A Disappointment with SP2

[jonpatch 1]

Agreed. I think the vast majority of users had a positive experience with SP1, and have the choice of experiencing the improvements of SP2, and if they don't like the drawbacks, can revert to SP1.Jon

[Guest AlexMcB]

Hi Ron,Good to hear the positive results... are you advocating a clean install :-( - my wife and daughter are hoping to see me over Christmas..... or should I just keep googling 'til someone posts a fix for the installation errors :-zhelp Best wishes to you and Team Eaglesoft.AlexB757 DriverEdinburgh

[FlyingsCool 3]

It's very likely I'm missing something here, but the way I've perceived this discussion has been somewhat circular with neither party really focusing on the real point in as few words as possible. Due to the extra words, Phil picked up on something that he felt wasn't fair, and the discussion reached for the sky and tried to discuss a problem in general terms, rather than focusing on the real problem that started it all.Problem: VC rain got broke, and it impacted a whole lot of people.Question: It seems that we on the outside don't understand why it broke, and we're wondering if ACES could issue a fix for it.Granted, there is a larger issue that Doug/Seadog expressed extremely eloquently and has been continued to be discussed and needs a whole lot more discussion. I happen to wish for the idea that I can take my current planes and use them in the next version and am not a user much at all of the default aircraft. But that's just me and I can see the other side of the coin and I'll go with the flow.But I think this whole discussion would have been better served if somebody just asked "Why is VC rain broken? and is there any chance a fix could be created?"When people understand the technical issues and the motivations, they are much more accepting of the answer.Now I've done gone and used to many words. Geez!Thanks!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

[jrhoads 6]

>Hi Ron,>>Good to hear the positive results... are you advocating a>clean install :-( - my wife and daughter are hoping to see me>over Christmas..... or should I just keep googling 'til>someone posts a fix for the installation errors :-zhelp >>Best wishes to you and Team Eaglesoft.>>Alex>B757 Driver>EdinburghHi Alex,Not sure about installation errors, but give me a day (or two) at the most. We have a resolve for the VC rain problem that we will be making available to the public and fellow developers. (yes, free and anyone is encouraged to use it, or include it) So far, it looks like we have a stable fix. although it is a shame we have to fix it. :) But like I said in earlier posts, our customers and friends are counting on us :-beerchug Regards,Jim RhoadsFlight1

[FlyingsCool 3]

P.S. Phil, you weren't here for this, but back at the start, there was a seemingly significant portion of people who said they didn't care if ATC was not upgraded and perhaps even would be happy to have it removed. But when ACES suggested that they might follow this course of action, there was an immediate overwhelming flood in the opposite direction that many people do like and very much want ATC to be improved.Point is, it's dangerous to make decisions about what the community wants on the first pass. Too often, the minority is the most vocal. I can tell you I won't upgrade to vNext until I have access to a '70's model Archer.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

[N400QW 205]

Thomas, the VC rain issue is settled. No use in circular discussion.Phil has said SP2 is final for FSX. Phil also said there would be no back compat. past FSX for VNext.Developers now know where we stand and that the responsibility for fixes for specific issues rests squarely on our shoulders.Really pretty simple when you boil it down.:-)

[Guest AlexMcB]

Cheers Jim,I'm doing a 27GB backup of my FSX folder at the moment to make sure I don't lose a file. Heading to bed.. but may need to flip a coin in the next day or two re a clean install. Don't get me wrong SP 1 was a massive improvement but I sometimes think there are issues between US Eng and UK Eng re the installations.Look forward to hearing your news soon.AlexB757 Driver Edinburgh

[N400QW 205]

>Hi Ron,>>Good to hear the positive results... are you advocating a>clean install :-( - my wife and daughter are hoping to see me>over Christmas..... or should I just keep googling 'til>someone posts a fix for the installation errors :-zhelp >>Best wishes to you and Team Eaglesoft.>>Alex>B757 Driver>EdinburghAlex, without a lot more info we hesitate to advise on this.I can say that my clean install of FSX/SP1 took the SP2 cleanly and not one glitch. Clean has always been the best approach for me so that's what I advise.Only issue I've seen so far is sim close lockup that is a well known Nvidea/Driver issue on some machines with Vista 32 but even that has somehow cleared up on its own.SP2 has delivered solid and increased performance for me.

[Guest JeanLuc_]

I know Phil has been most of the time talking about back compat in regard to aircraft models, and probably to sceneries (i.e the things that get crunched via an ACE tool converter).However, I wonder how much stand the "what is done with FSX SDK will work in FS11" when we are dealing with the panel SDK, not talking about the XML interpreter which is nothing else than another "crunched via an ACE tool converter - at runtime in this case), but talking about C++ coded content?

