A year and a half ago, I never would have thought I'd see this day. I never would have thought that I would part ways with Flight Simulator 9. FS9, the old standby, has been good to me. She has brought me thousands of hours of realistic joy and our travels together have taken me all over the world.Back in April, I built the new Rig...not with FSX is mind, but with enhancing FS9 performance. But three months later, my FSX curiousity grew. I added this here, and added that there and mine eyes wandered from my old standby.This week, I installed 100% custom AI, moved the AI sliders to 100%, purchased LDS 767 for FSX and FS DreamTeams KORD for FSX. Add FEX HD Clouds, GEX terrain and new landclass and you know what...FSX all of a sudden became everything that I had hoped FS9 would be. Today, FSX did what I long said it would never do...become a heavy pilot's sim. Framerates are not much worse than they are in the same scenario in FS9 but the view outside the window is that much better. A fair tradeoff I reckon.Today, I lay to rest my beloved FS9. I will miss her, for she served me well. Today, I fell in love, for the first time, all over again with FSX. D@mn I never thought that I'd see this day.Number 1 for the runway, cleared for takeoff, "it's time to fly" as I leave FS9 behind.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190676.jpg

Nice :)Rich.

Nicely edited screenshot.(That's a great paint ... which AI package did you go with?)

I went with full custom AI from all the freeware offerings (AIAaardvark, EvolveAI, etc...) I went through and added each major airline (and many minor ones) and it ended up taking the better part of a month. The end result is exponentially better visually than Ulimate Traffic or Traffic X, by far.

Wow, that's quite a project. I installed the World of AI package from here on AVSIM, and put in most of the domestic and large international airlines, but I find my skies virtually empty (great on the FPS though!)Without your skill, I'm afraid I'll probably end up with Ultimate Traffic I think.

He,he.... :-beerchug I'm so touched.........that I successfully re-installed FSX this evening. It's only been six months or so, since I broke it down. :)L.Adamson

Welcome to the Dark Side Mike! :-badteeth

Hey Tim:Darkside indeed! Started piling on the addons and **POW** OOM, especially at FSDreamteam KORD with PMDG 747 and full 100% AI, it won't last for 10 minutes without crashing...So, what did I do? Go back to FS9? NOPE! I dumped Vista 32bit for Vista 64bit. Another of my misconceptions blown out of the water as I am now convinced that FSX needs a 64bit OS at 4GB of RAM.I'm reinstalling FSX under 64 now and am anxious to see if that solves the issue. If it doesn't, after I uninstalled FS9, I'm taking up a new hobby. Knitting, I think knitting will be very relaxing!Regards,Mike T.

Well if I could borrow Docs time machine Delorean, I would go back to the day my Raptor HD came apart. I had both FS9 and FrankensimX running and this was just after sp1 was released.FS9 was loaded with betreen $500 to a grand in addons and years of time invested.But FSX was doing better, addons were trickling in so I did it.I reloaded X and said goodbye to FS9.Knowing what I do now and all the BS I have been through,I would have tossed FSX in the trash and left good enough alone.I cannot say its been a enjoyable challenge to get to this point but rather a frustrating headache thats taken a toll on me.I could still pick up the pieces and put FS9 back together but I now have passed that point of no return.Fighting with FSX has dampened my enthusiasm and while there was as time I would not hesitate doing a all day reinstall, I simply have lost that spark to do so.The planes and sceneries are finally catching up but there is not really much for me to do.Where is Fspassengers? Fscargo?I miss having purpose or a goal. The highly anticipated missions never really took off and at least for me , a novelty.I envy those who for whatever reason,stuck with FS9, not installed FSX or waited until now.What we have is IT until the next version so now is as good as any to jump in.Just keep your old addons cause you never know.....

I've switched to XP 64 last week, and so far i'm seeing quite a boost in performance. Frame rates in the VC are a noticeable improved. I'd highly recommend using it. I switched to FSX as soon as it came out, and never looked back. (Ok, one or twice.:)

Did you set the 3GB switch in the boot.ini (or whatever it is in Vista - I'm still on XP, although I have FSX on Vista also.) I had FS2004 and FSX on my system when it first came out, but found I was using FSX more, as I had a system (E6700) that was able to handle FSX from the start. That system was killed curtesy of a lightning strike. With my current system which is even faster (AN E6850) I never reinstalled FS2004 on this system. I agree with you FS2004 was a very good version, but once you experienced FSX with the proper Addons on a system that can handle it at high detail, you don't want to go back!

wow yeah, the PC you have, I bet FSX runs quite well!It would destroy FS9 lol!I still play both, but my primary sim is FSX....the visuals are so much better.

>I went with full custom AI from all the freeware offerings>(AIAaardvark, EvolveAI, etc...) I went through and added each>major airline (and many minor ones) and it ended up taking the>better part of a month. >>The end result is exponentially better visually than Ulimate>Traffic or Traffic X, by far.>> Did you fix all of the wing_span values in the aircraft.cfg's?If you didn't, you'll get weird AI parking in FSX with those ported-over packages.Since you spent a month doing it, I bet you fixed them already :)RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

>He,he.... :-beerchug >>I'm so touched.........that I successfully re-installed FSX>this evening. It's only been six months or so, since I broke>it down. :)>>L.AdamsonSheesh....it's about time :D

Yep, and it wouldn't have made one bit of difference.PMDG 747 + 100% Custom AI (every gate filled) + FS DreamTeam KORD + FEX HD Clouds + SceneryTech LC + UTX = 3300MB of memory used out of 4000MB (300MB over what a 32Bit OS can handle without an OOM looming). Without PMDG 747 = 2290MB out of 4000MB and I don't need 64bit.. So you see, with the 3GB switch, and without the PMDG 747, no problem. Add the PMDG 747 and it goes over the memory that the 32-bit OS can address and it crashed shortly with OOM and easily repeated before I migrated to Vista 64.Regards,Mike T