Well I for one have a few FS9 aircraft in FSX that now have issues, but i am thankfull that ACES had the guts to finally get rid of one issue. If you keep upgarding your car but keep the same old engine in it what performance benefitsd are there. Simply put, ACES had to get rid of the excess baggage and backward compatibilty was that, now its gone SP2 is going to remain the mainstay for FSX, the developers now have a platform to workwith that wont change which is why there wont be a SP3, it will just add to the developers frustration. So put up with SP2 because i think soon there will be no new planes for SP1 and original FSX. We have many helpfull people around to help those less knowledgeable users through this. Lets band together and help oneanother. And thank you Phil for your tireless efforts and feeding us the info.

Manny, you should not need a reminder that third party devs are already committed to the current and forward looking path.We already know the FS9 path very well and speaking for ourselves, we've done our best for FSX content for over 14 months now.As Geof pointed out, the paradigm has shifted but it's still the only game in town for those with a forward vision.We understand that there are folks who still want us to build/support FS2000/FS2002 content but it's not going to happen.

yes Ron, we are having a very similar discussion internally, eg "how much" and "how to" wrt back compat.its an interesting area to discuss.

I understand the position that if we get hardcore about having only a single-version level of compat we need tools and we need tools early.I do not believe we can pull the trigger on the decision to be that hardcore unless we also make a strong commitment to the toolset; the two go hand in hand.Even in that case, though, I do not believe it would be "from scratch" for the developer who is investing every version with us. For that developer we would provide a "read and re-export" tool that would get them to "base level compat" and then they would have to use the new modeler to add "vNext specific goo".Make sense?

I just read this entire thread. All 10 pages of it.I can't believe you talk so casually about major bugs INTRODUCED by SP1 (The "W" key is my bette noir) and dismiss their repair as unnecessary or too hard to do, or you are developing the next version and can't be bothered to fix it.I am remined of a joke (joke!?!) about "The Plan". And how, once the peons on the programming battle front heard about it, went to their immediate supervisors and said "It is a crock of crap, and it stinketh!" And those supervisors went to their supervisors and called the crock "a powerful fertilizer", and those supervisors went to their supervisors, and said of the fertilizer "it promotes growth", and up the line it went until the man at the top thought it a great Plan, and it became Policy.Yeah, it's just a "game" and in the grand scheme of life it doesn't REALLY matter. But I'm disgusted by the way MS is doing business lately. And though it's not *just* FSX, this is where it hits home the hardest. M

>I understand the position that if we get hardcore about>having only a single-version level of compat we need tools and>we need tools early.>>I do not believe we can pull the trigger on the decision to be>that hardcore unless we also make a strong commitment to the>toolset; the two go hand in hand.>>Even in that case, though, I do not believe it would be "from>scratch" for the developer who is investing every version with>us. For that developer we would provide a "read and re-export">tool that would get them to "base level compat" and then they>would have to use the new modeler to add "vNext specific>goo".>>Make sense?Phil, it does make sense for a Set Feature List/Toolset/SDK to be made available very early in the game in order to provide long lead time before anything even approaching beta rtm is considered.Not trying to tell ya'll how to run your business but there is real need for clear, concise info/support to devs as well as the general public wrt factual features and expectations.Another set of "moving targets" will result in more confusion and frustration for Aces and the market. We are sure the franchise would suffer greatly if this year would repeat itself.

