Good points. I am just a little confused why FSX seems so little compatible with FS9. In the past we have seen a much faster adaption/conversion of previous products and it seems that MS has not made it very easy for the devs to make their previous offering FSX-compatible.If FSX differs that much from FS9, then I wonder why the inadequate core engine after 3 years of development seems to have remained untouched, because if it is (as many addon devs have stated) more of a complete rewrite to make things FSX-compatible, one might have expected a much more drastic set of improvements and enhancements. Visually, FSX looks like FS9 with better textures, better mesh and more autogen, all of which seem to have nothing to do with engine performance enhancements, because before SP1, FSX really seemed to be FS9 with the additional features crippling the performance. SP1 has addressed some core engine enhancements, like multi-core support, but even that is not really enough or at best a little too late.Pat

The issue is that, starting in I think FS2002(? please correct me if I'm wrong), ACES made a pretty huge change in the programming of gauges, scenery, and everything by going to XML. But they still supported the old methods of scenery and gauge design. Starting in FSX, they completely dropped the FS98 gauge programming paradigm, and, as noted above, made some pretty sweeping changes to scenery design that completely negated some of the old methods people had spent years perfecting.FSX has some pretty big changes in it. But I think it is for the better.Regarding things we will see going into the future:To me, I think that we will slowly see the addition of support for a lot more systems design, so cockpit and engine management systems can be fully supported. Something Fly did a long time ago. Hopefully we'll also see improved flight dynamics as well.I'll bet ACES will also work on improved VC interface concepts (like a sticky mouse so as your head moves, the mouse stays stuck on the control it is nearest) and "look around" concepts.I'd also like to see better representation of your's and your copilot's and passenger's bodies in the VC, so as you reach for a control, you can see your hand move to it.Finally, I'll bet we'll see an implementation of let's call it "Second Life" mode, where you can get out of the cockpit and walk around, and even have discussions with people in multiplayer mode.But, given the computational aspects of these features, I'll bet it'll be a while for some of them (like your hand reaching for a control).Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

Regarding the LDS 767, seems to me I remember quite a long laundry list of new features.It's not like people are getting rich off of this stuff. It's a hobby with a side benefit for a few to make it kind of worthwhile to continue. It's taken as much as several man years for each of those products listed above just to get updated and working reliably in FSX. Customers have gotten pretty picky these days about being understanding about bugs in a product they have paid for.New products on the horizon:A new flight planner (discussed here on Avsim)Airliner XPFSPlanner scenery designSBuilder (is a completely new product for FSX)This stuff doesn't get done overnight.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

Hello IanBe interested to know what ideas are in your head. I too like the idea of the airline simulation. Not sure why you need to relearn C++ if you are already into VB. With the tools around now in the latest vers. of VB, it is not that difficult to produce a windows interface. Bud

"The issue is that, starting in I think FS2002(? please correct me if I'm wrong), ACES made a pretty huge change in the programming of gauges, scenery, and everything by going to XML. But they still supported the old methods of scenery and gauge design. Starting in FSX, they completely dropped the FS98 gauge programming paradigm, and, as noted above, made some pretty sweeping changes to scenery design that completely negated some of the old methods people had spent years perfecting."The FS2004 Compiling Scenery with BGLComp SDK contains the following warning:"This document describes how to compile scenery with the new scenery compiler for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. A new, XML-based, scenery format has been created and is required for creating new scenery. Scenery should no longer be created with BGL opcodes or the BGLC compiler from previous versions of Flight Simulator. The older BGL opcodes are supported for backward compatibility, however, we cannot guarantee their support in future releases."I wonder how much of the scenery advertised as being suitable for FS2004 still contained BGL opcodes or the GGLC compiler resulting in subsequent problemds in using them in FSX?Also, I understand that some scenery developers went beyond what's set out in the FS2004 SDK by using undocumented features only to finf this gave problems in FSX.