So I am guessing it is safe to say that ACES is creating a new game engine. Phil mentioned in another thread that he is now on a separate team working on the

I really really doubt aces is ever going to develop anything as detailed as cry engine2, its most likely goign to be a refresh that is even more demanding and cpu dependant than fsx, hopefully I can be wrong.

Please do not equate platform with engine. Platform means a standard base from which, right now, 3 products are being built upon: FS, TS, and ESP.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Ok, so the two words are a little different. But in the Platform there is an Engine: a computer program that performs a core or coordinating function for other programs, or has a special purpose function.I think the team Phil is working with is (in a way) creating a new Engine for FS11 (changing the way graphics are done, etcetera). Will this Engine be anything special

The one thing Phil has made clear is that whatever the new engine/platform shapes up to be, it not going to be all that backward compatible compared to what we've been used to.This could make things interesting for us add-on devs :-)Cheers,Bryan

>The one thing Phil has made clear is that whatever the new>engine/platform shapes up to be, it not going to be all that>backward compatible compared to what we've been used to.>>This could make things interesting for us add-on devs :-)>>Cheers,>Bryan>Oh... we'll hear endless complaints. ;)

I do think the strength of MS is in developing the platform for FS, which is different from the graphics engine. They need to think through each subsystem that needs to be modeled and separate them out to programmers who are specialists in that subsystem. They have already done this to a certain extent with SimObjects, ATC, Weather, Flight Dynamics, Terrain, Scenery, Sounds, etc. This is what I would call the platform. Each plank in the platform (to use political terminology) needs to be able to be developed separately without causing failure of other planks. MS then develops FS11 to put it all together into an integrated whole.MS's strength is not in the graphics engine and never will be. The people at Crytek have spent at least two years solely focused on creating CryEngine2. They have used top notch graphics programmers who have produced a product that is best of class for now. I just completed Crysis SP on Delta difficulty and there is no point in comparing the terrain graphics with FSX. MS would really do much better to concentrate on the platform itself and license the graphics engine from someone specialized in that field--Crytek being the leading choice right now.The fact is that there are enough significant problems with the current graphics engine (flat runways and unstable pole terrain to name a couple biggies) to warrant a new graphics engine. This will cause problems with scenery addons, requiring a completely new addon and not simply a patch. People expect great graphics, however, and will be willing to shift to the new version if it is graphically excellent. If FS11 ends up simply being a tweaked FSX, I suspect it will be adopted even more slowly than the FS9 to FSX transition (which many have still refused to make).

Gotta say-Crysis included with my video card I got tonight (8800 gt).Might just be me cause I am not into shoot them up games-but I am not blown away at all. I have to run at much lower res than my new system is capable of-and it just doesn't give me the looks or the performance fsx is giving me.What am I missing?http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

>What am I missing?Umm, eyes? :-lolSeriously though I was in the Crysis beta and even then in looked better than FSX, and you had to run at pretty low settings and low res to have it playable. Crysis is like FSX in that high end machines aren't able to max out settings yet for the most part. It's the first game to really challenge the 8800 series. You'll have to lower settings. But on my machine with a e6600 and 8800GTS 640 it looked great, defintely better than FSX as far as graphics go. As a side note, what do you care? I thought you didn't think FSX and Crysis are comparable graphics-wise?

Hi there,we've already had this discussion a few weeks back: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=search... which also prompted Phil to summarize his thoughts in a blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...influences.aspxCheers, Holger

"MS's strength is not in the graphics engine and never will be." Which is why Phil has moved to seperate team solely working with graphics. Ok, anything we say now is just speculation but I think ACES will create a separate engine

This thread was not meant to compare Cryengine2 with flight simulator. I already know they do totally separate tasks. The thread is to try and understand how ACES is going to go about thier game structure and work distribution. Is more labor going to be done on the base platform/engine and to what extreme? Perhaps to the extent of Cryengine2

"Seriously though I was in the Crysis beta and even then in looked better than FSX ..."Awesome. Can you post a screenshot of KBOS so I can compare it to what KBOS looks like in FSX?Thanks!

The faa seems to think my eyes are fine...What do I care? I am truly trying to understand some of these mantras that appear from time to time .Now that I own the game, and see what it has to offer-I am even more baffled.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

I swear, every time someone mentions Crysis or that Windshear or Windlight or whatever it's called, I just want to throw a brick through a window.