I read this entire thread and all I can say is WOW! Looks like the frustration I have felt is finally getting verbalized by people I respect in the addon community.While I applaud the open communication of Phil and others from Aces, I have to say that FSX is not MS's finest moment. This has quite frankly been a circus from day 1 of the RTM product. I buy products from every single developer who has posted to this thread so far, and I have worked with many others who haven't, but share the same views. Each and everyone is frustrated at the way FSX has been developed and released, with all the associated problems, including Vista and DX10.Someone from Aces/MS needs to take a long hard look at the marketing plan. Start with Avsim and go look at the library. You might notice that FS9 far exceeds FSX in 3rd party addons, both pay and freeware.There is a reason for this, performance. People are staying with FS9 because FSX has had so many issues that they have given up on it, and sales are suffering for FSX developers. In fact many have simply dissapeared, and others will follow. Sales for addons are way down and unless a concerted effort is made to attract FS9 users to FSX, we are all going to suffer.For a product to NOT be compatible with it's own core code has to be the most assinine thing I have seen to date. This is a quote from the FSInsider site:"After you have installed Service Pack 2, you will be able to play multiplayer games only with users who have installed either Service Pack 2 or Flight SimulatorX: Acceleration."That in itself is a showstopper for me. Multiplayer is the single best enhancment to FS since it's inception, and I fly daily there with people from around the world. With all the problems associated with SP2, none of us will be updating from SP1. Why? Because we use planes from the above developers as well as other freeware and FS9 planes, and they ALL work now with SP1, and we will not sacrifice that to have to spend more time trying to fix broken parts in SP2.We will stay with SP1 until we are forced to update, and at that time will probably just fade away and take our money with us. There are other options to FS, although it is by far the best, it has also become the most frustrating. The bottom line is, our FSX runs perfect with SP1, we use many addons that work perfect with SP1, and we have no reason to install SP2, because we dont have any of the problems it was supposed to fix.I feel really bad for those that put time and effort into the FSX aftermarket, I hope they survive this, Salute to Flight1, Eaglesoft, and all the other developers that make my time in the virtual sky's so enjoyable.Jay GardnerBeta Tester:ASX, XGraphixs, GE, GEPro, GEX, FE, FEXFighter Ace Managerhttps://fighterace.ketsujin.com//Default2.asp

I understand that Microsoft will be adding the same functionality to their other programs in the near future .....Excel 2008 is released, but it would be quicker to do the calculations in your headExcel SP1 is released and 50% of users find that the speed of calculations has increased but unfortunately 2+2 now equals 5Excel SP2 is released, but backward-compatability has been dropped. The old characters (1,2,3,4 etc) have been replaced with symbols recently found in a Mayan Temple2+2 now equals 4.0000011111 (but only if you can recognise the symbols) and spreadsheets composed in earlier versions of Excel can not be loaded at allMicrosoft announce that NO fixes or further development will take place in Excel 2008 - they are moving onto Excel 2009 which can only be used by those with keyboards using alien technologyWhere can I buy shares in this up-and-coming Company ?Dave.

"Someone from Aces/MS needs to take a long hard look at the marketing plan. Start with Avsim and go look at the library. You might notice that FS9 far exceeds FSX in 3rd party addons, both pay and freeware."So true, but some are in denial :)Project Opensky recently released their 747-400 V4, optimized for FS9.....---------------------------------------70 to 80% of Freeware Files are for FS2004 .....

>"After you have installed Service Pack 2, you will be able to>play multiplayer games only with users who have installed>either Service Pack 2 or Flight SimulatorX: Acceleration.">>That in itself is a showstopper for me. Multiplayer is the>single best enhancment to FS since it's inception, and I fly>daily there with people from around the world. With all the>problems associated with SP2, none of us will be updating from>SP1. Why? Because we use planes from the above developers as>well as other freeware and FS9 planes, and they ALL work now>with SP1, and we will not sacrifice that to have to spend more>time trying to fix broken parts in SP2.I don't think I've ever played a multiplayer game before in my life that allows compatibility between versions. It's not reasonable to expect updated code paths to talk to older code paths without introducing problems.

