Hi all, without going into what SP1 will or won't do I have one burning question which I hope can be answered without breaking the NDA. And it is: How big a download is it?cheersChris

>Hi all, without going into what SP1 will or won't do I have>one burning question which I hope can be answered without>breaking the NDA. And it is: How big a download is it?>cheers>ChrisI seriously doubt that we'll know that until it's released.

So this is an interesting question.How large is too large?We are still much smaller than the demo ( which was 650m or so ) but given what we have fixed we are in the "slightly over 200m" range. It would be even larger if we hadnt stopped taking airport fixes. One thing that may help is that we determine Std vs Dlx in the patch, so its one download per language. That makes getting SP1 a little simpler for everyone. Nothing like downloading the wrong one and having to do it over, so we avoid that for everybody :-).I know this isnt small, but dropping payload is painful ( since we like to fix things ) and hopefully this size will be ok for the majority. We have had exactly this decision internally, and it doesnt hurt to hear from the community a bit on this ahead of time.Please, lets keep the discussion productive and respectful.

As far as I'm concerned size shouldn't be an issue as to what is and what isn't fixed but I realise that there are reasons why these things have to be limited.

Size will not be a concern to me. Perhaps you should consider more than one for those who have limited bandwidth. I imagine most Avsim users have Broadband. Airports could be separate for example.

Thanks for the reply Phil. 200-250 or so megabytes isn't a problem at all. It's just what with the full program taking up 14 gigs the patch may have been immense. It may be a painful download for those still on dialup. Will it be available on cd for those who don't have fast download speeds?cheersChris

Thanks for being there to shed some light Phil. :-)

I know some view reality like that, but its not really true that some pieces could be separate.Each download is a setup, each setup has to be tested, each additional setup expands the test matrix and adds time to the test pass.Finding the right level here is a challenge, we think we have balanced "download size" vs "cost to produce" at a reasonable level.

The size should not be a consideration, unless it becomes greater than can be accommodated on one CD. Even if they only have dial up internet access, most folks would still be able to get SP1 on magazine cover CDs.I'm keen for as many fixes as possible and I think most people would feel the same.Cheers,Noel.

I understand size to be an issue with some users. I'm one of the lucky ones with broadband cable, but I do not forget that many users throughout the world are still on dailup connections, some even pay for their bandwidth. With this in mind, I fully understand how size makes all the difference in the world to them. Aces may consider breaking the SP1 download into smaller parts for these such users so they can download some each night. It may take longer for them to get the completed SP1, but if you consider they try downloading the whole thing at once on a conection that may time out on them, etc. it's worth it.

Still, 200Mb is getting to be on the smallish side of downloads these days, so I'm somewhat surprised to hear size was that much of a concern at that point. The last 2 demos I've downloaded were both well over a Gig. And heck, BF2's latest patch was 500Mb.Also, one of my favorite things about M$ is their servers always offer awesome d/l speeds compared to about anything else you see out there... so for those of us with broadband, 200Mb is nothing.

Phil,Will SP1 be available on CD, for those who only have slow dialup?Peter Sydney Australia

The size of the download will be a transient issue that most will overcome one way or another. A patch that does not address all of the issues within FSX will be with us for a long time, and if not up to scratch will be a source of on-going frustration. Seems to me we should get as many fixes as we can, while we can...Cheers,Noel.

It should be included on the Adrenaline release disk.

I wish the Aces team would do a poll or something on FsInsider. For me personally i don't mind downloading any size whatsoever. I mean if size of the download is really a consideration and they would leave things out because of it, i think it's worth a vote. But then again, how many people of the total buyersgroup visits FsInsider and votes?