We are still working towards shipping SP2 "before Christmas" and that is as specific as I can get. We are almost to RC, and are thus making steady progress.My blog post about Acceleration/SP2 clearly outlines what is in SP2; and nothing has changed.

>Totally Unacceptable.>>These "features" were "finished" months ago. A separate>installer does not take 3 months to write. I could do it in 1>hour.>>The only reason for the delay is because of the XMas shopping>period.>>And thats obvious.>>The fact that you would only spend an hour writing an installer is why you are not a video game developer and the folks at ACES are.

>The fact that you would only spend an hour writing an>installer is why you are not a video game developer and the>folks at ACES are.While that's a witty retort, with a proper installer framework creating a new installer shouldn't take weeks or months; you can probably get the development validation cycle down to a week, and that's really being generous. i18n is pretty trivial once you have the language strings properly externalize, which I hope MS has done since the last century.MS is slow because IBM is slow.Cheers!Luke

Okay. So people are sprouting fps/smoothness increases with SP2 and DX10 hardware, but is there an improvement with SP2 for us poor DX9 folk. I ask because Santa is bringing me Acceleration for Christmas, and unfortunately no Quad core, 8800GTX beasty.:( Merry Christmas to all on this forum.:)

>Hey Bill:>>You said what I said. The program is not going to change to>suit video drivers. The API is not going to change to suit a>specific program or drivers. SO, that leaves the video>drivers that must be changes to fix issues with a specific>program...historically! :-)Oh, the conclusion remains the same either way, I just wanted to be certain that that little 'black box' called the API wasn't forgotten... ;)Folks who don't know - or forget about it - tend to form the incorrect conclusion, blaming the "goes inta" rather than the "comes outta" for the problem. :)

> The fact that you would only spend an hour writing an installer > is why you are not a video game developer and the folks at ACES are.This is the largest software company on earth!Installers should be pretty trivial by now and considering theres already a SP1.If you cannot see why they are delaying it you must be wearing rose colored glasses. Or maybe you left your goggles on :-kewl

>Installers should be pretty trivial by now and considering>theres already a SP1.>So you have plenty of experience of creating installers for commercial programs?

Holy Frames Per Second, Batman!Hey, nice reply -- how about what the seperate SP2 will contain and do? OH, and nice to see you're still alive and well, someplace, .Clayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

or....consider Aces is a small division of Microsoft who's main business is operating systems and office software. I'm fairly certain the folks working on Vista, DX10, Office, Enterprise are not helping the Aces folks with the creation/testing of the installer or stand alone SP2.Consider this also, it's not just the installer but SP2 has to be tested stand alone, without Acceleration, so it's not a matter of just copy and pasting sp2 into the code of an RTM version and creating an installer.Consider two cars, same manufacturer but different engines, one with an update, car A, the other without, car B. You need to update car b with part of car a's engine but you need to integrate it, test it and create a guide for mechanics to install it in car b since car b's engine is different than car a's. That takes time.Thus a2+b2=c2 and all should be well. Check out Phil's blog on the issue, it's explained very well there.

I have Acceleration, and am waiting to install it till SP2 comes out or a bunch of my friends buy Acceleration.I like the crowd on Gamespy that I fly with now, and those who get Acceleration can not fly with those who don't have it till SP2 commes out.Best Regards, Donald T. :-waveFLYing? It's cool. Trillions of birds and insects can't be wrong.