's Customer Service. I disagree with that. He had every right to expect good customer service for his problem, whatever it was. The unfortunate thing is that there was no escalation process at Microsoft so he was given the dead-end routine. People do not call Customer Service because they are happy. A good agent will relate to the customer and not give them the dead-end solution without some "I'm sorry but that is the best I can do for you right now" followed by some alternative avenues. Finally, the cost of Customer Service is a percentage of the cost of the product (FSX). As such, you should have some expectations of service. However, these days most Customer Service telephone operations are far from satisfactory.Regards,Dick Boley

[Guest bj00rn]

He called support for "low fps" (!), there is nothing wrong with the particular product per se, nor could anything else be fixed with a tech support script. So I don't think you should be too surprised by the response...

[JSkorna 137]

I stand corrected.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

[McCrash 3]

Technical support isn't going to solve your fps dilema.I agree that most technical support personnel are not to good. Their training is lacking and they mostly follow a suggested list of things to say.Of course I find it hard to understand non-English speaking support personnel anyway. lolIf you are a competent user of WXP and have some knowledge of hardware, you are better than they are.Oh, I have cable from Comcast and they are STUPID.My outside cable could have been bombed by some t's and they would still tell me to reboot.