That depends on the final size of the XPack. Not a bad idea, though.

200mb not a problem for me. As said previously, I've seen other games offer much larger patches and good demos are over 1GB now.Size vs cost is important for ACES but I'm sure plenty of the community would do anything to achieve the fixes required to improve performance even if it does mean downloading it at work :-)Heck, I'll burn it to CD and distribute is myself for free if anyone needs a CDROM as right now I feel sorry for all FS enthusiasts especially if they're as disappointed as me flying heavies in and out of busy, animated airports on a decent spec'ed machine.NelsEDIT: Joking about distibution :-) !

I'm not saying Aces should break it up into several smaller patches, but should offer two download options.A complete file download and a download broken into several files which have to "all" be downloaded to get SP1.This way, users with slow connections can get small sections at a time and not have to worry about losing a large download that times out in the middle, etc.

Unfortunately, as I already stated, we cannot do that.Each setup is extra dev work. Each setup needs to be built with its payload, thats extra builds to get going. Each setup needs to be tested, that expands the test matrix and the length of the final test pass.The 7 setups we have is what we have.I am investigating how to convice PSS to make a CD available. Thats the best I can do at this time.

If SP1 is around 200mb what percentage of the fixes would we lose and are any of those lost fixes doable by someone else in the simming community? Can that be answered now?

Thank you Phil for popping in. I can only speak for myself; 2 Gigs would be my tolerance limit, after that I would seek an alternate means of procuring the patch.Then again, size doesn't matter much, it's how you use... err... the content does :-walksmile

I dont understand the question. Right now, SP1 size is ~200m and it has the payload Aces wants. No one is losing anything.The main question I get from this discussion is, can we make a CD available for those who ask. I am investigating.

Phil, I think he means an option to download the patch not as one, but fragmented into several smaller files fore people with dialup connections. It will be the same setup, only with a little wrapper that adds the chunks togehter into the original setup.exe. I remember very well the frustrating moment when starting a setup after downloading for many hours only to see that the download was corrupted and to start it all again.Regards

>I dont understand the question. >>Right now, SP1 size is ~200m and it has the payload Aces>wants. No one is losing anything.>>The main question I get from this discussion is, can we make a>CD available for those who ask. I am investigating.Sorry Phil let me explain better. Is it correct that the roughly 200mb size will mean that some fixes cannot be included? If so what percentage are these excluded fixes of the whole? Finally, if there are fixes that cannot be included is it possible that others (outside of MS) will have the knowledge to be able to do them for the community? Does that all make sense?

If you do other gaming, a 200MB download for a patch is nothing new. Battlefield 2 had a 385MB patch a while back, so I'm not at all suprised by the size they are shooting for. I was expecting bigger.I'm glad to see dev's posting on this..maybe that means they are getting close to a release.

3rd time, we cannot do that with available resources, each individual download requires a setup. At least with the technology we have at hand today.Repeat, we cannot break up SP1 beyond what we already have.Really.

Ok, I see what you are asking.Indeterminate is the only answer I can give.SP1 fixes quite a lot, but not everything. Some things came in too late, some things the fix is too risky, some things were too large.The only thing we have not included, which was in doubt due to size, is the ENDI airport fix. I am not sure of what could or couldnt be fixed by the community. But I am not sure that is relevant at this point.What is in, is in unless we find an issue. Which is what the beta is for. But, more importantly, we cannot add anything more. Really.

>Ok, I see what you are asking.>>Indeterminate is the only answer I can give.>>SP1 fixes quite a lot, but not everything. >>Some things came in too late, some things the fix is too>risky, some things were too large.>>The only thing we have not included, which was in doubt due to>size, is the ENDI airport fix. >>I am not sure of what could or couldnt be fixed by the>community. But I am not sure that is relevant at this point.>>What is in, is in unless we find an issue. Which is what the>beta is for. But, more importantly, we cannot add anything>more. Really.Ok many thanks Phil.

Thanks for your efforts, Phil.Peter Sydney Australia

The file size is irrelevant to me. Just thinking about FSX has me angry. I bought this thing on the 3rd day after release and have not even flown one flight. $70 and 15GB of space wasted. Never again MS, I learned my lesson and that's why I didn't upgrade to Vista. Even after upgrading my pc to the latest technology I still have no desire to fly it.I will continue to fly FS2004 until FSX has a good amount of 3rd party scenery developed, primarily airport scenery. I hope they iron out the problem with low IFR ceilings and visibility being two independent variables. Well MS, I hope I have your attention. You won't sucker me in buying beta software ever again.