[jrhoads 6]

>Thomas, the VC rain issue is settled. No use in circular>discussion.>Really pretty simple when you boil it down.:-)Right Ron.It "is" settled and we have a fix. I will call you tomorrow.We will also make this available to everyone and anyone.No restrictions as far as we care.Other than that.... I reserve comment. }( Regards,Jim Rhoads

[N400QW 205]

JL, I remember being in a meeting with you when the answer to that question was "very little if any changes going forward".Of course that was a good while back and MS always reserves the right to change if needed. Can't speak for them but suspect it may be too early for them answer at this point in time:-)

[N400QW 205]

>>Thomas, the VC rain issue is settled. No use in circular>>discussion.>>Really pretty simple when you boil it down.:-)>>Right Ron.>>It "is" settled and we have a fix. I will call you tomorrow.>We will also make this available to everyone and anyone.>No restrictions as far as we care.>Other than that.... I reserve comment. }( >>Regards,>>Jim Rhoads Great Jim, looking forward to it. Great support as always from you and the F1 group:-)

[Guest koorby]

Folks, I owe Phil a public apology for the tone of my earlier post. He and I have been in communication over the past 24 hours and I have some resolution from the ACES team on solutions and workarounds to various tech issues we had raised at DevCon. We have a go-forward position to allow us to RTM our product early in the year.I also have to echo other people's sentiments here, in that we owe Steve some thanks for initiating and steering a sensible, open and productive discussion to bring to light some of the issues developers are facing, without resorting to an MS-bashing war.SDK tech/dev issues aside, my opinion of FSX is that it's a solid platform that on our dev hardware does not have too many performance issues at all; in fact with SP2 it outperforms FS9 in most aspects, and from our scenery/terrain bias, it offers a smoother flight and a much higher autogen density. I'm in the middle of writing a tuning guide which I'll post on various places.

[Steve Halpern 176]

Hi,I usually do not start threads, but I really want to post something. I hope that my tone here is seen as simply frustration, and nothing beyond that or an attack on anyone personally. And this is not to criticize some of the good steps made with SP1 and SP2. But I think this perspective needs to be heard by Microsoft, developers, and in part the public in general (because it will give them a bit of a view of a different side of our business).It had been previously noted to Microsoft that SP2 (that was in Acceleration) causes some older FS9 aircraft in FSX (GMAX versions included) to have solid virtual cockpit windows when it is raining, when viewing from within the VC. This is ONLY in SP2 or Acceleration. It is not a DX10 Preview problem either, and it will occur in FSX on XP with DX9.What I am terribly upset about is now we are certain this has not been fixed in SP2. And because of this error, there is potentially a huge amount of customer and development effort that has to occur. It is more complex than it looks from the outside.1. Customers will use many of their more classic products that worked very well with SP1. CD ROM versions of products have been shipped to distributors, and 10's of thousands of customers have all sorts of similar type products, not just from Flight1, but from many other vendors also.2. Viewing the exterior from within the VC will fail in SP2 when it is raining (on 100's of products, both commercial and freeware).3. The customer will wonder what is wrong and contact support.4. They will have to navigate to a patch. Many customers contact support without looking for a patch in the normal support channels. So now extra staff work has to take place.5. They may have to uninstall ALL their modified aircraft and start over as developers can only issue new textures or fixes for known aircraft livery installations, not liveries they have added. That is unless a universal fix can be issued that addresses the problem as a whole.6. Developers have to build all their setups over again, redo potential master's, and more.7. If you take the FS9 version of the VC rain textures and copy them to FSX, it fixes the problem. So in my view it is something very simple.And the worst part of this is simply the thought that a little attention by someone at Microsoft should, and could have, prevented all the above.Why was this clearly omitted from SP2 when Microsoft was informed of this?Why can't Microsoft reissue SP2, or put out an official fix quickly that will prevent all the above from occurring? Fixing the source is much more appropriate than requiring the world to re-gather and try to fix the 100's of products or downloads affected.Yes, Microsoft may say how long should we support FS9 based GMAX or FSDS2 models? OK. Do not support them in FS11... But do not break them in vanilla DX9-SP2. Do not break them mid-stream in an FS release! In fact, it would be best if you told use you were going to break them so we could plan accordingly. Where is the link to reach the core Aces development programmers? Are our efforts all a moot point?Look at all the freeware guys... do you think they all are going redo their products? With this one omission, you have damaged the depth of addons available for FSX, and thus it damages the Flight Simulator franchise and industry as a whole.Again, why was this ignored by Microsoft? I am very frustrated by this.The opportunity was perfect to fix this with SP2. This may seem like a silly issue, but trust me, it is not. The type of customers we have, and the type of person who downloads aircraft from libraries at Avsim, etc, will see this as a major issue.Yes, Flight1 can fix it for our products, developers can fix it for their products, and customers can fix it for others that do not get the developer attention. But it should not have ever come to this.Again, I am only bringing to light what appears to be a failure in the system in general. I hope that in the end this post is seen as productive, and not just an arbitrary rant.Thanks,

[Guest Bonkey]

Hey john,I'd never seen it before, but I have to say you're Terrain products looks absolutely world class. Shame FSX will blur those stunning textures :)