Who cares about the SP1 patch. I thought the whole purpose of FSX was DX10. To have DX10, you need Vista. The game won't be worth switching over to from FS9 until they release the DX10 patch later this year. I truly believe we may be sitting around until late summer or early fall waiting for the DX10 patch. When that comes out, I will upgrade my computer, install FSX, install SP1 Update, install the DX10 patch, and then say it is finally time to switch to FSX from FS9. I really doubt this will be earlier than September or October of this year, a full year after the initial release date.I doubt you will see FSX be considered a great improvement over FS9 until they update FSX to be DX10 compatible.

One of the primary goals of SP1 is to improve preformance. The DX10 patch will improve graphics in FSX, but whether it will improve overall performance is open to debate.Regards,Mark

>One of the primary goals of SP1 is to improve preformance.>The DX10 patch will improve graphics in FSX, but whether it>will improve overall performance is open to debate.Well, but unless they were to remove the sliders in the DX10 patch, I would have to think that you will have some degree of choice as to whether you want to receive benefit in the form of more eye candy or higher frame rates. DX10, as I understand it, enables better graphics by reducing overhead incured on the CPU. So while the idea is that the saved overhead could be used on additional effects or models, I would assume that you could choose not to enable some of the features in order to instead enjoy an FPS increase (although I'm guessing effects are going to be tailored such that it will make the most sense to take the eye candy instead).Steve.

> The game>won't be worth switching over to from FS9 until they release>the DX10 patch later this year. I truly believe we may be>sitting around until late summer or early fall waiting for the>DX10 patch. When that comes out, I will upgrade my computer,>install FSX, install SP1 Update, install the DX10 patch, and>then say it is finally time to switch to FSX from FS9. My five year old CPU would not handle FSX without crashes and low fps; I expected that. I upgraded at the end of last year, and FSX runs quite well with a few limitations and FS9 is even much better. I expected that too. At the moment, I feel no need to switch over, as I run both simulations. FSX does have some advantages, and the one I like best, is how the look of MegaScenery has changed. The FSX resolution is almost 16 time clearer, and the comparison is dramatic! The scenery has almost no frame rate hit either, since FSX is using the high resolution texture format to begin with.I'll run MegaScenery areas with FSX, and airport sceneries such as FlightScenery Portland with FS9. At the present, this is best of both worlds, and certainly a reason to run FSX along with FS9 if your CPU can handle it. With new MegaScenery photo-real releases on the horizon, I'd never want to wait for a year or so to use them. L.Adamson

>>My five year old CPU would not handle FSX without crashes and>low fps; I expected that. I upgraded at the end of last year,>and FSX runs quite well with a few limitations and FS9 is even>much better. I expected that too. >Ditto that, although I'm more than satisfied with FSX's performance in all but the densest cities. I'm using FSX with MegaScenery and the results are outstanding. (This on an AthlonXP 3200+ and an overclocked Radeon 9600XT.) I fly a simulator, not a frame rate, so I turn fps off. I do not believe that fps comparisons between FS2004 and FSX are valid anyway -- FSX just seems so much smoother. I still use FS2004 to hone my Level-D 767 skills. I expect further improvement in the SP1 "performance patch." I'll plan to replace my entire system in the second half of this year, when the new 45 nm Intel chips will likely result in clock speeds of at least 5 GHz per core. Combined with DX10's ability to offload tasks from the CPU to the video card, I expect to achieve flight simulator Nirvana well before the end of the year. In the meantime, I'm having FUN with FSX. Who knew?