Its unfortunate that the discussion between the developers could not continue as a thread of its own in a protected forum, but that is easy to set up and may well lead to some useful exchanges on the future.The future is now insofar as SP2 is concerned, as a freelancer i work for more than a single company and am currently booked 7 projects in advance doing full spec conversions of models and they all have one thing in common, all are SP2 compliant DX10 enabled with VC shadows.While the number of users out there that can take full advantage of the DX10 feature set may at the moment be limited, it and SP2 ( stand alone ) just released is none the less the "default" target.Not one company has commissioned me to wrap a product compliant withthe RTM or SP1 in mind , in fact the military aircraft want access to Accell carrier code/parts.Leaving me to conclude with this thought for those reticent to install sp2 or what i consider the best addon package released to date Acceleration .... time to move on .When a company or producer delivers a new product it is in anticipation of a shelf life 2 years, nothing less will do with the production cycle for top class payware being as long as it is.At this juncture and looking at precedent it can be assumed that the next iteration FSXI will be released in more than one year and less than two and secondly there is a reasonable chance that full speckSP2 aircraft will be able to load into a future version .The bottom line is there is no margin and no future in producingfor any other target other than SP2 , even users are getting fed upwith performance related issues using bgl based aircraft in sim, further i start to see producers raked over the coals if their feature set does not include Volume Shadow's , soon that will includeVC shadow's and other "eye candy" that is expected when people spend a buck.The term "moving target" coined in reference to this platform no longer applies and there is going to be from now on an ever increasing number of fully compliant models being released, who can blame anyone for planning for the future.

Thanks Steve, Ron and all the other fine developers that pretty much verify what I suspected as a simple end user of your fine products.Being that I have read (and suffered through) this entire thread up to this point, I will put in my two cents.I realize this is an over simplification, but pretty well boils down to the way I interpret the situation.1. FSX was released with a number of problems that immediately raised their heads. In my personal opinion it should have been delayed and developed to what it should be before release, but I take an Engineers view which is always in conflict with that of the sales and marketing departments.2. SP1 was released which helped to correct many of these problems, but school was still out in some ways.3. SP2 was released in an effort to remedy remaining problems, and offer a few new provisions, BUT WITH A NEW NOTATION: Some of what worked in the original design for FSX want work any more. Some items will be broken. Granted, Phil made it known right up front that these items would be broken, however, in THIS CUSTOMER'S OPINION, that still doesn't make it right, either for third party developers or for me. Phil has been kind enough to permit me to not like it. I don't, and obviously am not alone.4. My understanding is that the prevailing opinion is that FS11 will be a new animal with no promises by MS that anything past will work with it. That being known, is just fine assuming that it is a dandy improvement. I respect a decisive stand by Aces and MS. Time will tell if it is a much better mouse trap. If it is, I have every confidence that it will sell and fly and by all means I will purchase it. From what I read in this thread, it would seem that the prospects for communication and development by third party developers might even be an improvement over past versions. However, FS11 will be the first version of FS that I will not buy as soon as it hits the shelf, or pre-order (Probably lying as I have had every version going back to the 5" floppies, but I sure will be apprehensive). FSX has many great provisions and I use it the majority of the time (although I occasionally regress back to FS9). However FSX has obviously been a little bit of a disaster in some ways. If FS11 turns out to be an instant replay of those frustrations, I think I just may pass on that one, and I dare say I again am not alone.One last suspicion. Surely Phil's hands are tied in many ways, and he may not be able to say all that he would like to say, both pro and con relative to the rest of our opinions. Thank you Phil for your contributions, clarifications and help in so many ways regardless of whether I agree with all of your views or not. Respectfully:RTH1585368CFI

Having read the entire thread (in amazement of how such a small thing like the textures couldn't have been tested and included in SP2, given the huge amount of work required by customers & 3rd party devs to "keep their investment alive"), one question remains:Is there a problem in MS distributing the texture-set as a separate patch? If there is a problem, what is it?Tero

Another 2 cents

The problem is that it is not possible to maintain cutting edge graphics while maintaining compatibility with the thousands of add-ons that were designed for older graphics systems. Nobody is going to take FS9 or FSX away. MS will probably keep FS9 on the $10 software rack for years to come. People who use a lot of add-ons can always use those versions since they easily exist side-by-side on the same computer. Right now a lot of FSX users switch back to FS9 for certain types of aircraft or situations.The fact is that MSFS does drop compatibility over time, perhaps two or three versions. The problem is that maintaining any compatibility places serious limitations on recoding the new version to be cutting edge in the area of graphics.Perhaps the solution would be for someone to write converter software to convert aircraft and scenery to the new format. Or, a software company could start a business converting software packages for other developers. I believe those who have paid a lot for add-ons would be willing to pay for that kind of a program/service.Ben