I gotta say-and I spent lots of $$ on lots of aircraft in fs9-pre fsx sp2 etc.-but I am not interested much anymore in the prior aircraft-they just don't hold a candle to the new ones..imho...Then again-the sim is where I can afford new-my real aircraft is over 30 years old!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

Well put Tom. I totally agree with what you put forth.Breaking backwards compatibility mid-stream should NOT have happenedand I too suspect it was done for the sole purpose of "shipping"the DX10 "preview", which IMO was a total bust.Not having Vista, nor likely to convert to it in the foreseeablefuture, I am rather unhappy with the PORKING of the FS9 aircraftthat were previously fine in FSX RTM and SP1.There are several aircraft in that category that I have taken the trouble to attempt to salvage since there are no equivalent FSX-SP2-compliantversions and most likely won't be. That, plus the lack of sufficientFSX-SP2 compliant aircraft, period. Particularly 3rd party freeware.I still have two FS9 installations on my system as well as an FSX-SP1plus my FSX=AccelerationSP2. I find that I spend 99.99% of my time flying in the FSX=SP2 environment, but then as I have stated I'vegone to the trouble of salvaging my favorite FS9 aircraft to work inthat environment. As to AccelerationSP2 features I do on occasionenjoy carrier ops with the moving CVN fleets and Edards is great now that I've added parking to it so I as well as my AI can come and gofrom there. Probably the bigest "enhancement" though for me was thereturn to being able to see contrails from below as well as above.I run with alot of AI and have implemented to "50 mile long" contrailsand they sure add to my ASX skies as I cruise around.I sometimes use my FSX-SP1 install to test differences betweenit and SP2 but don't often fly with it. My FS9 installs are justsitting there taking up space on my J: drive but should I getthe sudden urge to fly a Super Connie I know I can do it there.( I don't use ANY aircraft in FSX that do not have a VC )Back to the SP2 issue at hand...There are a lot of other things that ACES could haveshould havespent time on rather than a crippled, watered down DX10 "preview".Let's hope they do a better job for FX11. Andlet me say I won't expect any backward compatibility at that point but hope the 3rdparty developers aren't forced to jump through multiple SDK hoopsin that release! Paul

Backwards compatibility issues with third-party ported FS9 aircraft that were previously working in FSX with SP1 have apparently caused significant frustration in the advanced users flightsim community. There are several people who have uninstalled SP2 altogether to remedy this situation, only to meet with unstable performance of FSX and system crashes after just a few minutes of running it. That said, what is your experience with SP2? Can we live without it? Will we need it to progress in FSX as proprietary third party add-ons are released specifically for FSX? Is it time to turn our heads on the past and the many third party aircraft we have all come to know and love prior to installing the SP2 update, and that we got to work in FSX/SP1, and to look ahead to products designed specifically for FSX/SP2?I'm torn because my beloved Carenado GA aircraft and Overland heavy jet aircraft have succumbed to the dreaded texture transparency bug in SP2, and I almost cannot concieve of flight simulation without Carenado and Overland products available. The fixes involved, while do-able, are laborious - requiring you to edit each individual texture's bitmaps to conform with the new standards of SP2.I'm not terribly nostalgic, but on the other hand, would enjoy flying these aircraft in FSX as I did prior to installation SP2. While external fuselage texture bugs do not necessarily render an aircraft unflyable, misaligned VC panel gauges do. Has anyone un-installed SP2 and NOT met with crashes and system instability? That said, is it time to prepare our installations of FSX/SP2 for the future? Appreciate Your Thoughts and (constructive) Comments,http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD

I agree with you that Aces shouldn't have broke backwards compatibility mid-release. But I would also imagine that it's incredibly hard for them to pinpoint those backward compatibility issues, because most developers are using highly customized code that didn't follow the SDK or development guidelines that weren't even fully FS9-compliant in the first place.Pat

>while others building SP2 addons may not work in SP1!This should not be a problem at all. Everything I've built so far to SDK2 specifications runs just fine in both FSX-RTM and FSX-SP1...As for the "DX10 Preview," I fully agree that it was a very poor decision to make, moreso since it did require sufficient code changes to create these back-compat problems...

>>while others building SP2 addons may not work in SP1!>>This should not be a problem at all. Everything I've built so>far to SDK2 specifications runs just fine in both FSX-RTM and>FSX-SP1...>>As for the "DX10 Preview," I fully agree that it was a very>poor decision to make, moreso since it did require sufficient>code changes to create these back-compat problems...>Good post, I feel the same. AFAIC I'll be happily waiting for FSXI with my FSX XP1 and some FS9, flying RC4, VATSIM and VOX ATC. All what I want is flying right already, all, what I can see looks beautiful. I'm glad that ACES are working on their next release. 10c.Dirk98.

yes it is a shame that some addon aircraft don't work with SP2, but I would never give up Acceleration because of the improvement performance-wise that I've seen. Besides, most of the aircraft I did download have worked, or at least, the ones I used often.

Paul-4 installations of FS on one rig? Really? Holy cow...http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD

>Paul->>4 installations of FS on one rig? Really? Holy cow...>http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gif>>Alex Christoff>N562Z>Baltimore, MD At one pont, prior to FSX, I have four installs of FS9. The initial one which kept growing and devoring HD space to the point I decided to create additional installs that shared resources. I created a"FS9_Clean" install for testing, "FS9_USA" for my North America flying and a "FS9_Europe" for flying on the other side of the "pond".When I added FSX I deleted the original FS9 and the "FS9_clean" installsbut kept the other 2. When FSX-AccelerationSP2 came along and I readthe reports of the various problems it caused with "legacy" aircraftand scenery I decided to keep a copy of FSX-SP1 available.I have 2x250GB hard drives so space isn't that much of an issue.Plus I have common Scenery and Addon Scenery for the FS9 installsand FSX shares my AI Aircraft, Addon Scenery 2 directories.The bigest space eaters are my digital camera pix. I travel alot and typically take 300-350 pictures a day. In one 3 week trip toFinland, Estonia and latvia I wound up with 20GB of pix and videoclips. The past two summers in Europe I accumulated similar numbersof pix and video clips. I keep my most recent trip pix on thesystem but offload to DVD's periodically :) Paul