>Of course as the engine moves forward for other products...True, there has to be a point at which it is time to look ahead. Thank you again for your candidness. Maybe FS11 will have have a new camera system, including unobstructed views. :-) In the meantime, I am looking forward to Acceleration adding some excitement. Good job, by the way.

thank god i didnt upgrade to vista, i have 8800GTX and play mostly FSX. i am so disappointed at the moment just 20 % increase in fps isnt much. i am not upgrading to vista just to get VC shadows working, lol. i dont use VC. but i am waiting DX-9 fix for blurries a lot.

Good clear post Phil. As an IT PM myself, I have been impressed with your communication to the user base and your willingness to particpate in this forum and others.I've run FSX from day one and never went back to FS2004, albeit didn't get played much until SP1. Unlike some, my expectations were maybe always a little bit lower for a free software upgrade. In the commercial world we are used to paying 30% of software cost year on year to receive fixes and upgrades.Whereas a product can always be better, FSX is a commercial product and there has to be some return on investment for anything that gets done, and I think you've done a great job in providing what you have in SP2 at zero cost. I also really like the look of Acceleration and I think at $30 (

cool, thanks for the update.... Here's the two side-by-side, hope you don't mind...I can see the HDR lighting but can't tell if the water has waves or is still flat and uses the OHF maps for simulated wave height...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/178492.jpg

For us 30,000ft big-iron pilots, do I understand it correctly that one of the DX9 improvments is in the area of terrian and the blurries? In other words, will I have sharper textures further-out from my location rather than just directly underneath me? Can you elaborate please Phil?Thanks...

SIGHno godrays=huge disappointmentThe dx9 pic looks better imo with noticeable hdr and bloom whereas the pic to the right shows none of that? Am i missing something? Where are the rest of the pics showing some benefit to dx10? The water just looks like when I would choose a different type of water from the graphicsx console to me. I also do not even understand what he means by preview. Does this mean that there is a checkbox to choose either dx9 or dx10 and that most addons wont work with the dx10 so it's only there to "play" with? Test drive unlimited offers console shadows and hdr with dx9 so i'm not really sure why fsx can't offer this in dx9 as well? I was really looking forward to godrays as a minimum here. It seems to me that everything that was done here has been done in other games for years now under dx9....________________________________________________________________________________________________Intel D975XBX2 'Bad Axe 2' | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.20Ghz | 2 GB Super Talent DDR2 800 | Big Typhoon VX | eVGA 8800GTS @ 565/900 | Seagate 2x320GB SATA RAID-0 | OCZ GameXStream 700W | Creative X-Fi | Silverstone TJ-09BW | Matrox Triplehead Setup

Is it safe to say:That in order to get the SP-2, "you HAVE to BUY the accel addon"?$70 for game + $30 for a "PATCH". If so, I'll go back to fs-9, and start looking into X-Plane more closely.ed

4) Optimization of terrain IO for photo-scenery and

Only becuase of "internationalization" routines as I understand it. After Acceleration is released, you'll be able to download SP2 for free, sometime b/w Accel-release and Christmas. I think this was becuase Acceleration was first in line for all the internationalization processes to be applied. At least that's what I got out of it.

I'm pleased with this, the performance gains and new features justify the cost of upgrading, for me anyway. While I save my pennies I'll just enjoy all the great DX9 fixes, hopefully my blurry problem will be non-existent with this installed.

Phil Hello, will you try and answer something for me.I understand that the expansion pack will be available in North America from Oct.23 2007However I contacted Amazon UK today and they tell me it will not be available in the UK [with them at least] until AUGUST 2008.Surely we do not have to wait 10 months after the initial release to buy the pack which by the way I am looking forward to.RegardsRichard

>Is it safe to say:>That in order to get the SP-2, "you HAVE to BUY the accel>addon"?>>$70 for game + $30 for a "PATCH". >>If so, I'll go back to fs-9, and start looking into X-Plane>more closely.>ed>>If be "safe to say", you mean "completely and utterly wrong."The SP2 fixes have been integrated into Acceleration, but as a stand alone patch they will be released after the xpack as a download, just like SP1.

>SIGH>>no godrays=huge disappointment>>The dx9 pic looks better imo with noticeable hdr and bloom>whereas the pic to the right shows none of that? Am i missing>something? Where are the rest of the pics showing some benefit>to dx10? The water just looks like when I would choose a>different type of water from the graphicsx console to me. I>also do not even understand what he means by preview. Does>this mean that there is a checkbox to choose either dx9 or>dx10 and that most addons wont work with the dx10 so it's only>there to "play" with? Test drive unlimited offers console>shadows and hdr with dx9 so i'm not really sure why fsx can't>offer this in dx9 as well? I was really looking forward to>godrays as a minimum here. It seems to me that everything that>was done here has been done in other games for years now under>dx9....>________________________________________________________________________________________________>>Intel D975XBX2 'Bad Axe 2' | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.20Ghz>| 2 GB Super Talent DDR2 800 | >Big Typhoon VX | eVGA 8800GTS @ 565/900 | Seagate 2x320GB SATA>RAID-0 | >OCZ GameXStream 700W | Creative X-Fi | Silverstone TJ-09BW |>Matrox Triplehead SetupI can't say that I'm terribly surprised by this post. Let me just say that, in my honest opinion, the water and HDR looks better in the dx10 preview.

I am personally NOT disappointed with the feature list of SP2/DX10. It has been clear for many months now that expectations based on the 'magic screenies' were unrealistic. What has been delivered is totally in accord with ACES predictions. However, the real question is whether SP2/DX10 (not Acceleration) delivers a sufficiently compelling value proposition to FSX users that now justifies additional investment in a DX10 graphics card and Vista. The answer to this question depends on the individual. How much do you value 20% frame rate increase, VC shadows and a bunch of other graphics improvements? Is it worth the entry fee to YOU?Naturally I have my own opinion, which is that it is too early to tell because we have not seen enough comparison shots to get a reasonable feel for the extent of the differences, but I'd like to hear what other people think.Cheers,Noel.

"Is it safe to say:That in order to get the SP-2, "you HAVE to BUY the accel addon"?"It is safe to say you haven't been paying ANY attention.SP2 is free.